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Republicans were forced to reschedule votes for key cabinet picks after Democrats intensified their opposition to President Trump's nominations. (Alice Li,Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post)

On Tuesday morning, the war room at the progressive group American Bridge was working away at opposition research on President Trumps Cabinet nominees. Steve Mnuchin, Trumps pick for the Treasury Department, had been damaged by a Columbus Dispatch investigation into how, despite denials, his OneWest Bank frequently used robo-signers in foreclosure cases. Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), the nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services, was dinged by the latest Wall Street Journal story into his stocks.

Both were expected to be moved ahead in Senate committees Tuesday. But as the war room watched from afar, Republican committee leaders angrily reported that Democrats had boycotted the markups, delaying the votes.The researchers burst into cheers.

[Democrats boycott confirmation hearings for Price and Mnuchin, blocking votes]

Tuesdays delays, which are unlikely to stop final confirmation votes, were welcomed by a left that had become increasingly angry about the Senate Democrats strategy. They were especially potent on a day that will end with the president nominating his pick for a Supreme Court seat, one that progressives consider stolen from former president Barack Obama.

I certainly applaud the Democrats who stood up and performed their advice and consent responsibilities in an admirable fashion, said Nan Aron, the founder of the Alliance for Justice, which is gearing up a campaign to stop Trumps court pick. Weve seen the Republicans intent on rubber-stamping Trump Cabinet appointees as quickly as possible to avoid public scrutiny. Around our office, people were thrilled to see the Democrats standing up.

The Senate Democrats move scratched the same itch that House conservatives had eight years earlier, when they surprised the majority by denying even a single vote to the 2009 stimulus package. Then-Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) celebrated that vote with a video set to Aerosmiths Back in the Saddle, a message to the partys disgruntled base that Republicans would fight whatever they could. Then, Republicans had gotten even moderate members to vote no; on Tuesday, even Finance Committee members from states won by Trump joined the boycott.

Still, there was little 2009-style triumphalism from Democrats on Tuesday morning. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), one of the planners behind the committee boycott, said in an interview that he had worked phones until 11 p.m. Monday before the plan cohered. But on Tuesday, swarmed by reporters, he pushed back on the idea that Democrats had a new opposition strategy.

You guys are all assuming this is delay and tactics and politics, Brown said. They lied to the committee. You can write your story however you want, but they lied to the committee about things that affect peoples lives in a direct way. Were just saying, bring em back in, let them explain themselves.

But to the left, the delays represent the first real effort by Democrats to trip up Trump and Republicans. Activists celebrated as Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.) denounced the hissy fit and Senate Finance Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) called the effort stupid. It mirrored what they had watched Democrats do for eight years,sputtering in the vain hope that voters would punish Republicans.

I think its a good move, hopefully foreshadowing a far more assertive role for congressional Democrats going forward, said Norman Solomon, a left-wing writer and activist who leads the progressive Bernie Delegates Network of 2016primary veterans.If they act like doormats, theyll keep getting rolled and the country will descend further into a pit of dominant intimidation from Trump and his wrecking crew.

Since Jan. 20, Democrats who had enjoyed strong relationships with their base, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), had been surprised by protests at their votes for Trump nominees. The court fight, coupled with Monday nights firing of the acting attorney general who refused to defend the administrations executive orders, was another rationale to oppose everything Trump did.

Republicans have broken all kind of norms in their pursuit of power and we must check them, said Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) in a Tuesday afternoon statement. By blockading an accomplished, centrist jurist in Merrick Garland, Senate Republicans disregarded the norms that sustain American democracy. But instead of invoking the so-called nuclear option or making a recess appointment to the court, Democrats dithered while Republican won a major victory.

But Gallego would have no say in the court fight; Senate Democrats who would, generally, were cautious about how they described it. The 11-month blockade of Garlands nomination had led to some confusion in how Democrats ranked their responses to a Trump pick. There had been encouragement from the left after a Politico story about how Democrats would filibuster the pick; there had been rage when CNN reported that Democrats were cracking.

[On the death of the Senate and its long history as the worlds greatest deliberative body]

By Tuesday afternoon, what was clear was that Democrats would frame their opposition to a Trump pick as more considered than Republican opposition to Garland. After some criticism for saying she wanted hearings and votes on the nominee, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) clarified that the votes she was referring to were cloture votes i.e., that she supported a 60-vote threshold for any nominee. (No hearings, no votes was a slogan for the Garland impasse, made real by Senate Republicans.)

Why would anyone think that because I support confirmation hearing and [a] 60-vote threshold for Supreme Court nominee, that means Im folding to Trump? McCaskill asked on Twitter.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told reporters Tuesday that he would consider any Trump nomineebased on the merits, which was hardly as volcanic as the language from the left. But when he clarified what that meant, he opened the door to a four-year filibuster.

One of the unfortunate consequences of the Garland obstructionism has been to show that, in fact, the Supreme Court can function with eight members, Blumenthal said.

His colleague, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), was less cryptic about his willingness to stop Trump nominees.

What happened today is exceptional, Murphy said of the committee-vote boycott. I think we are rising to what is a truly exceptional moment. We dont have 50 votes; theres only so much to do. But I am prepared to shatter precedents to make it clear we are not going to stand for what Trump is doing.

In a memo sent to Democrats on Tuesday, the Center for American Progress Action Fund urged Democrats to argue that there was a precedent a precedent to demand a consensus nominee.

The Senate should refuse to act on any Supreme Court nominee that does not have the broad, bipartisan support of a supermajority of upwards of 66 senators, wrote CAPAFs president Neera Tanden. Justice Anthony Kennedy was unanimously confirmed, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg received 96 votes. If Trump refuses to offer a consensus nominee that could secure a strong supermajority, Democrats would do well to remember that Republicans paid no price for past obstruction.

Thoseideas had not been part of the discussion on Monday night, when Democrats rallied with supporters outside the Supreme Court. At 9 p.m. Tuesday, a coalition of liberal groups will hold their own rally at the court with a more direct theme.

This Administration has already shown how dangerous it is, taking fundamentally unconstitutional actions within the first 10 days, the organizers wrote to supporters. Weneed to be ready to immediately raise our voices in opposition and call on senators to reject Trumps nominee.

Read more here:
Progressives cheer Democratic obstruction and aim at Supreme Court - Washington Post

Forbes

In Seattle Outrage Against Trump Highlights Irony And Hypocrisy Among Progressives Forbes The truth is that the romance of being part of the resistance is itself irresistible to progressives in Seattle, and they donned pink hats as if they were Phrygian caps and charged into the streets. Politicians ran to the front of the parade with ... and more »

More:
In Seattle Outrage Against Trump Highlights Irony And Hypocrisy Among Progressives - Forbes

Outraged demonstrators are lining up outside of senators' homes. They're disrupting town hall meetings. They're jamming congressional phone lines -- and they're doing it to their own political allies.

Taking a page out of the Tea Party playbook, liberal activists have started turning their ire against the people over whom they have the most leverage, demanding Democrats on Capitol Hill throw as much sand in the gears of President Trump's agenda as possible at the outset of a high-stakes battle over new Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.

And Democrats in the Senate, who hold their party's only constitutional check on the executive branch thanks to the filibuster and their power over presidential appointments, are starting to deliver.

Reversing course on earlier paeans about finding areas to work with the new president, Democrats have taken the extraordinary steps this week of boycotting committee votes on cabinet nominees and pledging opposition to Trump's Gorsuch, whose qualifications they do not question.

Less than two weeks into the Trump administration, any hope of bipartisan cooperation has nearly evaporated.

"I'm prepared to shatter precedent in order to make it clear that we are not going to stand for what Trump is doing," Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said off the Senate floor Tuesday. "The protests and the actions from Democratic senators are mirrors of each other... We are rising to what is a truly exceptional moment."

An estimated 3,000 protesters gathered outside Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer's Brooklyn apartment Tuesday night for a demonstration dubbed, "What the f**k, Chuck?!"

The crowd had to be on the Democrat's mind as he blasted out a statement calling for a 60-vote threshold to confirm Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

"A little more than a week into the Trump presidency, the new Administration has violated our core values, challenged the separation of powers, and tested the very fabric of our Constitution in unprecedented fashion," Schumer said. "It is clear that the Supreme Court will be tried in ways that few Courts have been tested since the earliest days of the Republic."

Senate Democrats were initially caught off guard by how little cooperation their base was willing to tolerate.

Even the most progressive members, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who typically has her finger on the pulse of the movement, was forced to explain her vote for Housing Secretary Ben Carson after coming under rare fire from her left flank. "Resistance means resisting," wrote Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the liberal Daily Kos blog. "And if even progressive champions like Warren can't figure that out, we really are in trouble."

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine reported receiving 25,000 calls and letters against Education Sec. Nominee Betsy DeVos. And more than 200 showed up outside the San Francisco home of California Sen. Dianne Feinstein. "In my lifetime, I have never seen this many people out on the streets," Feinstein said Wednesday on MSNBC.

A coalition of liberal groups including MoveOn.org and People's Action have begun organizing weekly "Resist Tuesday" protests at over 100 locations nationwide, including the offices of Democratic members of Congress.

"Over the last week, as the protests have gotten bigger, we've begun to see Democrats start to move into an oppositional stance to Trump and his nominees," said Joe Dinkin of the liberal Working Families Party, which is also involved in organizing those protests. "We want to see the Democrats use every tool in the toolbox to block Trump and his agenda."

It's a remarkable turnaround for Democrats and their supporters for them to now adopt the kind of reflexive obstruction that Republicans pioneered under President Obama.

As members of a party whose core philosophy depends on a functioning government, Democrats at first wanted to pick their battles and avoid further damaging the institution of the Senate. And they worried that blocking Trump's initial cabinet nominees would only lead to worse second-round draft picks.

But their base is increasingly making it clear that anything short of total, unrelenting opposition is tantamount to surrender. And after their olive branch to Trump was met with a slap in the face in the form of early executive orders to crackdown on immigration, Democrats are heading to the trenches.

"Step step by step, outrage by outrage, Trump is shutting down that path," Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said when asked about the possibility of cooperating with the president.

The very liberal senator from a very Democratic state, found himself swarmed by some 1,500 angry protesters on the steps outside a town hall meeting Sunday night. They demanded to know why he voted for CIA Director Mike Pompeo, one of Trump's least controversial cabinet picks, and chanted "obstruct! obstruct! obstruct!"

In a dramatic scene, Whitehouse used a protester's bullhorn to apologize for not giving a fuller explanation of his Pompeo vote before eliciting cheers for every "no" as he ticked through a list of cabinet picks he planned to vote against.

"I think it reflects the dying hopes that there might have been a pivot by Trump and that he might have gone the route of responsible governance," Whitehouse said later in an interview of the protest. "My main hope is that we not get so outraged so often that outrage fatigue sets in and we don't have the kind of resilient persistent public pressure through the 2018 election."

David Segal, who runs the group Demand Progress that helped organize the Whitehouse protest, said the strategy behind targeting blue state Democrats is simple: Politicians are most likely to listen to the people they depend on for votes, donations, and volunteer labor.

"The best way to constrain Trump is to get them to actually stand up and wield their power against him," said Segal. "We demand more than symbolism. ... Trump has made clear who he is, and we need our elected Democrats to use their constitutional powers to shut him down."

Even establishment organs have been demanding a tougher line. The Center for American Progress, a think tank founded by former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, has called on Senate Democrats to use procedural tactics in an unprecedented way to slow the chamber's action.

"As millions of people flood the streets with the largest public demonstrations in decades against the Trump administration, Democrats should heed the demand for strong opposition," CAP's President, Neera Tanden, wrote in a memo advising Democrats on how to handle Gorsuch's nomination.

Senate Democrats say they've ratcheted up their opposition due to principle, not the protests. But they're clearly listening to the outcry.

"It's reinforcing my priorities and my values," Delaware Sen. Chris Coons told NBC News.

Even North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, who is facing what is expected to be one of the toughest reelection battles in 2018, cited the volume of constituent calls to her office when announcing her decision to oppose Betsy DeVos.

"When it's so overwhelming, it really sends a message," she said in an interview.

The protests have made it clear that there is a political incentive to obstruct, whether Democrats are motivated by it or not.

Six Democrats even voted against Treasury Secretary Elaine Chao on Tuesday, a relatively uncontroversial nominee who otherwise sailed through confirmation.

Almost all of those voting against Chao are seen as potential presidential candidates in 2020: New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, and Warren, who seemed to have learned a lesson from her vote to confirm Carson.

Gillibrand, who has long been seen as an appealing presidential option for the party, was briefly elevated to hero status last week for her nearly universal opposition to Trump's nominees.

"She will get a leg up as a leader of the #resistance should she run in 2020 despite her record of wobbly, Clintonesque centrism, simply for doing what should have been elementary for the rest of her colleagues," proclaimed Slate under the headline, "What the Hell Is Wrong With Senate Democrats?"

And Schumer, perhaps looking to shore up his left flank, notably also voted against Chao.

"The bottom line is the people who go out to protest need to understand that their voices are being heard and they are not acting in vain," Whitehosue said.

See the rest here:
Progressives are Demanding Obstruction and Senators are Listening - NBCNews.com

Forbes

California State Senator Scott Wiener: 'San Francisco's Progressives Lost Their Way On Housing' Forbes San Francisco, CABack in 2012, while spending a summer in San Francisco, I would attend the city's Board of Supervisors meetings on a weekly basis. The big ongoing topic back then, like today, was the city's housing shortage, and how it was escalating ...

Read the original here:
California State Senator Scott Wiener: 'San Francisco's Progressives Lost Their Way On Housing' - Forbes

C-SPANPeople for the American Way (PFAW) cites Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch, a 2016 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, as evidence that Neil Gorsuch is unfit for the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, in a New York Times op-ed piece, Neal Katyal, a solicitor general in the Obama administration, cites the same case as an illustration of "Why Liberals Should Back Neil Gorsuch." These diametrically opposed takes show why it is hazardous to view constitutional law as a battle between liberals and conservatives.

PFAW does not like Gorsuch's questioning of the Chevron doctrine, which says courts should defer to executive agencies' interpretations of ambiguous statutes, even to the point of reversing prior judicial interpretations. "Eliminating this principle...would tie the hands of precisely those entities that Congress has recognized have the depth and experience to enforce critical laws, safeguard essential protections, and ensure the safety of the American people," PFAW says. It neglects to mention that Gutierrez-Brizuela involved immigration law, and Gorsuch came down on the side of a longtime resident trying to legalize his presence in the United States. Sounds kinda liberal, no?

The decision dealt with an apparent conflict between two provisions of immigration law. One gives the attorney general "discretion to 'adjust the status' of those who have entered the country illegally and afford them lawful residency." The other "provides that certain persons who have entered this country illegally more than once are categorically prohibited from winning lawful residency...unless they first serve a ten-year waiting period outside our borders."

In 2005 the 10th Circuit ruled that the first provision supersedes the second, so even residents who have illegally entered the country more than once can still obtain legal status without waiting 10 years outside the United States. Two years later, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), an administrative agency, decided the second provision limits the attorney general's discretion, meaning the waiting period is unavoidable. In a 2011 case, the 10th Circuit acceded to the BIA's interpretation, as required by the Chevron doctrine.

Last year's case involved an unauthorized immigrant, Hugo Rosario Gutierrez-Brizuela, who petitioned for a change of status before the new interpretation was adopted. In the majority opinion, Gorsuch noted that applying the new interpretation retroactively would not only violate the usual rules of statutory construction but raise "due process and equal protection concerns," since immigrants who had made decisions based on the previous interpretation would suddenly have the rug pulled out from beneath them:

After all, back in 2009 the law expressly gave Mr. Gutierrez-Brizuela two options: he could seek an adjustment of status...or accept a ten-year waiting period outside the country. Relying on binding circuit precedent, he chose the former path. Yet the BIA now seeks to apply a new law to block that path at a time when it's too late for Mr. Gutierrez-Brizuela to alter his conduct. Meaning that, if we allowed the BIA to apply Briones here, Mr. Gutierrez-Brizuela would lose the seven years he could've spent complying with the BIA's ten year waiting period and instead have to start that waiting period now. The due process concerns are obvious: when Mr. Gutierrez-Brizuela made his choice, he had no notice of the law the BIA now seeks to apply. And the equal protection problems are obvious too: if the agency were free to change the law retroactively based on shifting political winds, it could use that power to punish politically disfavored groups or individuals for conduct they can no longer alter.

Gorsuch also wrote a concurring opinion, and that is where he directly challenged the Chevron doctrine, which PFAW presumably would argue was unnecessary to resolve the issue of retroactivity. But in the concurring opinion Gorsuch emphasized that Chevron deference endangers liberty by weakening the separation of powers, under which Congress passes laws, the executive branch enforces them, and courts decide disputes about their meaning. "The founders considered the separation of powers a vital guard against governmental encroachment on the people's liberties, including all those later enumerated in the Bill of Rights," he wrote. "A government of diffused powers, they knew, is a government less capable of invading the liberties of the people." Giving one agency the power to interpret and rewrite the law as well as enforce it poses a clear threat to people at the agency's mercy, including highly vulnerable people like Gutierrez-Brizuela.

Here is how Katyal, who notes that he and Gorsuch "come from different sides of the political spectrum," describes the judge's position in Gutierrez-Brizuela and an earlier immigration case that addressed a similar issue:

Judge Gorsuch ruled against attempts by the government to retroactively interpret the law to disfavor immigrants. In a separate opinion in Gutierrez-Brizuela, he criticized the legal doctrine that federal courts must often defer to the executive branch's interpretations of federal law, warning that such deference threatens the separation of powers designed by the framers. When judges defer to the executive about the law's meaning, he wrote, they "are not fulfilling their duty to interpret the law." In strong terms, Judge Gorsuch called that a "problem for the judiciary" and "a problem for the people whose liberties may now be impaired" by "an avowedly politicized administrative agent seeking to pursue whatever policy whim may rule the day." That reflects a deep conviction about the role of the judiciary in preserving the rule of law.

Critics of Gorsuch should not be taken seriously if they can't recognize (or refuse to acknowledge) the ways that "conservative" convictions can achieve liberal ends.

Originally posted here:
Gorsuch Defends Illegal Immigrant's Rights, and Progressives Are Appalled - Reason (blog)