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The high-profile battle between Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions would never have happened if both had not, earlier in their careers, been blocked from jobs they wanted by strong opposition in the Senate.

Sessionss story of beingdenied a federal judgeship is well known, and it was reprisedafter Warren was prevented from reading Coretta Scott Kings letter of opposition to Sessionss 1986 nomination.

The more recent impediment of Warren was instructive, too.

After the passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, Warren, who had advocated for the creation of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau under the law and worked with the Obama administration to set it up, was seen as the obvious candidate to run the CFPB.

But in 2011, Republicans held 47 Senate seats, and the filibuster rules of that time allowed them to block any nominee who could not earn every Democratic voteand seven of their own. Republicans made it clear that they would not confirm Warren unless the CFPB was scaled back something Democrats would never do. In May 2011, all 47 Republicans signed a letter promising to block a recess appointment to the CFPB. The letters chief author insmall irony was then-Sen. Jeff Sessions.

Never in history had a minority in the Senate pre-rejected a presidential nominee just because they didnt like the agency he or she was due to run, Warren wrote in her 2014 memoir,A Fighting Chance. Progressives were outraged, and a number argued that this was the right moment for the president to fight back: He should nominate me, have a showdown with the Senate Republicans, and then, if needed, make a recess appointment.

That didnt happen. The Obama White House made what seemed, at the time, to be a compromise with Republicans Warren would not be nominated, replaced by former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray, whom Warren had hired to run the CFPBs enforcement arm.

Not becoming the CFPB director freed Warren to run for the Senate. Had Republicans let her take the CFPB job a compromise that would have alienated plenty of donors, who considered Warren a threat Democrats might not have found a strong enough candidate to unseat Massachusettss then-senator, Scott Brown.

The full-court press in 2011 is also instructive about Republican messaging in 2017.

Some of President Trumps most popular campaign rhetoric waspurloined from Warren: Where she said that the system is rigged, referring to the financial system, Trump pronounced a whole globalist system rigged against the working class.

On the other hand, Republicans have attempted to portray Warren as a left-wing, alienating figure. Theyve latched onto a poll from early January that found 51 percent of Massachusetts voters viewing Warren favorably and just 44 percent saying she deserves reelection in 2018. America Rising, the pro-Republican opposition research group, has focused an unusual amount of fire on Warren, whose state gave just 33 percent its vote to Trump last year.

In conservative media, its widely accepted that raising Warrens profile will be bad for Democrats: A Fox Business segment on Wednesday featured host Stuart Varney calling her the outspoken socialist senator from Massachusetts and assuring that Democrats are making a mistake by putting Senator Warren out front in a very attacking, moralistic mode.

For some, its easier to think that Republicans cleverly elevated Warren to tie Democrats to the left than it is to believe that they have repeatedly stumbled and elevated her as an effective opponent. But that largely relies on a equivalence of the right and left as equally extreme, and equally upsetting to centrist voters, and that might not reflect reality. In December, for example, Morning Consult asked a polling sample of Trump voters if they favored elimination of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau: 50 percent of Trump voters wanted it expanded or left alone; just 7percent agreed with nearly every Republican politician in calling for it to be scrapped.

And recent history suggests that partisans are not always the best judges of what the opposition might do to alienate voters. The hack of John Podestas email recovered a memo from April 23, 2015, from Hillary Clintons pre-campaign organization to the Democratic National Committee. Among the early goals of any campaign, they believed, was to force all Republican candidates to lock themselves into extreme conservative positions that will hurt them in a general election.

We dont want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, wrote the memo authors, but make them more Pied Piper candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party.

Three candidates were named: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Ben Carson and Donald Trump.

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Republicans don't like Elizabeth Warren. So why do they keep handing her a megaphone? - Washington Post

MSNBC

On civil rights, Republicans pick the wrong fight at the wrong time MSNBC Given the racially charged themes tying together several recent Republican moves, the GOP would probably be better off avoiding an argument over civil rights, but a variety of prominent officials in the party were nevertheless eager to dive in yesterday. and more »

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On civil rights, Republicans pick the wrong fight at the wrong time - MSNBC

First of all, despite the martyr act, no one has the power to silence Sen. Elizabeth Warren and thats a good thing.On the other hand, the impulse to silence Warren is completely rational, and it has nothing to do with her gender, ancestry, or ideology. It has everything to do with her sanctimonious lecturing,habitual dishonesty, and disregard of norms. Shes been a bully her entire career.

But when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pulled Rule 19, which prohibits all members from taking to the floor and directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator, I assumed it was a failure in the optics department. (Not to mention an arbitrary, speech-inhibiting rule that should not be used, but thats another story.)

Shutting down a female senator while shes reading a letter from civil rights icon Coretta Scott King is a bit on the nose, even for the GOP. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted, McConnell mansplained. The incident was transformed into Twitter hashtags #LetLizSpeak and the less catchy #ShePersisted. Both went viral, instilling millions of Democrats with a new sense of purpose.Hashtags > voting.

It seemed pretty obvious to me that the nomination of Jeff Sessions as attorney general was likely a done deal. So it was unlikely any persuadable voter would have even heard about Warrens grandstanding if it werent for the kerfuffle. If it were up to me, however, Id let Warren speak whenever she wanted to ceding my time, if necessary for as long as she wanted on any stage she demanded. The more she speaks, the better for conservatives.

As The Washington Post points out, however, McConnell probably gave Warrens 2020 presidential aspirations a huge in-kind contribution by forcing her to follow rules of decorum. Its possible, I suppose, that the GOP is playing the same 3D chess mastered by Donald Trump. Maybe shutting down Warren was a surreptitious means of making her the de facto voice of the Democratic Party and #TheResistance (formerly known as unprecedented obstructionism). Maybe it was just good luck.

Warren as the voice of the Left might be the best-case scenario for Republicans. For one thing, Warren is no Barack Obama on the charisma front. For another, Warren saves conservatives the trouble of going after socialist strawmen. Theyll have a real one.

Still, theres one potential hitch in the plan.Republicans, like everyone else, tend to assume politicians they loathe will be equally loathed by most of the electorate. Be cautious of what you ask for. Youll no doubt remember how many liberal pundits acted like the prospect of Marco Rubio or Ted Cruzas president was scarier than Trump when they thought the latter had no chance in a general.

The real question is would Warrens left-populism play on the electoral map Trump has rejiggered? Is her protectionist trade rhetoric enough to win over white-working class voters in Pennsylvania coal country even though she rails against fossil fuels and cheap energy? Would a lawyer who built a political career growing bureaucracies and pushing regulatory burdens on Americans be popular with rural workers in Ohio? Is it possible that someone who believes Obamacare didnt exert enough government control over the health-care system going to run strong in a general election campaign in suburban Indiana?Moreover, can a Northeasterner with extreme social views bring working-class Missourians home to Democrats? Liberals from Massachusetts, after all, are still 0-3 (here, here, here) over the past 50 years. And Warren is farther Left than any of them, by a mile.

I use a lot of question marks in the above paragraph because 2016 taught me that the American electorate is volatile and angry, and coastal elites should never make assumptions about its temperament. Still, its fair to say at this point and a lot can change under Trumps leadership the answer to most of these questions seems to be Unlikely.

The fuss over silencing Warren also reminds us that Democrats will, like they did with Hillary Clinton, rely heavily on the identity politics that have failed them for six years, if not longer. CNN, for example says, For Elizabeth Warrens supporters, the vote leading to #LetLizSpeak was a textbook case of males silencing a woman.Then there is this from Kamala Harris, a rising star on the Left:

Women suffer indignity, violence, poverty, and death at the hands of theocrats around the world every day, but Harris believes that the Senate leader asking a woman to follow the rules of decorum is a rallying cry for justice. The fact that Democrats spent the day aiming most of their ire at Betsy DeVos, who now runs perhaps the least consequential department in the cabinet, speaks to their hypocrisy.

Then again, few things are more unintellectual, irrational, or un-American than demanding people comport their political worldviews to their skin color, sex, or ethnicity. And if a Warren candidacy or anyone elses ensures that Democrats will spend another four years accusing half the country of being moral troglodytes while waiting for demographics to win them elections, Republicans should supporttheir efforts.

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Republicans Should Make Elizabeth Warren The Voice Of Democrats - The Federalist

In the state Senate, where Republicans hold a narrow majority, it's unclear if the expansion legislation will muster enough votes to advance.

Byanca Carrasco is helped by her mother, Ramona, during an exercise in a musical-therapy session led by Lorena Hernandez on Feb. 3, 2016, at Musical Surprise in Surprise. Byanca, who was born with Down syndrome, is able to attend the musical-therapy program with her mother through the Empowerment Scholarship Account program.(Photo: Danny Miller/The Republic)

Republican lawmakers in the Arizona Legislature areattempting to fast-tracka plan to eventually offervouchers to every public-school studentand, in separate legislation,privatize oversight of the public money given to parents to pay private-school tuition and other expenses.

Beginning Thursday, the Legislature will train its sights on the plan to broaden eligibility for Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, a school-choice program created six years ago for disabled children. Under the legislation, all of Arizona's 1.1 million students would be eligible for the program by 2020.

Sen. Debbie Lesko, of Peoria, and Rep. John Allen, of Scottsdale, have introduced identical bills to expand the program in their chambers, amove intended to expedite passage. ESAs allowfamilies touse public-school dollars on private-school tuition and other educational expenses.

ESAs would be offered to four grades in 2017-18 and incrementally to all public-schoolstudents by 2020-21. The first hearing on the expansion bills will be Thursday at 9 a.m. by the Senate Education Committee.

Senate Republicans have also introduced another bill that would privatizeoversight of the program and force the state Department of Education to deposit money into ESA accounts as soon as the parent agrees to the terms of the program.

Betsy DeVos speaks during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Jan. 17, 2017.(Photo: Jack Gruber/USA TODAY)

The proposal comes as the school-choice movement has been thrust into the national spotlight, as one of its chief advocates nationally, Betsy DeVos, was confirmed this week as U.S. Education secretary.

ArizonaRepublicans say their effort to expand the program may be buoyed by the confirmation of DeVos, a Michigan billionaire whose organization until recently advocated for the voucher-style program here and elsewhere. The group, American Federation for Children, sought to influencestate legislative races forcandidates it deemed supportive of its agenda,and is advising Republican Sen. Steve Smith, of Maricopa, on his legislation to change the way the ESA program runs.

Republicans also note their support last year of Proposition 123, which puts $3.5 billion over 10 years into public schools. They abandoned an effort to expand ESAs last year,in partbecause it interfered with the governor's desire to garner voter support for Prop.123, which settled a long-standing lawsuit over state leaders' underfunding of schools during the recession.

Senate President Steve Yarbrough, a pro-school-choice Republican,said the political climate is now favorable to phasingin an expansion of the program.

"A lot of us did all we could to make (Prop.) 123 successful worked on it before it was introduced, and (I) did everything in my power to help it move successfully through the process," he toldThe Arizona Republicon Wednesday. "This could be a good time to take a shot at it, and my friend just got confirmed as the United States secretary of Education."

The expansion legislation renews thelong-standing debate over how far Arizona should go in allowing parents to use tax money to customize their kids' education through private schooling, therapy, homeschooling,tutors, college savings, and other programsoutside traditional public district schools.

Arizona was the first to create an ESA program. Ithas since been adopted inother states, including Nevada, Florida andMississippi.

Arizona'sEmpowerment Scholarship Account program was initially created to help students with special needs get tailored therapies,educational resources and curriculum. Republican lawmakers have since expanded the program to include the children of active-duty military parents or guardians, siblings of those in the ESA program, students who attend public schools with a state grade of D and F and others.

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AZCENTRAL

Arizona school-voucher expansion afoot despite $102K of misspent funds in 6 months

About 3,200 children participate in the program, which is currently capped at about 5,000 students. This years' ESA budget is about $40 million, according to the state Department of Education, which oversees the program.

Critics say expansion of the program would siphon away too much money from public schools, that too much money from the program is being misspent, and that the program would subsidizebetter-off families, while poorer families would be unable to use the program because they may not be able to afford the remaining costs ofprivate schooling, including tuition and transportation.

Critics also say state leaders should instead focus on putting more money into public schools, through teacher raises, all-day kindergarten and other programs.

Chris Kotterman, who lobbies for the Arizona School Boards Association, said the state should focus on adequately funding public education.

"It's just a fundamental, philosophical issue: The state's first and only responsibility is to fund public education," he said. "When you have funding issues like we have teacher retention, and basic things like that it's not responsible to funnel general-fund dollars into private schools."

Joe Thomas, president of the Arizona Education Association, said the expansion of ESAs is really an attempt to privatize education. "There's no way in the world we need to be taking away from public schools and giving it to private schools," Thomas said.

State Sen. Debbie Lesko, of Peoria, supports the school-voucher legislation.(Photo: Special for The Republic)

But Lesko, who introduced the expansion bill in the Senate and said she is confident it will pass, countered that the state can do both. She said parents should have more control over how to spend their child's taxpayer-generated education money, and that ultimately, they are responsible for their child'seducation.

Under Senate Bill 1431 and House Bill 2394, third-graders through 12th-graders who are not disabled would be required to take standardized tests and the results would be reported to the parents. Student achievement of ESA recipients is not tracked by the state.

"I think we can increase funding to K-12 (public) education, and expand ESA eligibility," Lesko said, noting Gov. Doug Ducey's budget calls for $114 million in new spending. "Ibelieve that if this bill passes out of the Legislature, the governor will sign it."

Lesko said she has talked to gubernatorial staffers about the bill, but has not spoken directly with the governor.Ducey refused to say last week whether he would sign the legislation.

In addition to the expansion effort, a separate bill, Senate Bill 1281, would require the Department of Education to contract with a private firm to manage oversight of the ESA accounts. It also requires the Department of Education to fund the ESAs immediately after parents sign ESA paperwork,and prevents the department from delaying funding of the accounts

Smith said his legislation, which advanced through the Senate Education Committee last week,is intended to help parents who have had problems with the program, including missed payments by the Department of Education.

It just provides even more transparency, he said. Its the ultimate transparency bill for ESAs.

Asked if he trusts the Department of Educationto run the program, he said, Thats why a provision of this bill allows for third-party vendors to kind of come in and help with that. I think theres some concern there." A recent auditidentified $102,000 of misspending over six months in the ESA program; only 15 percent of that money was recovered, the audit found.

Jonathan Butcher, education director for the Goldwater Institute, said in an email that "to more effectively serve students and families, the application process and financial transactions ...should be outsourced to entities that specialize in these services." He said contractors should be required to submit reports to the Arizona auditor general.

State Sen. Kate Brophy McGee, of Phoenix, opposes the school-voucher legislation.(Photo: The Republic)

In the Senate, where Republicans narrowly control the chamber, it is unclear if the expansion legislation will muster enough votes to advance.

Republican Sen. Kate Brophy McGee, of Phoenix, opposes the legislation, and Republican Sen. Bob Worsley, of Mesa, told the newspaper he is concerned the legislation is too aggressive.

Worsley said he is concerned about "whether or not the financial system would break" if lawmakers send "ESA money out the door in an unlimited way."

Republican Sen. John Kavanagh, of Fountain Hills, has no qualms with expanding the program, saying it would ensure parentshave better control over their child's academic performance. He said expansion of the program would help more low-income students who could not otherwise afford private-school tuition,and could save the state money since students would get 90 percent of what they would receive if they attended public district schools.

"We started with competition between charter and public schools, then homeschooling, and now it's private schools and religious schools," he said. "Let them all compete competition lets them all perform better."

Tucson Sen. David Bradley, a Democrat, said he would only support expansion if schools that accept ESA payments acceptall students, no matter their academic performance or disability.

"The public-school system has to take all comers, whereas a private school can say, 'We can't handle this kid,' " said Bradley. "My belief is, in the long run, the poor get left behind in this deal."

Republic reporter Alia Beard Rau contributed to this article.

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Republicans fast-track school-voucher bill in Arizona Legislature - AZCentral.com

The Obamacare repeal effort was already in unstable condition. Now its status must be downgraded to critical and completely unserious.

After years of Republican yammering about the urgent need to repeal the Affordable Care Act and months of fruitless pursuit of an alternative, President Trump now says he may not unveil a replacement this year at all. And from Capitol Hill comes new word that Republicans arent even talking about a plan.

To be honest, theres not any real discussion taking place right now, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told reporters Tuesday at the Capitol. Corker, according to the Huffington Post, said he has no idea when Republicans might start drafting an alternative to Obamacare, adding, I dont see any congealing around ideas yet.

For seven years, opponents of the Affordable Care Act vowed to make its repeal their top concern, warning that the law would turn America overnight into a socialist dystopia. Now these opponents have unfettered control of the government and they arent even talking about repealing.

On Nov.1, a week before the election, Trump gave a speech pledging to immediately repeal and replace Obamacare.

But in his weekend interview with Fox Newss Bill OReilly, Trump said that maybe itll take till sometime into next year for his administration to unveil a new health-care plan. It is, the president said, very complicated.

So complicated, in fact, that he apparently wants nothing to do with it. At Trumps meeting with congressional leadership, Trump told the lawmakers Obamacare would be replaced with something better, and then he turned to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). And Pauls going to fill in the details. Right, Paul?

Right.

A secret recording of Republican lawmakers Obama-repeal talks late last month revealed angst and uncertainty about how to proceed and a great deal of worry that they would be blamed for whatever went wrong in the health-care market. Corker, in his talk with reporters this week, said that you would have heard more of the same in other meetings that werent recorded.

What Republicans dont seem to have come to terms with is that, as a political matter, they already will be held responsible for whatever happens to health-care markets, even if they dont introduce a replacement soon. An executive order Trump signed relaxing enforcement of Obamacare, and the constant talk of repeal, have injected a debilitating uncertainty into the health-care market essentially beginning the unraveling of Obamacare with nothing to replace it.

The executive order Trump signed directed federal agencies to do what they could to minimize the burdens of the act by exercising their authority to waive, defer, grant exemptions from or delay parts of the law. Insurers have warned that the uncertainty is deterring them from participating in Obamacare. The head of Anthem told Wall Street analysts that he would be deciding about extracting his company from health-care exchanges if it doesnt see stability.

This means that Republicans, while waiting for their alternative to congeal, have already set in motion the disintegration of the current health-insurance market. Its worse than the dog who caught the car, said Jesse Ferguson, a strategist advising Democrats on health care. Its the dog who somehow is now driving the car.

That would explain the series of erratic maneuvers weve seen from GOP lawmakers lately.

Take Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who in 2011 called Obamacare the single greatest assault on our freedom in my lifetime. It will destroy our health-care system. ... It must be repealed.

Now Johnson has shed the hysteria. Lets start working with Democrats, he said on CNBC. Lets transition to a system that will actually work, that, you know, Democrats are talking about. ... Its way more complex than simply repeal and replace.

Then theres Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.). In 2014, he proclaimed that Obamacares damage cannot now be undone by delaying it or tinkering with it it must be repealed and replaced with the patient-centered plan proposed by House Republicans.

These days hes not so bold. Wed better be sure that were prepared to live with the market weve created, McClintock said in the recorded session with Republicans. Thats going to be called Trumpcare. Republicans will own that lock, stock and barrel, and well be judged in the election less than two years away.

Or sooner. Arguably, Republicans already own the instability in the health-care system that their inaction has caused. Now that Trump is talking about delaying a health-care rollout for another year and Republican legislators arent even talking about an Obamacare alternative, its becoming clear what Trumpcare will look like: chaos.

Twitter: @Milbank

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What are Republicans going to do about Obamacare? 'No idea.' - Washington Post