Waiting on the Supreme Court
23 cases left as Justices are behind schedule
Also in today’s edition of ‘Regular Order’ for June 20, 2024:
GOP lawmakers call for vote to reverse Jan. 6 committee findings.
Senate Dems meet about Trump tax cuts phase out.
Good: It may take weeks for a final primary result
SUPREME COURT. We know there are 23 cases left on the docket at the U.S. Supreme Court for the 2023-24 term. But when the Justices convene at 10 am today, we have no idea how many decisions will be released, or when the Court will wrap up its work. There could be some heavyweight decisions released today, tomorrow - or maybe next week.
WHAT'S LEFT. One of the biggest cases to be decided is obviously the question of immunity from prosecution for former President Donald Trump. The very slow work of the Supreme Court has delayed his Jan. 6 trial, which was originally scheduled to start back in March - now it seems unlikely to happen this year.
MAR-A-LAGO. Trump continues to lobby the Court from afar. "If immunity is not granted to a President, every President that leaves office will be immediately indicted by the opposing party," Trump wrote on his Truth Social website earlier this week.
TIMING. It has been nearly two months since the Supreme Court heard arguments in the Trump case. Democrats grumble that the Supreme Court's delay in issuing a ruling is only helping Trump avoid justice in this election year. We'll see if something happens today.
VIRGINIA. The GOP primary involving Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) remains too close to call, with Good behind by over 300 votes to John McGuire - who had the backing of Donald Trump. A final tally is expected by Friday, as counties must count any provisional ballots and wait for mail ballots which were postmarked by Tuesday.
GOOD. "We believe we can still prevail," Good said Wednesday. "We are asking for full transparency from the officials involved and patience from the people of the 5th District over the coming weeks as the certification of results is completed." (Note that Good said, “coming weeks.”)
VICTORY. Meanwhile, McGuire was simply acting like he had already been declared the winner. "I look forward to working with Trump to beat Joe Biden in November," McGuire tweeted. "There are still a few votes left to count, but it’s clear that all paths end with a victory."
CONGRESS. Some of Good's colleagues celebrated his apparent political demise. "This victory shows just how toxic Bob Good has been to the Republican Party," said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who has been attacking Good for months for not being sufficiently loyal to Donald Trump.
DEFENSE SPENDING. The House is out this week, but lawmakers faced several deadlines to file amendments for a trio of government funding bills expected on the House floor next week. Today is the deadline for the bill which funds the Pentagon - and one would expect that will draw a lot of amendments.
PENTAGON. This bill would give the military $833 billion for FY 2025, a 1 percent ($8 billion) increase over current funding levels. That was the limit set by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the two-year budget deal agreed to by President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (overall, it is basically a budget freeze).
BOOST. As I reported earlier this week, there is bipartisan pressure in the Senate to add $25 billion to the defense budget for 2025 - but some Democrats are demanding that extra money also be added for non-defense programs, a move which Republicans have resisted. (It’s a good example of why deficits keep growing.)
JAN. 6. Several Republicans are pressing House GOP leaders to allow a vote on a plan in coming weeks which declares the special Jan. 6 committee 'illegitimate,' rescinds the subpoenas approved by that panel, and erases contempt of Congress findings against a series of Trump aides and allies.
GOP. "Before the January 6th Committee was even established, Democrats had already determined what would be the Committee’s conclusion – that President Trump and his advisors were to blame for anything that took place on Jan. 6," said Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO).
QRM. This move is part of a broader GOP effort in Congress to run interference for Trump against the Jan. 6 probe. Republicans have been trying their best to undermine the findings of the special panel, declaring it a 'partisan exercise from the beginning.'
TAPES. But those efforts really haven’t changed anything. Just look at the Jan. 6 security tapes which are being released by the GOP. They show exactly what happened - Trump supporters rioting, attacking police, and breaking into the Capitol. It wasn’t Antifa or the feds.
MEMBERS. As I noted earlier this week, Republicans may not like it, but Speaker Pelosi had the power in the rules - just like Speaker Johnson has right now - to name all members of the special Jan. 6 committee. It was highly unusual for her to reject the GOP choices of Kevin McCarthy, but it was allowed in the rules.
TAX LAW. In Wednesday's newsletter, I mentioned how a tax increase is baked into federal law starting in 2026, after all sorts of individual tax cuts expire which were signed into law by Donald Trump when he was President. Both parties are already talking about how best to handle that situation.
TODAY. Senate Democrats will have a meeting today to start thinking about what changes they might want in the tax code. "This is the first of what will be a discussion on key kinds of issues," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who chairs the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee.
DEMS. It's no secret where Democrats stand on the Trump tax cuts. "It was basically a big set of breaks for billionaires and multinational corporations," Wyden told reporters, calling the law 'deeply flawed.'
SCENARIO. This reminds me of when the Bush tax cuts expired - with the so-called ‘fiscal cliff.’ After a lot of posturing, lawmakers struck a deal to keep the tax cuts for lower and middle income Americans, but raised taxes on high income earners. No matter who wins in 2024, this will be a big deal in 2025.
CRUZIN. A Congressional staff faux pas by someone with ties to the office of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) turned into a question of free speech this week in the Capitol, as one of my colleagues stumbled on a treasure trove of inside information, and then found his tweets about it blocked.
SNACK STOP. It all started in the Refectory, a little coffee shop on the Senate side of the Capitol, located just a few steps from where Trump supporters first broke down windows and doors to get into the building on Jan. 6.
FOLDER. Someone left a folder - containing all sorts of fundraising briefing materials for Cruz - and reporter Pablo Manríquez found it. "Someone, presumably a staffer, left a folder full of briefing documents on TED CRUZ donors in the Senate Refectory," Pablo tweeted.
DEETS. Manríquez then started tweeting out the details of Cruz's dinner plans in D.C. that night, his planned stops on Wednesday in New York to raise money, who Cruz was meeting with and where. Pablo's tweets were soon blocked. "This Post violated the X Rules," it read on seven different posts.
SOCIAL MEDIA. The episode was a reminder that there is no such thing as 'free speech' when you are posting on a social media site. Would 'X' react the same way if Pablo had been posting a fundraising folder for a Senate Democrat? It’s an intriguing question. We don't know the answer.
SENATE. After a day off on Wednesday for Juneteenth, the Senate is back for two nomination votes today. Maybe the biggest question in the halls of the Capitol was a simple one - how many Senators will show up?
VOTES. The first vote at 11:30 am is on the U.S. Representative to the African Union. The second at 1:45 pm is a cloture vote to shut off debate on a federal appeals court nomination. Missing both of those wouldn't be a big deal.
SKYDIVE. Earlier this month, a group of lawmakers did a skydiving jump in France to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. On Tuesday, yet another House member jumped out of a plane over North Carolina - but for much different reasons.
NICKEL. "I went flying for fair maps!" said Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-NC), who used his jump to press for creation of nonpartisan, independent redistricting commissions. "I skydived from 10,000 ft to call out the need for fair maps and an end to gerrymandering in NC."
ONE TERM. Nickel was just elected in 2022. But after North Carolina Republicans gerrymandered the heck out of the Congressional map - he decided not to run for reelection, knowing that he couldn't win in what was intentionally drawn as a GOP seat.
TAR HEEL. How effective was that GOP power play in the North Carolina state legislature? The current delegation from the Tar Heel state is split 7-7. Three of those seven Democrats decided not to run for reelection because of the new map. The GOP is favored to win all three seats in November.
RAP SHEET. A couple from Florida who went to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 has been arrested and hit with four criminal charges. "I can not convince people or my family that the Government, the Capitol Police and the Media are LYING TO THE NATION," Richard and Eugenia Inks posted on Facebook about the Jan. 6 attack.
FACEBOOK. After 9/11, we often talked about how Islamic terrorists had been 'radicalized' on the internet. After reading through the January 2021 Facebook posts of the Inks - this may be one of the best examples I’ve seen of how Trump supporters were 'radicalized' by Trump's lies about fraud in the 2020 election.
JAN. 7. "We were there and it was not the Trump supporters that were tearing up things," the Inks posted. "There are videos showing up everywhere of antifa dressed as Trump supporters being bused in and allowed into Congress."
MUSE OF HISTORY. June 20, 1878. It was a messy end to the 45th Congress on this date, as lawmakers worked all night to finish their work. "The arduous labors of the session are closed," said Speaker Samuel Randall as the House and Senate finally adjourned at 7 am. A late effort to pay House clerks and messengers through July 31 - who were not on annual salaries - was blocked. "There is not enough money in the contingent fund to pay them," said Rep. John Atkins of Tennessee.
LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM:
The House is back for votes on June 25.
The Senate convenes at 10 am.
Check President Biden’s schedule.
Follow me on Twitter @jamiedupree.
Email me at jamiedupree@substack.com
If you want to say ‘thanks’ - you can buy me a cup of coffee.
Jan 6 - well I sure would like to see those videos of the antifa folks being bussed in. If they’re “everywhere” why can’t I find them?
"I can not convince people or my family that the Government, the Capitol Police and the Media are LYING TO THE NATION," Richard and Eugenia Inks posted on Facebook about the Jan. 6 attack.
There’s a reason for that, Richard and Eugenia. 🤦♂️