It's Time to Go, Joe
If you have to explain to the public that you really are a lucid human being, you're losing.
Sorry for the delayed newsletter today. I was traveling Friday and Saturday and didn’t actually intend to post an article this weekend, but I feel I owe readers a reaction. Thanks for your patience, and, as always, thank you for reading!
So let me begin by saying this: If the Republican Party was a responsible party, it would replace its presidential nominee, who is a racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, dishonest, dimwitted, incompetent, autocratic, felonious, and twice-impeached former president who has been found liable for sexual abuse, defamation, and business fraud and who incited an insurrection as part of a plot to overturn an election he lost. His performance in last week’s debate, during which he dissembled and lied virtually non-stop (see below), was hands-down one of the worst debate performances of all-time:
Yet as they’ve been doing for the past eight years, Republicans continue to stand by Donald Trump. It’s a disgrace that ought to disqualify the Republican Party from holding political power in this country.
But as I am sure you are well aware of, the big story coming out of last Thursday’s presidential debate wasn’t Donald Trump’s performance, but Joe Biden’s. It was horrific. You could tell as soon as Biden walked onstage it was going to be a bad night, and it got so much worse the instant he began speaking in hushed, raspy, barely articulate sentences. There was no wit, no humor, no spark to his performance. Biden couldn’t defend himself or land a solid blow against Trump. He looked lost and in decline.
As soon as the debate was over, pundits began questioning if Biden should continue as a candidate. Biden’s surrogates attempted to defend him, but as the old campaign maxim goes, “If you’re explaining to the public that your candidate really is lucid, you’re losing.”
On a personal level, it felt morally wrong watching Biden fail in such a spectacularly humiliating fashion. It felt invasive, as though we were collectively involved in stripping a man of his personal dignity. Joe Klein put it best: “Someone should have stopped the fight.” It’s such a piercing reaction not only because it’s a plea for mercy but also because it is a call for “someone,” anyone—Biden’s campaign staff, the First Lady, the moderators, you, me, even Trump—to intervene on behalf of a politician who is supposedly the most powerful man in the world but is too dazed and defenseless to help himself. As president of the United States, Biden is of course expected to participate in a televised debate, but as a matter of basic everyday human decency, we would never expect a person in his condition to take the stage in any sort of public setting.
Yes, presidential debates are inherently superficial events. Americans view them as a kind of theater, focusing their attention on gestures, gaffes, and gotcha moments to determine who “won” and who “lost” rather than on the substance of the candidates’ remarks. In that sense, some of Biden’s defenders have argued Biden simply “performed” poorly, just as Barack Obama “performed” poorly during the first debate against Mitt Romney in 2012. They want us to focus on the substance. But Obama in that debate was just off, like a basketball player who had a bad shooting night. Biden was like a basketball player shooting at the wrong basket, forgetting to dribble, losing track of his man on defense, and aimlessly wandering in and out of bounds. It’s hard to focus on the substance of Biden’s remarks when his performance raised fundamental questions about his ability to carry out the duties of his office, let alone function as a cognizant human being.
In the past, when Biden has been questioned about whether he is too old to run for president, he has responded this way:
America watched. Biden failed his own test.
Biden’s awful showing in the debate last week seriously undermined two of the major premises Democrats are running on in this election. The first is that this election’s most important issue is the preservation of American democracy, and that voters should support the Democratic Party as the only party committed to that task. Voters, however, have to now be wondering why Democrats, with so much supposedly on the line in this November, have decided to prioritize a failing octogenarian’s desire to cling to power instead. It seems Democrats are more interested in doing right by Joe Biden than they are in doing right for American democracy. That could lead many voters to conclude the preservation of democracy is not as serious an issue as Democrats say it is or that Democrats are not actually all that committed to preserving it. That would be devastating to the Democratic cause, and devastating for the nation.
The second premise Biden undermined is the claim that, unlike Trump, Biden has personal qualities that any president of any party ought to possess. It remains true that Biden is a more moral, more honorable, and more honest man than Trump. But it is also now obvious that Biden, too, lacks some of those personal qualities any American would expect a president to have, most specifically the mental and physical ability to do the job. If the Biden campaign concedes that argument—and how can’t it, really, since Americans saw with their own eyes the shape Biden is in—then Democrats are essentially admitting there aren’t many factors that transcend partisanship that would compel a vote for Biden over Trump regardless of a voter’s ideological inclinations. It would all come down to party labels, with both candidates essentially asking Americans to overlook their respective disqualifying personal flaws and instead base their votes on whether a candidate has a (D) or an (R) following their name on the ballot.
That emphasis on partisan identity would have significant repercussions in the campaign. First, it would let Trump off the hook, since many people’s objections to Trump (i.e., that he is dishonest, that he is immoral, that he is disinterested in governing, etc.) aren’t based on partisanship. Trump already wants voters to overlook his poor personal character and has convinced many Republicans to do just that. Our basic expectations for leaders would crumble. Secondly, and related to the first point, it would signal to anti-Trump Republicans that they really should vote for Trump, since the election would have little to do with the character and abilities of the person occupying the Oval Office and everything to do with the political ideology and policy agenda that person would empower.
Finally (and, for Biden, most damningly) it actually undermines the logic behind keeping Biden on the ballot, since it strips away everything that makes Biden a compelling candidate as a person and reduces him to his party identification. If Biden’s defenders want Democrats to set aside their concerns and vote for him simply because he’s a Democrat, then why not swap Biden out and replace him with another, more appealing, more lucid Democrat? When Biden’s camp makes that argument, they are actually arguing for his removal.
Which is what Democrats should be angling to do right now anyway. Joe Biden has compiled a surprisingly strong record as president. He has reached a point in his life, however, where he cannot effectively defend that record during a rigorous campaign nor in all likelihood carry out the duties of the office he seeks for another four years. His performance at the debate almost certainly doomed his chances to win re-election. I see no plausible way for Biden to repair the damage he’s done and restore trust with the American people, as no campaign manager in good conscience would allow him to take the debate stage again or sit for a lengthy interview. Every appearance Biden makes from now on will be refracted through the lens of that debate; all we’ll see for the next four months are the moments when Biden stumbles. Waiting for Trump to commit an even bigger screw-up is not only a passive response to an urgent problem but also ignores Trump’s ability to withstand scandal.
If Democrats hope to win this November, Biden needs to step aside as the party’s presidential nominee, and the Democratic powers-that-be need to be working overtime to ensure that happens. If need be, they need to find a way to force him out.
I understand there is some debate within the Democratic Party about whether it would be wise to switch nominees this close to the election and trade the advantages Biden brings to the table (i.e., incumbency, name recognition, a winning brand, etc.) for a list of unknowns. I think it’s worth the risk, though, as I no longer believe Biden can win and that a new nominee (barring their own meltdown) would do no worse.
Beyond that, however, Democrats should consider what could happen to their party if Biden is not replaced. I don’t want to get into what would happen if Trump wins in November. Instead, Democrats need to consider how they would go about defending Biden over the next four months. First, Democrats would no longer be able to claim with a straight face that they are the party of good government. Furthermore, if Democrats are unable to address the problem within their own party’s leadership and Biden remains at the top of the ticket, Democrats would prove their party is as dysfunctional and sycophantic as the Republican Party. Conversely, there’s a good chance voters would respond positively to Democrats identifying a problem within their own party and fixing it for the nation’s sake. Democrats should do everything they can in this moment to prove they are a better party and more responsive to the American people than the moribund GOP.
Democrats also need to reckon with how Biden’s candidacy may affect down-ballot races. If Biden’s numbers sink and Democrats and Democratic-leaners see his campaign as a lost and disappointing cause, those voters may be more likely to stay home on Election Day, costing the party crucial seats in Congress and in the states. Biden should personally consider how down-ballot candidates would defend him on the campaign trail. Those who do run the risk of humiliating and discrediting themselves. Many would feel compelled to distance themselves from him (they already are) especially if his numbers dropped. Furthermore, ordinary Democrats would feel reluctant to stand up for him on social media or when talking with friends and family. Biden and Democratic party officials shouldn’t put Democratic officeholders and ordinary Democrats in that spot.
Last week in this Substack, I published an article titled “Democrats Can Win This Election. It’s Time They Quit Panicking and Just Get in the Ring and Fight.” I wrote that article on the assumption Biden would step into the ring and fight for us during the debate, a debate, by the way, whose terms were set by his campaign and to his advantage. He completely failed at that task. Democratic leaders cannot expect Democratic voters to show up and fight for Biden when Biden isn’t showing up for them. Biden needs to end his fight so another fighter can take his place.
When concerns about Biden’s age and ability have surfaced in the past, his aides often shared stories about how sharp the president is in meetings and how he would grill and get upset with them if they do not know the answers to his questions. Whether or not those stories are true, Biden should hold himself to the same standard. The debate essentially asked Biden if he was fit to serve as president. He could not provide a convincing answer. He therefore needs to step aside. Yes, it would be a humiliating end to a storied political career, but it wouldn’t be as humiliating as losing in November, which is now nearly a foregone conclusion.
But if the Democrat who replaced Biden won four months from now—and given Trump’s poor poll numbers, I’d argue a new nominee stands a good chance of doing just that—Biden’s legacy could be rewritten. He would be celebrated as the president who, in a moment of national crisis, realized his own limitations and selflessly surrendered his power to ensure democracy’s survival.
POST-SCRIPT: Some brief notes on replacing Biden at the top of the ticket.
Is this unprecedented? Yes, but everything about this situation and this election is unprecedented.
Comparisons to the Democrats’ tumultuous experience during the 1968 election make little sense. The party is not divided by war and civil rights. It’s actually quite unified in purpose. 2024 is sui generis.
The party bigwigs need to be moving yesterday on this. A new candidate needs to be able to hit the ground running, and there are too many structural issues (i.e., filing deadlines, campaign finance issues, etc.) that can’t wait to be ironed out.
Vice President Kamala Harris is the logical choice to succeed Biden, as she would be in the best position to import Biden’s coalition to her campaign. (For example, how would the UAW—which endorsed Biden after he showed up on the picket line—or the Bernie Sanders wing of the party feel about any other candidate?) But she has well-known liabilities as a candidate and may actually be saddled with much of Biden’s baggage. That leads me to believe it may be better for Democrats to orchestrate a mini primary featuring 4-6 candidates so a consensus can hopefully build around a nominee. Much easier said than done, of course.
It will be hard for Democratic opposition researchers to properly vet a nominee in the time remaining. With the potential exception of Harris, that’s a potential timebomb sitting at the heart of any new nominee’s campaign.
That said, I hope Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg are spending the Fourth of July holiday pouring over policy briefs and drafting a stump speech.
Barack Obama will need to be front and center as a reassuring presence throughout all this.
My gut tells me Democratic voters will ultimately rally around the nominee. Their enthusiasm will be critical for bringing other voters on board.
Signals and Noise
Debate Reaction
Katie Rogers and Peter Baker of the New York Times report the Biden Family is urging President Biden to stay in the race and fight on. NOTE TO DEMOCRATS: The Biden Family is not the Democratic Party.
By Brian Klaas of The Atlantic: “Calls for Biden’s Withdrawal are a Sign of a Healthy Democratic Party” (“By contrast, the Democratic freak-out over Joe Biden is a sign of a healthy political party. Individual leaders—no matter how effective, decent, or well-intentioned—are not sacred cows, to be valued above the national interest. Democrats view Biden the way that normal political parties view their leaders: as a vessel to achieve policy goals that will improve the lives of citizens. Nothing more, nothing less. This is why you don’t see Priuses adorned with Biden flags or bumper stickers depicting him riding a giant eagle. It’s embarrassing in a rational political party to fuse your identity with a man rather than his message. Republicans long ago jettisoned that shame.”)
By Ezra Klein of the New York Times: “This Isn’t All Joe Biden’s Fault” (“So to go back to Newsom’s question: What kind of party would be trying to make a change after Thursday night? A party that was doing its job.”
By David Ignatius for the Washington Post: “Why Biden Didn’t Accept the Truth That Was There For All To See”
By Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: “The Ghastly vs. the Ghostly” (“He’s being selfish. He’s putting himself ahead of the country. He’s surrounded by opportunistic enablers. He has created a reality distortion field where we’re told not to believe what we’ve plainly seen. His hubris is infuriating. He says he’s doing this for us, but he’s really doing it for himself. I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about the other president.”)
By Jonathan Chait of New York magazine: “Biden and Harris’s Absurd Case for Complacency” (“[A]llies of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have begun whispering to the media their reasons why the Democratic ticket must consist of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It is that, if Biden steps aside, the party’s only option would be to anoint Harris. If they fail to do so, Black voters would be outraged and register their dismay at the polls (or by refusing to go to the polls), thus ensuring Donald Trump’s election. The Biden logic then proceeds to its next step: Harris would be a worse nominee than Biden, thus nullifying any reason for him to relinquish his spot on the ticket. … If this reasoning characterized the situation accurately, then the party is indeed doomed to shuffle forlornly toward November and the likely restoration of Trump and all the horrors he would bring. But I find the rationale not only suspiciously self-serving but also wrong on several key points.” MORE: “Now, while I think Harris is probably a better option than Biden, she is not the Democrats’ best option. If you undertake a change as radical as swapping out your presidential candidate because he’s losing to a sociopathic criminal, then you should really go ahead and pick a candidate whose political and governing skills have the confidence of the party elite. As Napoleon said, if you start to take Vienna, take Vienna.”)
By Politico: “Inside Kamala Harris’ Post-Debate Dilemma” (“Amid all of the Democratic panic-texting prompted by President Joe Biden’s shaky debate performance Thursday, one name was curiously absent from many of those conversations: Vice President Kamala Harris. That was to the chagrin of some Harris allies, who are privately expressing frustration that her name is not being mentioned in the same company as other ambitious Democrats. But they can do little about it: Harris is laboring under a de facto mandate to defend him.”)
Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog looks at election law issues surrounding a Biden withdrawal and the nomination of a replacement candidate.
By Thomas Friedman of the New York Times: “Joe Biden Is a Good Man and a Good President. He Must Bow Out of the Race.” (“I watched the Biden-Trump debate alone in a Lisbon hotel room, and it made me weep. I cannot remember a more heartbreaking moment in American presidential campaign politics in my lifetime, precisely because of what it revealed: Joe Biden, a good man and a good president, has no business running for re-election. And Donald Trump, a malicious man and a petty president, has learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”)
By Tom Nichols of The Atlantic: “The End of the Biden Era” (“I have been harshly critical of calls for President Joe Biden to step down. I have argued with people across the political spectrum about this, including friends and colleagues. I think Biden has had a successful first term and that his age has been no barrier to his effectiveness as a leader. I still believe that. And if the choice this fall is between Biden and a man who I believe is a mentally unstable menace to American democracy, I won’t think twice about my vote. But Donald Trump must be defeated, and after last night’s debate, I am no longer sure that Biden is electable. Politics can be a miserable business that too often turns on perceptions, and for the president, the debate was a full-blown, Hindenburg-level disaster.”)
By Nate Silver of Silver Bulletin: “Joe Biden Should Drop Out” (“Maybe Biden could survive by playing prevent defense — although the White House has been trying that and it hasn’t been working — if he were leading. But instead he’s behind. And once the polling fully accounts for the effects of the debate within a few weeks, he’s likely to be as far behind as he’s ever been, with less time left than he’s ever had. How is the man you saw on stage tonight supposed to turn things around? Or even a 30 percent better version of the man you saw tonight? Sure, it’s possible. But is that really the bet you want to make if you’re a Democrat who thinks Trump is an existential threat to democracy and everything else?”)
By Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times: “President Biden, I’ve Seen Enough” (“One of the perils facing this country, I believe and Biden believes, is the risk of a victory by Donald Trump. And after the debate, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that Biden remaining in the race increases the likelihood that Trump will move into the White House in January.”)
By Paul Krugman of the New York Times: “The Best President of My Adult Life Needs to Withdraw”
By Walter Shapiro of The New Republic: “Joe Biden is Facing the Biggest Decision of His Political Career” (“That is why the decision is in Biden’s hands. It is on his conscience that Trump is likely to be the Once and Future President. Only Biden, by withdrawing next week, can change that frightening equation. It would be the ultimate self-sacrifice and it would run against every I’m-a-fighter instinct in Biden’s body. But it is a self-sacrifice that is needed to save the nation from four more years of Trump terror.”)
By David Remnick of The New Yorker: “The Reckoning of Joe Biden” (“To refuse to do so, to go on contending that his good days are more plentiful than the bad, to ignore the inevitability of time and aging, doesn’t merely risk his legacy—it risks the election and, most important, puts in peril the very issues and principles that Biden has framed as central to his Presidency and essential to the future.”)
By Susan Glasser of The New Yorker: “Was the Debate the Beginning of the End of Joe Biden’s Presidency?” (“Biden struggled so much that even several scathing pre-planned lines failed to land with any force, as when he brought up Trump’s hush-money conviction and said, ‘You have the morals of an alley cat,’ or when he fumbled over himself saying that Trump was the first President since Herbert Hoover to lose as many American jobs. Sure, Trump was also rambling and incoherent, but at a much louder decibel level. He looked and sounded healthier; Biden was literally painful to watch.”)
By Matt Bai of the Washington Post: “Democrats Fear a Messy Convention. Trump Should Fear Their Meltdown More.” (“If Biden were to accept reality and step aside, for once, Democrats would have a genuine opportunity to match Trump’s theatrical dominance. What better way to recast yourself with the electorate than through a gripping, episodic fight for leadership? What could draw more people into politics than a must-watch nightly drama, with the fate of the nation at stake? I have to believe that Trump — a modern-day P.T. Barnum who feeds off the boring artifice of his adversaries — fears that spectacle more than anything.”)
By Sidney Blumenthal of The Guardian: “Biden’s Agonizing Debate Performance Doesn’t Change the Reality of This Election” (“I saw western civilization pass before my eyes as Joe Biden drowned.”)
By Nick Cattogio of The Dispatch: “Faces of Death” (“I tuned in feeling offended on Joe Biden’s behalf that Republicans had stooped to accusing him of drug use in order to delegitimize a vigorous performance preemptively. Then, after watching him for 30 seconds, I found myself thinking, ‘He should do a bump of coke during the first commercial break.’ … The long and short of it is this: I need a Canadian green card. (Call me, Justin.) But it’s also this: Barring another campaign-upending event, a Trump victory might now be fully baked in.”)
By George Will of the Washington Post: “The Nation Deserves Better Than That Debate. Or Does It?” (“Perhaps the nation is by now in a torpor, resigned to the spectacle of, as the phrase goes, two bald men fighting over a comb. Perhaps, however, Thursday night — the campaign’s nadir [so far] — was for the best. The Democratic Party might yet give a thought to the national interest. Persisting with Biden’s candidacy, which is as sad as it is scary, rather than nominating a plausible four-year president, would rank as the most reckless — and cruel — act ever by a U.S. party.”)
By Stuart Stevens for the New York Times: “Democrats: Stop Panicking” (“One debate does not change the structure of this presidential campaign. For all the talk of Mr. Biden’s off night, what is lost is that Mr. Trump missed a great opportunity to reset his candidacy and greatly strengthen his position. … It’s easy to be for your guy on good nights, but it doesn’t mean much. The test is on bad nights.”
Heather Cox Richardson writes in Letters from an American about Trump’s avalanche of lies during the debate. (“This was not a debate. It was Trump using a technique that actually has a formal name, the Gish gallop, although I suspect he comes by it naturally. It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them. Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them.”)
By David Frum of The Atlantic: “Trump Should Never Have Had This Platform” (“The octogenarian president delivered a fiasco of a performance on the Atlanta debate stage. But the fiasco was not his alone. Everything about the event was designed to blur the choice before Americans. Both candidates—the serving president and the convicted felon—were addressed as ‘President.’ The questions treated an attempted coup d’état as one issue out of many. The candidates were left to police or fail to police the truth of each other’s statements; it was nobody else’s business.”)
The 2024 Election
Phil Mattingly of CNN breaks down the five big ways a second Trump administration would be different/worse than the first Trump administration.
This pre-debate poll came out of the blue: A CBS News poll found voters under 30 favored President Biden over former president Don Trump 61%-38%. Other polls have shown that demographic nearly split between the candidates, so this is good news for the Biden campaign if it isn’t an outlier. While young voters lean liberal, however, they are much less engaged than their older counterparts and show less interest in voting.
Alex Roarty of NOTUS looks at why voters—including environmentally-minded voters—know so little about Biden’s environmental record, which stands as his most significant legislative achievement.
Illegal border crossings have dropped 40% since Biden issued his executive order on border security three weeks ago.
By Eric Levitz of Vox: “The Winners and Losers of the Biden Economy” (“Some Americans are indisputably better off today than they were in January 2021. Others are not. Specifically, the real winners of the Biden economy have been 24-year-old student debtors who lost their jobs during the pandemic and now work in hospitality, own a house in Tampa Bay, Florida, live in Minneapolis, have savings in an S&P 500 index fund, lease an electric vehicle, and hate fast food.”)
Don Trump has gone on record saying he will “not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate,” which would imperil long-standing vaccination requirements for diseases like measles and smallpox.
The New York Times’ Lisa Friedman reports Don Trump’s antipathy to green energy—which he casts as a “plan to make China rich,” since China manufactures a lot of the technology used in green tech—would actually strengthen China, as it would hinder the development of American green industries and increase the country’s reliance on Chinese technology.
Ana Swanson and Alan Rappeport of the New York Times review Trump’s plans for a trade war that economists predict will slash exports and increase inflation.
During the run-up to the debate, Trump told a faith group Biden planned to arrest people for professing their Christian faith, baselessly claimed that Biden’s aides gave the president supplements and cocaine to prep him for public appearances, floated the idea of a UFC-style migrant fighting league, and asserted he was “tortured” in the Fulton County Jail when he surrendered himself for his mugshot. He’s also selling a $50 flag lapel pin with his name on it, which is technically a violation of the US Flag Code.
2024 Congressional Elections
Democratic New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman (the Squad member who pulled a fire alarm in the Capitol prior to a government spending vote) was defeated in his primary by a moderate county executive. Bowman had alienated many Democrats in his district with his strident anti-Israel rhetoric following the outbreak of war in Gaza, leading AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) to spend over $15 million against him.
Republican Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert easily won her crowded primary in Colorado’s 3rd district after switching from the 4th district. Boebert barely won re-election in 2022 in a large western Colorado district that leans Republican by 7 points. Since then, Boebert—one of the more unhinged members of the House Republican Conference—attempted to keep Kevin McCarthy from becoming Speaker, divorced her husband, and was caught on camera getting handsy with a male companion during a theater outing. Her new district, which stretches across eastern Colorado, is 7 points more Republican than her old one.
Numerous Trump-endorsed congressional candidates lost their primaries last week.
Elizabeth Beyer and Tom Vanden Brook of USA Today found that while Republican Virginia Senate candidate Hung Cao claims he received a Purple Heart and the Navy’s Combat Action Ribbon and was “blown up” in combat, there is no record to support that assertion.
Congress
Proving once again that the GOP is soft on crime, House Republicans advanced legislation that would slash funding for the Justice Department by 20% and US attorneys offices by 10%.
The Republican-led House has repudiated the findings of the 1/6 committee in a last-minute effort to help Steve Bannon stay out of jail.
Natalie Andrews of the Wall Street Journal writes about how Rep. Matt Gaetz wants to reshape the Republican Party in his image. His image:
God help us all. (Here’s what the House Ethics Committee has reportedly been looking into regarding Gaetz.)
Republican Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry shared an anti-Semitic post on his campaign’s social media page.
The Supreme Court
The Supreme Court released a lot of opinions last week. The low/highlights:
In a major decision that divided 6-3 along partisan lines, the Court overturned the 1984 Chevron ruling, which required courts to defer to the expertise of administrative agencies’ interpretation of ambiguous statutes. In doing so, the Court ruled courts must use their own independent judgment in determining if agencies have correctly exercised their powers. The move empowers the judicial system and Congress at the expense of the government’s administrative bureaucracy, throwing countless rules and regulations concerning the environment, consumer safety, financial markets, etc., into jeopardy. This is a major decision that dramatically shifts the balance of power in Washington DC and eviscerates the administrative state. Business interests have been calling for the end of Chevron for decades. Judges rather than experts will now have the final say when it comes to implementing regulations. For more on this case, see “The Supreme Court Just Made a Massive Power Grab It Will Come to Regret” by Ian Millhiser of Vox and “The Justices Toss Yet Another Precedent, Delighting Conservatives” by Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post (Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo)
In a 5-4 decision (with Justice Barrett and the Court’s three liberals dissenting) the Court put an EPA rule regulating air pollution that originates out of state on hold while the case proceeds through the legal system. (Ohio v. EPA)
In a 6-3 decision that divided along partisan lines, the Court found that administrative agencies use of in-house legal proceedings to discipline those whom the agencies believe have violated regulations is unconstitutional. (SEC v. Jarkesy)
In a 6-3 decision that divided along partisan lines, the Court ruled that laws that ban homeless people from sleeping outdoors in public spaces are constitutional. The majority ruled such laws are not aimed at homeless people but could also apply to campers and protesters, while the minority argued they effectively criminalize homelessness. (City of Grants Pass v. Johnson)
In a 6-3 decision that divided along partisan lines, the Court ruled a politician cannot be convicted for corruption if accused of accepting a gift after carrying out an official act. This continues the conservative Court’s trend of narrowly interpreting anti-corruption laws. (Snyder v. United States)
In a 6-3 decision (with Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissenting) the Court ruled hospitals that receive federal funding must allow emergency abortion care to stabilize patients even if the procedure is banned in the state. The ruling, however, was limited while litigation in lower courts continues and does not address the underlying issue of whether states can ban such a procedure in such circumstances. (Idaho v. US)
In a 5-4 decision, the Court blocked a bankruptcy plan for Purdue Pharma that would have provided billions to fight the nation’s opioid crisis in exchange for granting the company’s Sackler family owners immunity from future lawsuits. The deal has divided the families of opioid overdose victims. (Harrington v. Purdue Pharma)
In a 6-3 decision (with Sotomayor, Kagan, and Barrett in the minority and Jackson joining the remaining conservative justices in the majority) the Court ruled federal prosecutors misapplied a law used to prosecute numerous 1/6 rioters. The ruling is expected to have a limited effect on those currently in prison for crimes committed on 1/6: Of the 1,427 people charged with a crime, 350 were charged using the statute in question, with only 52 people charged exclusively under the statute, and only 27 currently imprisoned for violating the statute exclusively. Still, since their incarceration, prosecutors have found additional evidence that would allow those inmates to be charged for crimes committed on 1/6 under other laws.
In a 6-3 decision (with Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissenting) the Court overturned a lower-court ruling that found the Biden administration had leaned on social media platforms to silence conservative viewpoints. The Court ruled that the lower-court ruling could limit administrative interactions between the executive branch and private entities. (Murthy v. Missouri)
State and Local Government
Ross Thebault of the Washington Post looks at how California’s $100 billion dollar surplus became a $50 billion budget shortfall in just two years.
Conservative lawmakers in a handful of Republican-led states are pushing to scale-back no-fault divorce laws.
The Oklahoma State Supreme Court blocked the creation of what would have become the nation’s first religious charter school. The case will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, also in Oklahoma, the state school superintendent has required all public schools to teach the Bible.
The Iowa State Supreme Court approved a six-week ban on abortion.
A former Republican North Dakota lawmaker Ray Holmberg pled guilty to child sex tourism. Holmberg had served in the North Dakota legislature for 45 years and had charged the state’s Senate Appropriations Committee.
The election-denying chair of Arizona’s Republican delegation to the Republican National Convention said she would “lynch” an official who helps oversee elections in Maricopa County. She added, “I don’t unify with people who don’t believe the principles we believe in and the American cause that founded this country. And so, I want to make that clear when we talk about what it means to unify.”
Using Sheffield, Pennsylvania (pop. 1,805) as a case study, Tim Craig of the Washington Post examines the decline of small towns in rural America.
A small, predominantly Black town in Alabama won a lawsuit that will allow residents to elect their own town officials. White officials have been appointing the mayor and councilmembers for decades without holding public elections.
More News of the Week
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pled guilty to illegally obtaining and disclosing national security material in exchange for his release from a British prison, ending a long legal confrontation with the United States government.
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared firearm violence a public health crisis.
The Biden administration imposed penalties on companies for raising the costs of prescription drugs, effectively lowering the price of those drugs for Medicare enrollees.
International News
The Israeli Supreme Court ruled the military must begin drafting ultra-Orthodox Jews, who had been exempt from conscription. Military service is compulsory for most Jewish Israelis. The decision threatens to split Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition, which depends on the support of ultra-Orthodox Israelis (who make up 13% of Israel’s population.)
Anti-tax protests have convulsed Kenya, with some demonstrators even managing to set the doors of parliament on fire.
The party of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lost a parliamentary seat in its so-called “Fortress Toronto” region, a sign that Trudeau and the Liberals are in serious political trouble ahead of next year’s elections.