Read the press release here.
from Courthouse News
Briefs and rulings from courthouses across the land.
Wednesday, January 31, 2024
Tuesday, January 30, 2024
Texas high court takes on constitutionality of state’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors
AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — On Tuesday, The Texas Supreme Court heard, for the first time, oral arguments in a case concerning a state law enacted in 2023 that bans gender transitioning care from being provided to minors.
Five parents on behalf of their transgender children, along with three doctors who provide gender-affirming care and LGBTQ+ rights organizations, said in a July 2023 petition that Texas’ controversial Senate Bill 14 would ban necessary medical care for youth already receiving treatment and prevent physicians from doing their jobs. They are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Transgender Law Center and Lambda Legal.
In August 2023, Travis County District Court Judge Maria Cantú Hexsel granted the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary injunction, blocking the state from enforcing its ban while the case proceeds.
In her opinion, Hexsel wrote that she believed that the parents “fundamental right” to control medical treatment for their children under the state constitution would be infringed by the law. Additionally, the judge wrote that the law would likely infringe on the physician’s right to occupational freedom, also under the state constitution.
During the state’s regular legislative session, banning gender-affirming care for minors was a key priority in the Republican-controlled statehouse. Senate Bill 14 was ultimately passed by lawmakers and signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott. The law prohibits physicians from providing hormone therapies and/or surgeries to affirm the gender of someone who is still a minor. Violating the law may result in the revocation of the physician’s medical license and being further barred from obtaining it in the state.
The law does, however, permit such treatments to be used for minors experiencing precocious puberty or is born intersex.
The state made a direct appeal of Hexsel’s ruling to the high court. Arguing before the all-Republican panel on Tuesday, Assistant Solicitor General Natalie Thompson told the justices that the parental rights of the plaintiffs are not being infringed by the state’s ability to regulate the practice of medicine.
“Physicians do not have a constitutional right to perform gender transitioning procedures on children,” Thompson said.
Throughout her time fielding questions from the justices, Thompson claimed that the procedures prohibited under the statute pose a significant health risk to children and should thus be prohibited.
Justice Evan Young asked Thompson if there is historical context that shows the state’s ability to limit parents’ rights to make decisions for their children. In response, the state’s attorney said that SB 14 does not displace parents’ ability to make medical decisions for their children, but rather takes specific medical treatments “off the table entirely.”
Justice Debra Lehrmann then interjected, asking how the statute cannot interfere with the parent’s rights when the care they have sought or chosen is based on, what she called “medically sound guidelines that have been accepted by the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association.”
“What the legislature had before it is evidence that the organizations your honor had mentioned have been ideologically captured,” Thompson said. “The evidence to support these interventions is questionable at best.”
Undeterred, Lehrmann retorted, “Nevertheless, aren’t the medical professionals the ones to make those decisions? I mean certainly more than the legislature.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics, the Texas Pediatric Society, the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association have endorsed gender-affirming care practices for transgender youth. These medical groups as well as others have also argued against measures like SB 14, saying that they are harmful to young people who have gender dysphoria.
Kennon Wooten at Scott, Douglass and McConnico in Austin, argued for the plaintiffs in the case. In her opening remarks, Wooten said that SB 14 violates parents’ rights to make decisions for their children, deprives transgender youth of equal rights and infringes on healthcare providers’ occupational liberty.
Addressing Wooten’s arguments, Justice Jimmy Blacklock asked where the line should be drawn separating what decisions parents are allowed to make for their children and what decisions should be not protected in order to protect the welfare of children. Blacklock further questioned whether the court is being asked to weigh in on what is ultimately a moral or philosophical question rather than one based on science or law.
“The court has already drawn a line on the right, it is a fundamental right of the parents to make choices concerning the care of their children,” Wooten answered. “ Whether we describe it as philosophical, fact-based or whatever, there is going to be some quintessential merits-based analysis that happens within the courts.”
In an exchange with Justice Jeff Boyd, Wooten said that the plaintiffs are asking the court to send the case back to the trial court to further develop the record of their case instead of having the high court rule on the merits of the case at this juncture.
After the arguments, the court did not indicate when a ruling in the case will be released. Texas Supreme Court decisions are typically released in June after the court has concluded hearing arguments in its current term.
For nearly two years, Governor Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton have worked to limit transgender youth from obtaining gender-affirming care in the state. In 2022, Paxton’s office released a legal opinion claiming that the use of puberty blockers, hormone therapies and surgeries constituted child abuse when provided to a minor. Abbott used the opinion to direct the state’s child protective services to investigate the parents and doctors of transgender children who were provided these treatments.
In November 2023, Paxton requested the medical records of Texas children who received treatment at Seattle Children’s Hospital in Washington state. The hospital has sued the attorney general to block the release of the records. A similar request was made last week, this time to a Georgia clinic that provides gender-affirming care to patients across the nation.
Gender-affirming care bans have been enacted in Republican-led states across the country. Including Texas, 22 states have taken steps to ban transition-related care to youth. Ohio became the most recent state to follow course after the legislature’s Republican supermajorities in both houses overcame a veto of the bill by the Republican Governor Mike DeWine. Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, Idaho and North Dakota have gone further, making it a felony offense to provide such care to minors.
In addition to limiting access to gender-affirming care, Texas lawmakers have also passed laws prohibiting transgender athletes from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity.
from Courthouse News
Confusion around Supreme Court order on border wire sparks debate on defying justices’ ruling
WASHINGTON (CN) — A border standoff between Texas and the Biden administration has caught the Supreme Court in its crosshairs with Republican governors suggesting the Lone Star state defy a high court order to defend the border.
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt laid out his stance on the state’s authority in an interview with CNN. Stitt was asked directly if he supported resisting an order from the justices.
“If the Supreme Court gets something wrong, for example, if they tried to ban and say that we didn’t have a Second Amendment right to bear arms, I think the Constitution supersedes somebody in Washington, D.C. telling us,” Stitt said.
The governor’s comments were driven by a vague two-paragraph order handed down by the Supreme Court granting an emergency application filed by the Biden administration.
The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court to block a Fifth Circuit order preventing Border Patrol from cutting concertina wire placed along the border by Texas in almost all circumstances. Federal law requires Border Patrol to apprehend migrants who illegally cross into the U.S., and agents say the wire is preventing the government from carrying out that task. Texas retorts that its efforts are a result of the government not apprehending migrants in the first place.
As the application sat before the justices, Texas escalated its efforts to prevent migrants from entering the county — and in turn its efforts to prevent the federal government from intercepting those same migrants. The state used its national guard to shut down a park along the border, blocking agents from reaching migrants attempting to swim through the Rio Grande.
In three sentences, the court granted emergency relief, threw out a lower court ruling, and noted four dissents to the ruling. What the court did not do was explain why the majority chose to rule the way it did or detail how its edict should be carried out. Although typical of orders on the court’s emergency docket, the result created a wash of disagreement over what compliance with the ruling meant and if Texas would abide by it.
“Everybody will use a court decision that says nothing, like the Texas order, to say whatever they want to say,” Eric Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University, said in a phone call. “Even when the court explains itself, the American public has a hard time getting it right. But when they don’t explain themselves, those dangers are multiplied 10 times.”
For state Senator Roland Gutierrez, Texas had fallen into noncompliance territory.
“Greg Abbott is actively defying a ruling by the United States Supreme Court,” Gutierrez wrote on X. “This is not how the law works, you cannot ignore rulings you disagree with. Abbott, Cruz, and Texas Republicans must be stopped. We cannot allow this charade to move forward any longer.”
Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas School of Law, said Abbott hadn’t actually done anything to defy the court since the justices didn’t tell Texas to do anything. Rather, the justices merely allowed border patrol to cut concertina wire without preventing Texas from installing more.
“All that #SCOTUS did on Monday was allow federal officials to remove razor wire along the border.” Vladeck wrote. “There’s no way Abbott *could* defy that ruling — even if he wanted to. His ‘invasion’ claim is posturing with an eye toward future judicial rulings; not a thumb in the eye of this one.”
The Biden administration fell somewhere in the middle of those two positions. In a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Department of Homeland Security said the high court restored the government’s right to cut and remove concertina wire placed by Texas. As the letter continues, it said DHS must also have access to the border in Shelby Park, an area currently being occupied by Texas National Guard troops.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre would not directly say Texas had or had not violated the court’s order, stating instead that Abbott was making it harder for Border Patrol to do its job.
“[Border Patrol] need access, and right now, they don’t have that,” Jean-Pierre said in a press briefing. “It’s under the Constitution of the United States that federal law is the supreme law of the land and any conflicting state is preempted. That’s the law.”
Texas’ response to the court’s order focused less on what the justices said and more on the Biden administration. The state claims it is under invasion and therefore has the right to self-defense. Texas argues its authority in this realm is supreme to any federal statutes.
This is not the first time the court’s unexplained orders from the emergency docket — sometimes called the shadow docket — have caught the ire of court watchers. It does, however, provide a demonstration of the results of those decisions.
“They could have issued an opinion saying the circuit court order is vacated, and we hereby direct that the state of Texas or any other state not interfere with the federal government’s decision to do whatever it wants to do at the border,” Segall said. “They could have said that. They should have said that and that would have ended everything.”
If the Biden administration did think Texas had defied an order from the Supreme Court, it would have to be the one to enforce the ruling. The justices themselves are relegated to fighting their battles with pen and paper, but the federal government has National Guard troops at its disposal.
A similar situation played out in response to the court’s ruling in Brown v. Board in 1957 when nine Black students attempted to attend Little Rock Central High School. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus ordered the state’s National Guard to block the students from entering the building. President Dwight Eisenhower was forced to federalize the National Guard and send U.S. Army troops to guard the nine students as they attended class.
That history is not lost on Abbott, who in an interview with Fox News suggested he was prepared for such an outcome.
“If Joe Biden federalized our National Guard, that would be the biggest political blunder that he could make and that’s why I think he will not do it,” Abbott said. “That said, of course, I am prepared in the event that they do make such a blunder to make sure that Texas will be able to continue to secure our border.”
from Courthouse News
Monday, January 22, 2024
Why are states like Alabama, which is planning to use nitrogen gas, exploring new execution methods?
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An Alabama execution Thursday that would be the first to use nitrogen gas is the result of a long history of problems with lethal injections since Texas first used the method in 1982, including difficulties finding usable veins and obtaining the necessary drugs.
Here’s a look at some of the issues death penalty states across the country are facing and why some, including Alabama, are considering alternative methods.
WHAT HAPPENED IN ALABAMA?
Alabama tried but failed to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith by lethal injection in 2022 for his role in the 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of a preacher’s wife.
The Alabama Department of Corrections called off the execution when the team could not get the required two intravenous lines connected to Smith. Officials then tried a central line, which involves a catheter placed into a large vein, but were unable to complete the process before the death warrant expired.
It’s not the first time Alabama has had difficulties establishing an IV line with a deadline looming.
In another scheduled execution in 2022, prison officials poked Alan Eugene Miller with needles for more than an hour trying to find a vein, and at one point left him hanging vertically on a gurney before state officials made the decision to call off the execution.
In that case, Alabama agreed not to use lethal injection to put Miller to death and any future effort to execute him will use nitrogen hypoxia.
WHY ARE STATES PROPOSING NEW EXECUTION METHODS?
Numerous other states that use lethal injection have encountered various problems with the execution method, including difficulty finding usable veins, needles becoming disengaged or problems sourcing or using the lethal chemicals.
“They’ve tried to fix lethal injection … and they haven’t been able to,” said Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University and an expert in execution methods. “The same thing happened with electrocution. It’s just sort of this continuing theme of pushing to get executions no matter the cost involved, and that did propel this change to nitrogen gas.”
In Oklahoma in 2014, condemned inmate Clayton Lockett writhed, clenched his teeth and attempted to lift himself up from the gurney after he had been declared unconscious when the state used a new drug, the sedative midazolam, in its three-drug method. Although prison officials attempted to halt the execution, Lockett was declared dead 43 minutes after the procedure began.
An investigation later revealed that a single IV line into Lockett’s groin, which was covered by a sheet, came loose and the lethal chemicals were injected into the tissue surrounding the injection site instead of directly into the bloodstream.
In Ohio in 2006, Joseph Clark’s lethal injection was stalled while prison technicians located a suitable vein, which then collapsed and Clark’s arm began to swell. Clark raised his head and said: “It don’t work. It don’t work.” Technicians ultimately found another vein, but Clark wasn’t pronounced dead until nearly 90 minutes after the process started.
Nitrogen gas isn’t the only method states are exploring. South Carolina passed a law allowing a firing squad in 2021, prompted by an inability to obtain lethal injection drugs. The state developed protocols and was preparing to use the firing squad before a legal challenge that it and the electric chair are cruel and unconstitutional. Firing squad hasn’t been used as an execution method in the U.S. since Utah in 2010, but five states currently authorize it.
Electrocution, hanging and other forms of lethal gas also remain on the books in several death penalty states.
WHAT ARE THE ISSUES WITH LETHAL INJECTION DRUGS?
Many states have had difficulty obtaining the lethal chemicals used to carry out executions. Manufacturers of many of the drugs have prohibited the use of their products being used to carry out executions or stopped manufacturing them altogether, leading many states to go to great lengths to shield their source of the drugs.
Before Oklahoma secured a source of the sedative midazolam in 2020 for its three-drug lethal injection method, the state was planning to resume executions using nitrogen gas after the prisons director said he was being forced to deal with “seedy individuals” who may have had access to them.
“I was calling all around the world, to the back streets of the Indian subcontinent,” Joe Allbaugh, then the head Oklahoma’s prison system, said at the time.
WHAT ABOUT NITROGEN HYPOXIA?
Nitrogen hypoxia is a proposed execution method that would force the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, depriving him or her of the oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions.
No state has used nitrogen hypoxia to carry out a death sentence. In 2018, Alabama became the third state — along with Oklahoma and Mississippi — to authorize the use of nitrogen gas to execute prisoners.
__
By SEAN MURPHY Associated Press
from Courthouse News
Richard Glossip will get Supreme Court review of innocence claims
WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to review an appeal from Richard Glossip, an Oklahoma man facing execution for a murder-for-hire plot conviction the state no longer defends.
The court has been considering some of Glossip’s many petitions for review for over a year. Its decision to hear the appeal marks the second time the high court will hear from Glossip in his fight to avoid execution for a crime he says he did not commit. Last year Oklahoma joined Glossip’s effort, stating it no longer defended his conviction.
Now the justices will decide if the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals erred in upholding his conviction.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the decision to hear the case.
During his 25 years on death row, Glossip has had his last meal three times. Only Supreme Court intervention last year stopped that number from climbing to four.
Throughout it all, Glossip has maintained his innocence. A 400-page independent review commissioned by state lawmakers found his claims were likely truthful and Oklahoma even begged the justices not to force them to do the “unthinkable” and follow through with his execution earlier this year. Even proponents of the death penalty have sided with Glossip, arguing executing an innocent man would shift their views on the punishment.
However, Glossip still sits on death row because the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals refused to accept the state’s determination that his conviction was unsustainable.
Glossip faces execution for his connection to the murder of his former employer, Barry Van Treese. At the time, Glossip worked as a manager at the Best Budget Inn property Van Treese owned in Oklahoma City.
Van Treese was murdered after Justin Sneed bludgeoned him in a room at the hotel. Sneed, who was addicted to methamphetamine, also stole thousands of dollars from Van Treese’s car.
A week after the murder, police arrested Sneed and Glossip. Investigators told Sneed they knew he committed the murder, but they thought he had help. Officers repeatedly brought up Glossip during their interview with Sneed. Detectives asked if Glossip was the mastermind behind the murder, asking, “Rich is trying to save himself by saying that you’re in this by yourself.”
Following the detectives’ leading questions, Sneed changed his story to claim Glossip told him to rob Van Treese, but not murder him. Sneed, however, would change his story again, claiming Glossip asked him to kill Van Treese.
After dropping charges against him for allegedly trying to cover up the murder, police instead arrested Glossip as Sneed’s co-defendant.
Oklahoma agreed to drop the death penalty if Glossip confessed. Sneed, who was given the same offer, agreed where Glossip did not. Sneed’s deal also included testifying against Glossip.
Sneed’s testimony was the only evidence connecting Glossip to Van Treese’s murder. A jury convicted him of the murder-for-hire plot in 1998 and the ruling was affirmed.
During one of his many appeals, Glossip was able to prove his first attorney failed to provide him with a minimal defense in 2000. His second trial, however, would be tainted by the police department.
An investigation uncovered the destruction of evidence by a 28-year veteran on the force at the direction of the district attorney’s office. The police department destroyed key evidence — including potentially exculpatory documents — in the case prior to Glossip’s second trial.
Prosecutors also interfered in the second trial, altering Sneed’s testimony when it diverged from the facts of the state’s case against Glossip. The defense attorney would not hear of the changes to Sneed’s testimony until decades later. They would also discover Sneed tried to recant his testimony.
Glossip’s second trial also ended with a death sentence.
Information about prosecution and police department interference was not the only evidence recently discovered by Glossip’s lawyers. A final box of evidence recovered only months ago included information about Sneed’s serious psychiatric disorder — a condition he possessed while testifying against Glossip. Sneed had claimed he was not seeing a psychiatrist at the time.
The mounting evidence against Glossip’s conviction led Oklahoma’s attorney general to file a motion to vacate in April. Despite this, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals upheld his conviction and the state pardon and parole board rejected his clemency request.
In May of this year, Glossip asked the Supreme Court to pause his execution in a rare unopposed emergency application.
Death penalty appeals are rarely successful at the Supreme Court. Legal experts specializing in this area say this is because of the long journey it takes cases to make it up to the justices. Often they exhaust appeal opportunities prior to new evidence being uncovered.
The Supreme Court recently ruled that when considering ineffective assistance claims, federal courts cannot consider new evidence outside of what is presented in state court.
from Courthouse News
Thursday, January 18, 2024
Former NRA lobbyist was ‘disgusted’ by Wayne LaPierre’s spending habits
MANHATTAN (CN) — A former top lobbyist for the National Rifle Association said Thursday that he was “disgusted” to learn that the group’s longtime CEO Wayne LaPierre put more than $250,000 in luxury clothing expenses on the NRA’s tab.
Christopher Cox was once viewed as the likely successor to LaPierre. He ran the NRA’s lobbying arm, the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) from 2002 to 2019. During that time, he was effectively second-in-command behind LaPierre, and was one of the most recognizable faces at the NRA.
But on Thursday, Cox testified against his former employer in New York’s civil case against LaPierre and the NRA. New York Attorney General Letitia James is accusing LaPierre of using the NRA as his own “personal piggy bank,” drawing funds from various arms of the nonprofit to back personal expenses.
Cox on Thursday recalled discovering that LaPierre was running expenses through the ILA. As the ILA’s executive director, he asked a peer to review those expenses. He was denied.
“Nobody sees those,” Cox claimed he was told.
LaPierre’s errant spending habits created an “unhealthy” relationship with the NRA’s outside PR firm, the Oklahoma-based Ackerman McQueen, Cox claimed. LaPierre is accused of using Ackerman McQueen to book flights, vacations and other personal expenses, then paying them back using the NRA’s donor money.
“I believe it was untouchable and unhealthy,” Cox said of LaPierre’s unquestioned relationship with the firm.
Cox claimed that he routinely clashed with Ackerman McQueen over the firm’s work with the NRA. At the time, he said he couldn’t understand why LaPierre was so steadfast in backing their projects, which Cox called “arrogant” and “tone-deaf.”
“I thought Ackerman McQueen was not strategic in their messaging,” Cox told the court. “I thought they overcharged for the product they were delivering… I don’t think anyone battled with that agency more than I did.”
When Cox voiced these concerns, he said LaPierre shut them down vehemently.
“I’ve only heard Wayne LaPierre use profanity twice,” Cox said, claiming that both were times that he questioned Ackerman McQueen’s work.
Cox and LaPerre didn’t always see eye-to-eye when it came to strategy. Seven years before he resigned, Cox reportedly urged the NRA to take a subtler approach to gun advocacy following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. LaPierre opted for a different route and pushed for armed security guards in schools.
“I didn’t always agree,” Cox testified, which he said was okay at the time. “But I started to have questions and growing concerns, particularly over the final two years, that ultimately led to my departure in 2019.”
Cox said the lack of financial compliance started to bother him. He said he was unsettled to learn of LaPierre’s yacht trips and vacations from NRA vendor David McKenzie.
“It’s inappropriate to accept things of value from vendors,” Cox said.
He added that he knew LaPierre tended to fly private. Despite the defense’s claims that LaPierre did so for safety, Cox didn’t buy it.
“I think this was something that was not necessary for the betterment of the NRA,” Cox said.
But in 2019, reports started to circulate that LaPierre had billed more than $250,000 in luxury clothing to the NRA.
“It was one of the final straws for me,” Cox said. “I was floored. I was extremely disgusted.”
Cox claimed that he drafted his letter of resignation that same morning.
“I was tired of the infighting,” he said. “I was tired of just the overall chaos.”
Before he officially resigned, Cox was placed on administrative leave over accusations that he was attempting a coup against LaPierre. Cox said he was “devastated.”
“I was so pissed off,” Cox said. “I never had any intention of running against Wayne LaPierre. It was absurd.”
Cox said that, initially, he did expect to eventually replace LaPierre. As their relationship soured, however, Cox said that those aspirations waned.
“He kept saying, ‘You’re the future of the organization, you’re going to take over,’” Cox said.
LaPierre was largely responsible for moving the NRA farther to the political right. Prior to his leadership, the organization was not inherently a political one, and focused more on general gun safety and advocacy. Cox said he hoped to make the organization less polarizing if given the reins.
“I was not going to go out and throw red meat underserved to the American people,” he said Thursday. “I thought I could do it in a way that was not so controversial.”
But LaPierre didn’t resign until earlier this month, more than four years after Cox left and just days before the civil corruption trial was set to begin. Cox now runs his own government consulting firm out of Alexandria, Virginia. He’ll return to the witness stand on Friday to finish his testimony.
from Courthouse News
Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Biden brings congressional leaders to White House at pivotal time for Ukraine aid and US border deal
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has convened top congressional leaders at the White House to press for his $110 billion national security package at a pivotal time as senators narrow on a landmark immigration deal that could unlock the stalled aid to Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies.
The sit down with Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate leaders, including the chairmen of influential national security committees, could make or break the political trade-off that has been simmering for weeks as lawmakers have failed, so far, to reach a compromise over Biden’s broader aid package.
Ahead of the meeting, Johnson, in a first big test of his new speakership, said he needs to see “transformative” changes to restrict the record number of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border as part of any deal for the overseas wars.
“I will tell the president that I’ve been seeing it consistently since the moment I was handed the gavel,” said Johnson, R-La.
“The border is a catastrophe. It has to be addressed. And you’re gonna see House Republicans standing and fighting on that Hill,” he said.
Biden is convening the lawmakers at the start of an election year when border security and the wars abroad are punctuating the race for the White House as he faces a potential rematch against Republican Donald Trump with control of the presidency and Congress all at stake.
It comes as Congress is about to quickly approve temporary funding to avoid a government shutdown, postponing the annual spending battles, but as the supplemental aid package sits undone during the immigration and border talks.
The White House called the meeting with lawmakers — including Johnson, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., — to focus on Biden’s national security supplemental request, and particularly the need to help Ukraine.
“Today’s meeting is about Ukraine,” said White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. “That’s what we’re going to focus on in this discussion.”
Biden, a longtime leader in U.S. foreign policy, finds himself confronting a new generation of Republican lawmakers who have little interest in engaging abroad or supporting vast American military aid or actions around the world.
Led by Trump, the former president who is the GOP’s front-runner for the nomination, a growing number of the Republicans in Congress are particularly hostile to helping Ukraine fight Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who along with U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met this week with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in Davos, said Washington is determined to keep supporting Ukraine, and “we’re working very closely with Congress in order to do that.”
Ahead of the meeting, McConnell announced the package could be ready for a vote as soon as next week, and Schumer sounded a similarly optimistic note — though negotiations continue.
Johnson, since taking the gavel in October, signaled he personally believes in supporting Ukraine as it works to expel Russia. He met privately with Zelenskyy during the Ukrainian president’s whirlwind tour of Washington last month seeking aid before the year-end holidays.
But the speaker leads an ambivalent House GOP majority that wants to extract its own priorities on the U.S.-Mexico border in exchange for any overseas support.
The speaker has insisted any border security deal must align with the House-passed strict border security bill. He told lawmakers in a private meeting over the weekend that they could probably get their priorities enacted with a Republican president, though the speaker did not mean that to preclude not taking action now, said a Republican leadership aide familiar with the call.
But senators, even fellow Republicans, say the House approach is a nonstarter that would never find the bipartisan backing in both chambers needed for approval.
Instead, a core group of senators led by Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma has been meeting privately for weeks with Biden’s top advisers, including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, to develop a border security package that could actually be signed into law.
Lankford told reporters late Tuesday that he hopes to prepare bill text as negotiations try to wrap up soon.
McConnell told GOP senators privately last week they should take the deal Lankford is producing, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss the closed meeting.
“This is a unique moment in time,” said the No. 2 Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota.
“It’s an opportunity to get some really conservative border policy that we haven’t been able to get for 40 years,” he said. “And so we’ll see. I mean, it may or may not happen, but I think you got to take a run at it.”
The broader security package includes about $60 billion for Ukraine, which is mainly used to purchase U.S. weaponry to fight the war and to shore up its own government operations, along with some $14.5 billion for Israel, about $14 billion for border security and additional funds for other security needs.
Biden opened the door to a broader U.S.-Mexico border security package late last year and the changes being discussed could be difficult for some Democrats who oppose strict restrictions on immigration.
Schumer said negotiations over the border security package have made progress in recent weeks and he was “hopeful that things are headed in the right direction.”
Schumer said he expects the meeting with Biden will reinforce that the national security package is urgent and “any agreement on an issue as complex and contentious as the border is going to have to have support from both sides of the aisle.”
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By LISA MASCARO and SEUNG MIN KIM Associated Press
Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Farnoush Amiri and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
from Courthouse News
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