Buck’s early departure at first blush seems carefully calculated to keep Lauren Boebert from becoming his successor in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District on the eastern plains. She landed in the district as a carpetbagger after almost losing to a Democrat in Colorado’s 3rd District on the Western Slope two years ago.

The evidence of such motive would be Buck’s criticism of election deniers — of which Boebert is most assuredly one — and this tweet after the 2022 State of the Union calling Boebert a “joker” after she heckled President Joe Biden:

TGIF…

— Rep. Ken Buck (@RepKenBuck)

Whether this truly is a blow to Boebert depends on what voters in CD4 make of the confusing ballots they will receive on June 25 for both the Republican primary and a general special election. Boebert has said she won’t seek the nomination of the CD4 Republican Central Committee to appear on the ballot for the special election, but she is still in the running for the primary. Who the Republican Central Committee selects will likely get a bump in the primary as his or her name will appear alone with a Democrat for the special election. Would voters be predisposed to vote for the same Republican candidate on both for the sake of continuity? Maybe. In a way it’s almost like having a Central Committee endorsement get sent out with the primary ballots.

So, did Buck leave just to make things harder for Boebert? Far more likely is that this is one of Buck’s classic moves of “protest.” Much like when he supported the first ouster of a sitting speaker of the House, Buck’s decision to resign early is purely a wrench in the gears of a system he has railed against since first taking office and writing a tell-all book “Drain the Swamp,” exposing the dirty side of perpetual fundraising and glad-handing by representatives.

Buck’s protest votes often come with high-minded words but, ironically, sometimes work in the opposite direction he intends.

When he voted to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, he said it was because McCarthy cut deals with Democrats that increased the unsustainable deficit in this country. That vote, however, helped put in power someone in cahoots with President Donald Trump, who was part of the scheme to keep Trump in office after he lost the 2020 election. Buck had previously said he would not support an election denier for the role … but here we are, several months into Speaker Mike Johnson’s rule.

Buck voted against the impeachments of Trump — even as he condemned Jan. 6 and called for justice against the Capitol’s attackers — because “This botched impeachment only fans the flames of an already out of control fire. Furthermore, we must open an investigation and hold congressional hearings to determine culpability.”

But where was Buck during the hearings run by Rep. Liz Cheney? He said leadership didn’t want him on the committee. And sure, he opposed the vote to oust her from leadership within the House, but he testified against her diligent work on the Jan. 6 Committee during the Colorado trial to label Trump as an insurrectionist unqualified to be president.

“It didn’t seem to me that the process was set up in a way that would elicit the whole truth in those hearings,” Buck said in court, giving credence to Trump’s lawyers as they attempted to discredit the damning report.

Does Buck believe what’s in the report or doesn’t he?

He believes it. He released a video in early November when he announced he would not seek re-election to a sixth term, calling out Republicans who were attempting to undermine the convictions of Jan. 6 attackers.

“Republican leaders are lying to America, claiming that the 2020 election was stolen, describing January 6 as an unguided tour of the Capitol, and asserting that the ensuing prosecutions are a weaponization of our justice system … These insidious narratives breed widespread cynicism and erode Americans confidence in the rule of law,” he said in the video.

Confused yet?

Buck railed against the ridiculous attempt to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, calling it an abuse of procedural processes over policy, not impeachable offenses, but then turned around and introduced a resolution calling for Biden’s cabinet to remove him using the 25th Amendment based on the report by Special Counsel Robert Hur questioning Biden’s mental fitness.

So, how will the history books classify U.S. Rep. Ken Buck? Is he more like Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney, speaking truth to power as he fights back against Donald Trump’s big lie? Or is he more like Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell, blowing whichever way the winds of Trump’s fortunes seem to be faring with a shameless lack of principle and fortitude?

I do think Buck is trying to do the right thing. He’s vacillating between worlds where he is gravely concerned about the possibility of America’s collapse under $33 trillion of debt and where he fears America’s collapse under Trump’s ongoing assault on our republic, our democracy and our Constitution.

Wherever he lands after his resignation, I hope he’ll continue to use his voice to sound warning bells about the fiscal cliff America is rapidly rushing toward and the grave threat Trump’s brand of extremism poses to this country.

It’ll be easier to do both simultaneously while not worried about re-election.

Megan Schrader is the editor of The Denver Post opinion pages.

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Between 2010 and 2020, the fastest-growing states — places such as Texas, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and South Carolina. During the pandemic that trend accelerated, and once again, most of the big population-gaining states are governed by Republicans.

If you go back further, you see decade after decade of migration toward the more conservative South. Brookings Institution demographer William Frey has noted that in 1920, the Northeast and the Midwest accounted for 60% of America’s population. A century later, the Sun Belt accounts for 62% of the nation’s population. These days, we are mostly a Sun Belt nation.

Why are these red states growing so rapidly? The short answer is that they are more pro-business. In , Mark Perry compared the top 10 states people were flocking to in 2021 with the top 10 states people were flocking from.

The places they are flocking to have lower taxes. The 10 states that saw the biggest population gains have an average maximum income tax of 3.8%. The 10 states with the biggest population loss have an 8% average rate.

The growing states also have fewer restrictions on home construction. That contributes to lower housing prices. The median home price in those 10 population-gaining states is an average of 23% less than that of the 10 biggest population-losing states.

Perry goes down a range of other factors and concludes that Americans are moving away from blue states with high energy costs, Byzantine regulatory regimes and unfriendly business climates. They are moving to economically vibrant red states with lower costs, more conservative fiscal policies and more job opportunities.

Fifty years ago, few would have predicted that the American South would emerge as an economic dynamo — and that people would be flocking to places such as South Carolina and Tennessee, but it¶¶Òőap happening.

So, can we tell a simple story here: Republican policies work, Democratic policies don’t?

Well, not quite. When you look inside the red states at where the growth is occurring, you notice immediately that the dynamism is not mostly in the red parts of the red states. The growth is in the metro areas — which are often blue cities in red states. A study from the LBJ Urban Lab, for example, found that Austin, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth accounted for 71% of the jobs created in Texas in 2019.

Edward Glaeser, a Harvard economist who studies cities, provided me with data that showed which cities enjoyed rapid employment growth between 2019 and 2021. They tended to be from warmer parts of the country, an all-star team of Sun Belt blue cities: Austin; Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina; Miami; Nashville, Tennessee; Tampa, Florida; and Phoenix. Republicans may be proud that many of their states are growing, but Austin is not CPAC’s utopia.

If you look at these success stories you see they are actually the product of a red-blue mash-up. Republicans at the state level provide the general business climate, but Democrats at the local level influence the schools, provide many social services and create a civic atmosphere that welcomes diversity and attracts highly educated workers.

Very often, conservative state authorities are at war with the more liberal city authorities over things such as minimum wage laws and LGBTQ rights. But, at least for right now, the red-blue mash-up seems to work.

So, if this is the formula that produces a dynamic and cosmopolitan society, where is the political party that is conservative-leaning on business matters and more liberal-leaning on things such as education, immigration and workforce development?

Where is the party that stands for the policy blend that manifestly works?

Once upon a time, you could squint and imagine the George W. Bush/Mitt Romney Republican Party morphing in that direction. No longer. The GOP is a working-class populist party that has no interest in nurturing highly educated bobo boom towns. The GOP does everything it can to repel those people — and the Tesla they drove in on.

If you look at Democrats on the coasts, you don’t see much movement in that direction, either. But Democrats have been growing stronger in exactly these growing Southwestern states. Joe Biden became the first Democrat to win Maricopa County (Phoenix) since 1948. Democrats now hold all six of the Senate seats from Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado. They held both seats in Arizona until Kyrsten Sinema went independent.

As the Democratic Party becomes more and more the party of the college-educated voters and as the Republicans become more the party of white working-class voters, Democratic prospects in the upper Midwest get worse. But Democratic prospects in the Southwestern growth areas get better. It would not surprise me if a different kind of Democrat emerged from these areas.

We know the policy mix that creates a dynamic society. We just don’t yet have a party that wants to promote it.

David Brooks has been a columnist with The Times since 2003. He is the author of “The Road to Character” and, most recently, “The Second Mountain.” @nytdavidbrooks This article originally appeared in .

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And this ended up defining the party’s next presidential nomination contest.

While this could be an apt description of several recent election cycles, I’m actually talking about the Republican Party between 1960 and 1964. The path that would take them from Richard Nixon’s narrow loss in 1960 to Barry Goldwater’s nomination four years later was filled with consequential choices that would affect the party and the nation for generations to come.

After Nixon’s close loss to John Kennedy, Republicans debated among themselves just why that had happened. A great many of the arguments focused on race. More liberal Republicans criticized Nixon for not following Kennedy’s example in calling Coretta Scott King when her husband was jailed in Georgia.

This (among other less symbolic events) was a chance to demonstrate sympathy with Black voters at a key moment when people were paying attention. Baseball legend and active Republican Jackie Robinson urged Nixon to call King, and when Nixon refused, Robinson rued, “Nixon doesn’t deserve to win.” Nixon would go on to win 32% of the Black vote — impressive by today’s standards but actually an eight-point drop from Eisenhower’s performance in 1956.

More conservative voices in the party had an entirely different interpretation of 1960. They felt Nixon had lost because he sounded too much like a Democrat. He had moderated too much on issues like defense, civil rights, and Medicare. They could do better by giving voters more of a choice.

But if the party wanted to make up ground for 1964, it had to make some choices about which segment of the electorate to try to pick off. Should they seek to bolster their standing with Black voters, who had been strong Republican supporters following the Civil War? Or should they reach out to southern whites, who had long voted Democratic but were also deeply conservative on many issues, particularly race?

Many prominent Republicans, including Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, urged the party choose the latter route and “go hunting where the ducks are.” RNC Executive Director John Grenier asked simply, “What are you willing to pay for the South?”

Importantly, not all Republicans agreed with this plan. Nixon himself warned that if they went that route, “our party would eventually become the first major all-white political party. And that isn’t good.” Nelson Rockefeller agreed that “for that Party to turn its back on its [civil rights] heritage and its birthright would be an act of political immorality rarely equaled in human history.”

For a time, the party was truly going in both directions at once, backing initiatives to both reach out to non-white Republicans and also to convert southern white resentment into votes. By the early 60s, though, the RNC was giving far more attention and funding to the latter.

The 1962 midterm elections saw the Republicans pick up five congressional seats in the previously “solid” Democratic south. Many party leaders came to believe that the party’s future lay among southern whites.

This belief infused Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign. His winning the GOP nomination was no small thing; he was hardly the establishment favorite. Instead, he relied on newly empowered groups of conservative activists, especially the Young Republicans. As pro-Goldwater forces took over state party convention delegations through a sophisticated 50-state campaign, they made sure to exclude Black delegates where they could. Georgia’s delegation to the Republican national convention in 1964 was its first all-white delegation in half a century.

In a series of events that should sound very familiar to Americans who watched the nomination contests of 2016, Goldwater marched toward the nomination while other candidates and party leaders were slow to pick up on what Goldwater’s team was doing and failed to counter-mobilize. Rockefeller, Nixon, and others took disorganized swipes at Goldwater. Michigan Governor George Romney jumped in to warn that Goldwater’s nomination would lead to “the suicidal destruction of the Republican Party as an effective instrument in meeting the nation’s needs,” prompting Oregon Governor Mark Hatfield to remark, “George, you’re six months late.”

Even after Goldwater’s nomination, the party showed no signs of turning back. The new chair of the RNC, Dean Burch, said the party would not repudiate the Ku Klux Klan, because “we’re not in the business of turning away votes.” Alabama Governor George Wallace, who had been pursuing a third-party presidential bid to give segregationists a voice, suspended his campaign, saying, “My mission has been accomplished.”

There are obvious parallels to modern times. After Mitt Romney’s loss in 2012, many Republican leaders argued that to win, the party needed to become more diverse and more tolerant of immigrants and people of different backgrounds. Others in the party, especially Donald Trump and his allies, argued that there were more white votes out there for the taking if they would take a stronger stance against immigration and “political correctness.” The 2016 election arguably ratified that viewpoint.

But there’s a key difference between the two eras. In 1964, the electorate overwhelmingly repudiated Goldwater and the Republicans. Lyndon Johnson won the popular vote 61-38, one of the largest landslides in history, claiming all but six states. Such a deep loss didn’t stop the party’s migration toward the white south – Nixon’s more subtle “southern strategy” and Reagan’s campaigning would cement that going forward – but it did delay and moderate it for some time.

In our polarized era, we simply don’t have presidential landslides anymore. No presidential candidate has won the popular vote by double digits since 1984. Basically, every major party candidate is guaranteed to get at least 46% of the vote. This means that no candidate, no party, no strategy, no matter how odious, is ever really repudiated.

This makes a party’s choices even more consequential today. Even when it makes a short-term decision to reach a certain group of voters, the effects of that may be felt for many years to come, regardless of the next election’s outcome.

When prominent conservative leaders and presidential aspirants accuse a Black Supreme Court nominee of being an affirmative action pick and demand the release of her LSAT scores, try to drive any reference to LGBTQ people out of classrooms, claim that Critical Race Theory is destroying America, exaggerate fears of inner city crime, and more, it¶¶Òőap clear what direction they’re trying to steer the party in and whose votes they’re seeking.

But it¶¶Òőap not something they can easily walk back after the election is over. Campaign fears tend to become policy proposals, and some of those become laws. And whether Republicans over- or under-perform this fall’s elections, it won’t be by much, and the party will have gone further in that direction.

Parties make choices. History throws them a set of circumstances to deal with, but how they play that hand is a matter of internal party decisions.

And those decisions aren’t just short-term campaign choices; they will echo for decades to come.

Seth Masket is a professor of political science and director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver.

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Jackson, a 51 year-old appeals court judge with nine years experience on the federal bench, was confirmed 53-47, mostly along party lines but with three Republican votes. Presiding was Vice President Kamala Harris, also the first Black woman to reach that high office.

Jackson will take her seat when Justice Stephen Breyer retires this summer, solidifying the liberal wing of the 6-3 conservative-dominated court. She joined Biden at the White House to watch the vote, embracing as it came in.

During the four days of Senate hearings last month, Jackson spoke of her parents’ struggles through racial segregation and said her “path was clearer” than theirs as a Black American after the enactment of civil rights laws. She attended Harvard University, served as a public defender, worked at a private law firm and was appointed as a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

She told senators she would apply the law “without fear or favor,” and pushed back on Republican attempts to portray her as too lenient on criminals she had sentenced.

Jackson will be just the third Black justice, after Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, and the sixth woman. She will join three other women, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan Amy Coney Barrett – meaning that four of the nine justices will be women for the first time in history.

Her eventual elevation to the court will be a respite for Democrats who fought three bruising battles over former President Donald Trump’s nominees and watched Republicans cement a conservative majority in the final days of Trump’s term with the confirmation of Coney Barrett. While Jackson won’t change the balance, she will secure a legacy on the court for Biden and fulfill his 2020 campaign pledge to nominate the first Black female justice.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said ahead of the vote that Jackson’s confirmation would be a “joyous day — joyous for the Senate, joyous for the Supreme Court, joyous for America.”

Despite the efforts to tarnish her record, Jackson eventually won three GOP votes. The final tally was far from the overwhelming bipartisan confirmations for Breyer and other justices in decades past, but it was still a significant bipartisan accomplishment for Biden in the 50-50 split Senate after GOP senators aggressively worked to paint Jackson as too liberal and soft on crime.

Statements from Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah all said the same thing — they might not always agree with Jackson, but they found her to be enormously well qualified for the job. Collins and Murkowski both decried increasingly partisan confirmation fights, which only worsened during the battles over Trump’s three picks. Collins said the process was “broken” and Murkowski called it “corrosive” and “more detached from reality by the year.”

Biden, a veteran of a more bipartisan Senate, said from the day of Breyer’s retirement announcement in January that he wanted support from both parties for his history-making nominee, and he invited Republicans to the White House as he made his decision. It was an attempted reset from Trump’s presidency, when Democrats vociferously opposed the three nominees, and from the end of President Barack Obama’s, when Republicans blocked nominee Merrick Garland from getting a vote.

Once sworn in, Jackson will be the second youngest member of the court after Barrett, 50. She will join a court on which no one is yet 75, the first time that has happened in nearly 30 years.

Jackson’s first term will be marked by cases involving race, both in college admissions and voting rights. She has pledged to sit out the court¶¶Òőap consideration of Harvard’s admissions program since she is a member of its board of overseers. But the court could split off a second case involving a challenge to the University of North Carolina’s admissions process, which might allow her to weigh in on the issue.

Republicans spent the confirmation hearings strongly questioning her sentencing record, including the sentences she handed down in child pornography cases, which they argued were too light. Jackson declared that “nothing could be further from the truth” and explained her reasoning in detail. Democrats said she was in line with other judges in her decisions.

The GOP questioning in the Judiciary Committee showed the views of many Republicans, though, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said in a floor speech Wednesday that Jackson “never got tough once in this area.”

Democrats criticized the Republicans’ questioning.

“You could try and create a straw man here, but it does not hold,” said New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker at the committee’s vote earlier this week. The panel deadlocked on the nomination 11-11, but the Senate voted to discharge it from committee and moved ahead with her confirmation.

In an impassioned moment during the hearings last month, Booker, who is Black, told Jackson that he felt emotional watching her testify. He said he saw “my ancestors and yours” in her image.

“But don’t worry, my sister,” Booker said. “Don’t worry. God has got you. And how do I know that? Because you’re here, and I know what it¶¶Òőap taken for you to sit in that seat.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans blocked a Democratic attempt Tuesday to begin Senate debate on a $10 billion COVID-19 compromise, pressing to entangle the bipartisan package with an election-year showdown over immigration restrictions that poses a politically uncomfortable fight for Democrats.

A day after Democratic and GOP bargainers reached agreement on providing the money for treatments, vaccines and testing, a Democratic move to push the measure past a procedural hurdle failed 52-47. All 50 Republicans opposed the move, leaving Democrats 13 votes short of the 60 they needed to prevail.

Hours earlier, Republicans said they’d withhold crucial support for the measure unless Democrats agreed to votes on an amendment preventing President Joe Biden from lifting Trump-era curbs on migrants entering the U.S. With Biden polling poorly on his handling of immigration and Democrats divided on the issue, Republicans see a focus on migrants as a fertile line of attack.

“I think there will have to be” an amendment preserving the immigration restrictions “in order to move the bill” bolstering federal pandemic efforts, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters.

At least 10 GOP votes will be needed in the 50-50 Senate for the measure to reach the 60 votes it must have for approval. Republicans could withhold that support until Democrats permit a vote on an immigration amendment.

Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., want Congress to approve the pandemic bill before lawmakers leave in days for a two-week recess. Tuesday’s vote suggested that could be hard.

”This is a potentially devastating vote for every single American who was worried about the possibility of a new variant rearing its nasty head within a few months,” Schumer said after the vote.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “Today’s Senate vote is a step backward for our ability to respond to this virus.”

The new omicron variant, BA.2, is expected to spark a fresh increase in U.S. COVID-19 cases. Around 980,000 Americans and over 6 million people worldwide have died from the disease.

The $10 billion pandemic package is far less than the $22.5 billion Biden initially sought. It also lacks $5 billion Biden wanted to battle the pandemic overseas after the two sides couldn’t agree on budget savings to pay for it, as Republicans demanded.

At least half the bill would finance research and production of therapeutics to treat COVID-19. Money would also be used to buy vaccines and tests and to research new variants.

The measure is paid for by pulling back unspent pandemic funds provided earlier for protecting aviation manufacturing jobs, closed entertainment venues and other programs.

Administration officials have said the government has run out of money to finance COVID-19 testing and treatments for people without insurance, and is running low on money for boosters, free monoclonal antibody treatments and care for people with immune system weaknesses.

At the 2020 height of the pandemic, President Donald Trump imposed immigration curbs letting authorities immediately expel asylum seekers and migrants for public health reasons. The ban is set to expire May 23, triggering what by all accounts will be a massive increase in people trying to cross the Mexican border into the U.S.

That confronts Democrats with messy choices ahead of fall elections when they’re expected to struggle to retain their hair-breadth House and Senate majorities.

Many of the party’s lawmakers and their liberal supporters want the U.S. to open its doors to more immigrants. But moderates and some Democrats confronting tight November reelections worry about lifting the restrictions and alienating centrist voters.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., who faces a competitive reelection this fall, declined to say whether she would support retaining the Trump-era ban but said more needs to be done.

“I need a plan, we need a plan,” she said in a brief interview. “There’s going to be a surge at the border. There should be a plan and I’ve been calling for it all along.”

Shortly before Tuesday’s vote, Schumer showed no taste for exposing his party to a divisive immigration vote.

“This is a bipartisan agreement that does a whole lot of important good for the American people. Vaccines, testing, therapeutics,” he said. “It should not be held hostage for an extraneous issue.”

Jeff Zients, head of White House COVID-19 task force, expressed the same view.

“This should not be included on any funding bill,” he said of immigration. “The decision should be made by the CDC. That’s where it has been, and that’s where it belongs.”

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which initiated the move two years ago, said earlier this month that it would lift the ban next month. The restrictions, known as Title 42, have been harder to justify as pandemic restrictions have eased.

Trump administration officials cast the curb as a way to keep COVID-19 from spreading further in the U.S. Democrats considered that an excuse for Trump, whose anti-immigrant rhetoric was a hallmark of his presidency, to keep migrants from entering the country.

Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., said she supported terminating Trump’s curb and questioned GOP motives for seeking to reinstate it.

“I find it very ironic for those who haven’t wanted to have a vaccination mandate, for those who did not want to have masks in the classroom, for them to suddenly be very interested in protecting the public,” she said.

But Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he would support a Senate COVID-19 aid bill if it included the GOP effort to retain the Trump immigration restrictions.

“Why wouldn’t I?” he said in a brief interview.

___

AP congressional correspondent Lisa Mascaro and reporters Chris Megerian and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.

Takeaways from Biden’s address:

DEMOCRACY V. AUTOCRACY NO LONGER AN ABSTRACTION

The speech and the war in Ukraine gave Biden both the platform and the reason to talk about the fight between democracy and autocracy not as an abstraction but as an urgent reality.

Biden has repeatedly talked about the battle of between the values of liberal democracies and autocrats like Russian President Vladimir Putin as the greatest foreign policy test facing the world.

But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and the surprising unity that U.S. and European allies have shown in response — gave the president a chance to speak about the issue in a visceral way to a global audience.

“In the battle between democracy and autocracy, democracies are rising to the moment, and the world is clearly choosing the side of peace and security,” Biden said “This is a real test. It¶¶Òőap going to take time. So let us continue to draw inspiration from the iron will of the Ukrainian people. “

He celebrated the West for coming together on hard-hitting sanctions that are “choking off Russia’s access to technology that will sap its economic strength and weaken its military for years to come” he announced news sanctions to close off U.S. air space to all Russian flights. and he paid tribute to Ukrainian people for “fighting back with pure courage.”

MOVE TO THE CENTER

Biden found himself caught in the middle of culture wars for much of his first year in office. With his State of the Union, the president who has made his long career in politics living in the ideological middle — had moments where he sought to pivot to the center.

He dismissed those on the left of his party who have advocated for reducing funding of police in the midst of national reckoning on policing in Black communities.

“We should all agree: The answer is not to defund the police. The answer is to fund the police with the resources and training they need to protect our communities.”

After months of Republicans beating him up on immigration, he allowed that “we need to secure the border and fix the immigration system.” But he also called on Republicans — and the American public — to look at the issue in a pragmatic way, alluding to the country’s worker shorter as the nation emerges for coronavirus pandemic.

“It¶¶Òőap not only the right thing to do — it¶¶Òőap the economically smart thing to do,” Biden said

PIVOT TO PRICES AT THE PUMP

Even as he appeals to the higher ideals of democracy, Biden believes that many Americans would process the war through prices at the pump instead of geopolitical risks.

It¶¶Òőap a jarring contrast in priorities as Ukrainians beg the U.S. and its allies for weapons to protect themselves, while the U.S. and Europe are focused first and foremost on energy costs in their own economies that are generally experiencing growth instead of an existential threat.

“I’m taking robust action to make sure the pain of our sanctions is targeted at Russia’s economy — and I will use every tool at our disposal to protect American businesses and consumers,” Biden said as he announced the planned release of another 30 million barrels of oil from the U.S. petroleum reserve. Gasoline prices are averaging $3.61 a gallon, according to AAA. But most of that increase occurred over the past year, rather than the machinations of Russia.

It¶¶Òőap a sign that Biden sees his own political fortunes resting on family budgets and reducing inflation, perhaps even more than a land war in Europe.

A SLOGAN PUT ON THE SHELF

Biden almost said it — the motto that disappeared with his political agenda: “Build Back Better.” Or, BBB. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, the decisive Democratic vote in the evenly split Senate, has pronounced BBB dead with nary a eulogy.

Biden in outlining his agenda said instead, “I call it building a better America.” So, what does that look like? It looks a lot like his prior agenda, except it¶¶Òőap been slimmed down.

Capping prescription drug prices stays in the mix. So do anti-climate change policies — which are now being portrayed as ways to lower energy costs for families. Financial support to limit child care costs is still in, though the expanded child tax credit from the coronavirus relief package is out. Universal pre-kindergarten remains a priority, but the primary goal of all of these policies is no longer to win the future as Biden once claimed. It¶¶Òőap all about reducing inflation, the problem dogging Biden’s popularity in the here and now.

TRYING TO PUT COVID IN REAR VIEW

Biden said the country has moved beyond the pandemic, even if it still needs to stay vigilant against mutations. His big argument is that the country can’t change its past divides, though it must address the pandemic with a united front.

He noted that most of the country can now be mask-free. Most Americans are vaccinated and more vaccines are available if needed. Schools are open and workers can return to offices. “COVID-19 need no longer control our lives,” said Biden, echoing statements he made last July 4 when the disease similarly appeared to be in the rear view mirror.

The difference this time compared to the summer of 2020 is not only the increase in vaccinations but the lessons from the omicron and delta waves that caused infections and deaths to accelerate.

WHAT’S IN A WORD? REPETITION

The word count says a lot about where Biden’s frame of mind is right now.

His remarks include variations on the word “job” more than a dozen times as it applied to people working. Inflation netted half a dozen mentions and forms of the word “price” in terms of costs charged were mentioned 10 times. “Pandemic” was mentioned eight times and COVID-19 appeared a dozen times.

He tried to highlight partisan unity by deploying the phrase “Democrats and Republicans” three times. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (20 mentions) supplanted China as a geopolitical rival, as China got just two mentions. And there was a clear villain: Putin was named 12 times.

MEMBERS OF CONGRESS WEAR THE COLORS 
 OF UKRAINE

Blue and yellow is the new black.

As Russian invasion of Ukraine grinds on, lawmakers showed their support for Ukrainians with their sartorial choices.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wore a blue suit adorned with a lapel pin of Ukraine and U.S. flags. Rep. Eric Swalwell made do with a blue scarf.

Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who appeared to have a large paper Ukraine flag pinned to his suit, had a bit of wardrobe malfunction. (His Ukraine flag fell off as he waded through the packed aisle to make his way to his seat.)

Many lawmakers — and guests — also had small Ukrainian flags. In a sign of support for the Ukrainian people, the first lady Jill Biden has an embroidered appliquĂ© of a sunflower, the national flower of Ukraine, sewn to the sleeve of her dress near her wrist.

First, there is the bad, also known as the Trumpers. Former President Trump has waged a war on truth, our democratic institutions, and he has created an alternative reality that threatens the stability of our republic.

His followers treat him like a cult hero, drink his Kool-Aid, trash our democracy, and subscribe to his baseless claims of massive voter fraud in the 2020 election. Orthodox Trumpers violently stormed Congress during the Jan. 6 insurrection that left dozens of officers injured.

Trump has gone so far as to pledge pardons for these terrorists because he thinks they are being treated unfairly.

But, wait, there’s more.

The New York Times broke a story last week that Trump was intimately involved with plans to use national security agencies to illegally seize voting machines in swing states six weeks after the election was over.  Dictatorship anyone?  Imagine the damage a second term could bring.

Trumpers control the party apparatus today. Last week, the Republican National Committee censured GOP Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for their role in probing the “legitimate political discourse” of the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Cheney’s colleagues already excommunicated her from her number three Republican House leadership post in the House for her criticism of Trump last May.

Their reach extends to Colorado too. When recently considering a resolution urging Congress to pass new voting rights resolutions, about a dozen Republicans voted to approve failed amendments supporting those at the Capitol last Jan. 6 and upholding Trump’s false claims about the election and election security.

Trumpers have made the continued viability of our democracy the most important issue on the ballot in 2022.  An NPR/Ispos poll last month found that 64% of Americans believe our democracy is “in crisis and at risk of failing.”

Then there is the ugly wing, which is desperately trying to see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. Trump has put this set of Republicans to the test and they have chosen self-preservation over preserving our democracy because they are afraid the Trumpers will end their careers.

Trump has whipsawed the ugly through his bully tactics and the threat of a primary. Trump has identified 10 Republican House members he would like to defeat and backed primary challengers against GOP governors, like Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Trump vowed to defeat Kemp after he didn’t meet his demands to overturn the election and is actively campaigning for former US Senator David Perdue.

Gubernatorial candidate and University of Colorado Regent Heidi Ganahl is one of the Republicans trying to sidestep the issue. She refused to answer the simple question of whether the 2020 election was fraudulent, disingenuously dismissing it as a “divisive question.” Or likely presidential candidate and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley who said Mike Pence did the right thing in certifying the Electoral College count but chided the former vice president for “Republicans going against Republicans.”

The ugly Republicans are trying to navigate these tumultuous waters in order to avoid a primary but want to be able to pivot for the general election.

That dog won’t hunt in Colorado where voters know better.

You can either stand for something or fall for anything.  And, unless the ugly find their spine and rise to the moment, they cannot lead effectively, let alone return the Republican party to its roots or preserve our democracy.

Finally, there is the good, the Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan Republicans, who embody the core traditional Republican values and will fiercely fight for our fragile democracy.

These are the ones I’m rooting for.

Trump has called this group the RINO’s (Republicans In Name Only), but they are actually the true Republicans.

Cheney understands and what¶¶Òőap at stake:  “[Republicans] can either be loyal to Donald Trump, or we can be loyal to the Constitution, but we cannot be both. And, right now, there are too many Republicans who are trying to enable the former president, embrace the former president, look the other way and hope that the former president goes away.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence, in a speech last week to the Federalist Society, called Trump’s actions “un-American.”

Following Pence’s statement, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell criticized the RNC censure and said Jan. 6 was a “violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent a peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next”. Other key Republicans have begun distancing themselves from Trump and followed suit showing signs of a possible GOP revolt.

When Senator Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota) said on a weekly news show last month that the election was fair and dispelled the Big Lie, Trump responded by asking if Rounds was stupid or crazy. Other Republican senators like Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and John Thune (R-North Dakota), backed him up as well. Hopefully, this is a sign that key Republican leaders are ready to join the good fight and take back the party.

Whether it be in the primary or the general election, we must demand that all Republican candidates in 2022 answer these two crucial questions.

Do you believe Trump’s Big Lie that the system is rigged and there was widespread election fraud that cost him the election? Spoiler alert:  there is no such evidence unless you live in an alternative universe.

If the good can’t turn the ugly and defeat the bad, there is much more at stake than the future of the Republican party: but rather the future of our democracy. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, it¶¶Òőap a republic, if we can keep it.

Doug Friednash is a Denver native, a partner with the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck, and the former chief of staff for Gov. John Hickenlooper.

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In the midst of the GOP’s first major election year blowup, each bloc believes it represents the real Republican Party and its best interests in the bid to regain control of Congress.

The Republican rift over a symbolic RNC vote to censure Trump’s two GOP House critics has exposed in stark contrast the competing forces fighting to control the party. The sudden burst of infighting shattered a period of relative Republican peace just as party leaders insist they need to come together to defeat Democrats in the looming midterms.

But this week, at least, Republican unity is hard to find.

“Mitch McConnell does not speak for the Republican Party, and does not represent the views of the vast majority of its voters,” Trump said in a statement Wednesday. Instead of fighting President Joe Biden’s agenda, the former president said, McConnell “bails out the radical left and the RINOs” — shorthand for Republicans In Name Only.

To drive home his point, Trump issued another statement later in the day saying McConnell’s position is “so against what Republicans are about.”

At issue were McConnell’s comments a day earlier in which he criticized the RNC for censuring Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois at the party’s winter meeting in Salt Lake City. The two Republicans sit on a Democrat-led House committee that is aggressively investigating the violent Jan. 6 siege at the U.S. Capitol and has subpoenaed many in the former president¶¶Òőap inner circle.

The RNC resolution accused the House panel of leading a “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse” — words that drew outrage from Democrats and firm pushback from several GOP senators.

The fight has quickly emerged as a proxy for the larger political tug-of-war between Trump and the party’s establishment wing. While Trump’s allies believe there should be no limits in their loyalty to the former president, McConnell and other establishment leaders believe there is a line Republicans should not cross.

McConnell, for example, has refused to amplify Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud, even as polls suggest a vast majority of the Republican electorate wrongly believes that Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election.

The Senate Republican leader said he opposed the RNC’s vote to censure Kinzinger and Cheney, who are Trump’s fiercest Republican critics in Congress, because the committee was “singling out members of our party who may have different views than the majority.”

“That¶¶Òőap not the job of the RNC,” McConnell told reporters this week.

Sens. John Cornyn of Texas, Richard Shelby of Alabama, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah were among those Republicans who also raised concerns about the RNC vote.

But Sen. Josh Hawley, the Missouri Republican who led the Jan. 6 push to block the certification of Biden’s victory, said McConnell and like-minded Republicans were hurting the party’s midterm ambitions by speaking out.

“Whatever you think about the RNC vote, it reflects the view of most Republican voters,” Hawley said. “So I’m just telling you, in my state, it¶¶Òőap not helpful to have a bunch of DC Republicans commenting on the RNC.”

For many Republicans, the emerging choice heading into the midterm elections is clear: Either you’re with Trump or against him. That¶¶Òőap especially the case as Trump indicates he’s likely to seek the presidency again in 2024.

Keith Kellogg, who served as national security adviser to then-Vice President Mike Pence, outlined the situation quite simply Wednesday on Twitter: “As midterms draw close and 2024 looms large, choices will have to be made and lines will be drawn,” Kellogg wrote. “For me — it¶¶Òőap Trump.”

Trump’s former communications director Alyssa Farah slapped back: “Put me squarely in the Pence/ McConnell camp. Certain denunciations must be unequivocal.”

Democrats, meanwhile, tried to enflame the Republican divisions from afar.

“Take your party back from this cult,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a message to Republicans at her weekly news conference. “It has been hijacked.”

Republican officials approached the rift with great sensitivity Wednesday. Many declined to speak publicly for fear their comments might upset one wing of the party or the other. And there was a common belief among strategists that the intra-party dispute was an unhelpful distraction from the party’s planned focus on Biden’s struggles.

The RNC hoped to move past the controversy after Chair Ronna McDaniel released an op-ed late Tuesday that blamed the media for taking the resolution out of context, while defending the committee’s decision to discipline Cheney and Kinzinger for essentially legitimizing the Democrats’ Jan. 6 investigation.

But she was asked about the resolution Wednesday on Fox News.

“Disagreement in our party is welcome. It makes us great. We can have a big tent,” McDaniel said, before describing Cheney and Kinzinger’s decision to join the Jan. 6 committee as “a step too far.”

“And that¶¶Òőap where the RNC members who represent the grassroots came down on this issue,” she said.

Indeed, party strategists and Republican officials beyond Washington suggest the party’s grassroots, which represent the heart of the GOP, beat squarely with Trump, regardless of what some Senate Republicans might say.

“The anti-Trump constituency is one out of 10 Republican voters — on a good day,” veteran Republican pollster Gene Ulm said.

McConnell is standing up against “a circular firing squad,” Ulm said, but Cheney and Kinzinger long ago ensured their political demise by crossing the former president so forcefully.

“There simply is no constituency for what they’re doing,” Ulm said.

The RNC, meanwhile, is desperate to project a unified front with control of Congress at stake in less than nine months.

“Republicans in both chambers of Congress and across the country remain united in our efforts to hold Democrats and Biden accountable for their failures to take back the House and Senate come November,” said RNC spokesperson Emma Vaughn.

Despite weeks of closed-door discussions, senators from the bipartisan group blew past a Monday deadline set for agreement on the nearly $1 trillion package. Instead they hit serious roadblocks over how much would be spent on public transit and water infrastructure and whether the new spending on roads, bridges, broadband and other projects would be required to meet federal wage requirements for workers. They’re also at odds over drawing on COVID-19 funds to help pay for it.

Republican negotiator Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, who took the lead in key talks with a top White House aide, insisted the bipartisan group was “making progress.”

“This is heading in the right direction,” Portman told reporters at the Capitol. “It¶¶Òőap a big, complicated bill.”

Biden struck a similarly upbeat tone, telling reporters at the White House he remained optimistic about reaching a compromise.

This is a crucial week after more than a monthlong slog of negotiations since Biden and the bipartisan group first celebrated the contours of the nearly $1 trillion bipartisan agreement in June, and senators were warned they could be kept in session this weekend to finish the work.

The White House wants a bipartisan agreement for this first phase, before Democrats go it alone to tackle broader priorities in a bigger $3.5 trillion budget plan that¶¶Òőap on deck. A recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC found 8 in 10 Americans favor some increased infrastructure spending, and the current package could be a political win for all sides as lawmakers try to show voters that Washington can work. Securing the bipartisan bill is also important for some centrist Democrats before engaging in the broader undertaking.

But as talks drag on, anxious Democrats, who have slim control of the House and Senate, face a timeline to act on what would be some of the most substantial legislation in years. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wants progress on both packages before the August recess, and he told senators to brace for a Saturday or Sunday session.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Biden himself “worked the phones all weekend,” and the administration was encouraged by the progress. But Psaki acknowledged “time is not endless.”

Adding to the mix, Donald Trump issued a statement Monday disparaging Senate Republicans for even dealing with the Democrats on infrastructure, though it¶¶Òőap unclear what influence he has. The former president had failed at an infrastructure deal when he was in office.

“It¶¶Òőap time for everyone to get to ‘yes,’” Schumer said as he opened the Senate.

Schumer said Trump is “rooting for our entire political system to fail” while Democrats are “rooting for a deal.”

The bipartisan package includes about $600 billion in new spending on public works projects, with broad support from Republicans and Democrats for many of the proposed ideas.

Yet there was little to show Monday after a grinding weekend of talks, putting the deal at risk of stalling out.

The Democrats and the White House had sent what they called a “global” offer to Republicans on remaining issues late Sunday, according to a Democratic aide close to the talks and granted anonymity to discuss them.

But Republicans rebuffed the ideas, saying the new proposal attempted to reopen issues that had already been resolved, according to a GOP aide also granted anonymity to discuss the private talks.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said it¶¶Òőap time for Biden to become more involved. “I think it¶¶Òőap imperative that the president indicates strongly that he wants a bipartisan package,” she said.

A top Biden aide, Steve Ricchetti, was tapped for the direct talks as Portman fielded information to the other senators in the group, several senators said.

Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana said, “There were too many cooks in the kitchen.”

While much of the disagreement has been over the size of spending on each category, labor issues have also emerged as a flashpoint.

Democrats are insisting on a prevailing-wage requirement, not just for existing public works programs but also for building new roads, bridges, broadband and other infrastructure, according to another Republican granted anonymity to discuss the private talks.

At the same time, transit funding has been a stubborn source of disagreement for the past several days.

Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, the top Republican on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which oversees public transit, raised questions about the size of the transit funding increase. He cited, in part, previous COVID-19 federal relief money that had already been allocated to public transit.

Democrats and public transit advocates don’t want spending to go any lower than what¶¶Òőap typically been a federal formula of about 80% for highways and 20% for transit. They see expanded public transit systems as key to easing traffic congestion and combating climate change.

Psaki has previously said transit funding “is obviously extremely important to the president — the ‘Amtrak President,’ as we may call him.”

The senators also appeared to still be debating money for public water works and removal of lead pipes after Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, raised questions about the amount.

Also unresolved is how to pay for the bipartisan package after Democrats rejected a plan to bring in funds by hiking the gas tax drivers pay at the pump and Republicans dashed a plan to boost the IRS to go after tax scofflaws.

Funding could come from repurposing COVID relief aid, reversing a Trump-era pharmaceutical rebate and other streams. It¶¶Òőap possible the final deal could run into political trouble if it doesn’t pass muster as fully paid for when the Congressional Budget Office assesses the details.

The final package would need the support of 60 senators in the evenly split 50-50 Senate to advance past a filibuster — meaning at least 10 Republicans along with every Democratic member. A test vote last week failed along party lines as Republicans sought more time to negotiate.

Meanwhile, Democrats are readying the broader $3.5 trillion package, which would go beyond public works to include child care centers, family tax breaks and other priorities. It is being considered under budget rules that allow passage with 51 senators in the split Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris able to break a tie. That package would be paid for by increasing the corporate tax rate and the tax rate on Americans earning more than $400,000 a year.

Associated Press writers Hope Yen and Josh Boak contributed to this report.

Heading into a make-or-break week, serious roadblocks remain. One dispute is over how much money should go to public transit. But spending on highways, water projects, broadband and others areas remains unresolved, too, as is whether to take unspent COVID-19 relief funds to help pay for the infrastructure.

Democrats and the White House sent a fresh “global” offer to resolve remaining issues, but it was rebuffed early Monday by Republicans as “discouraging” — a setback for a hoped-for afternoon deal.

The week ahead is crucial after more than a month-long slog of negotiations since Biden and the bipartisan group first celebrated the contours of the bipartisan agreement in June at the White House.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said he wants to pass the nearly $1 trillion bipartisan package as well as the blueprint for a larger $3.5 trillion budget plan before the Senate leaves for its August recess.

The White House wants a bipartisan agreement for this first phase, but as talks drag on anxious Democrats, who have slim control of the House and Senate, could leave Republicans behind and try to go it alone. If it fails, it could be wrapped into the broader package of Biden’s priorities that Democrats are hoping to pass later.

The bipartisan package includes about $600 billion in new spending on public works projects. Democrats want to see more of the money go toward boosting public transportation, which includes subways, light-rail lines and buses, in line with Biden’s original infrastructure proposal and the push to address climate change.

The Democrats and the White House had sent what they called a “global” offer to Republicans on remaining issues late Sunday, according to a Democratic aide close to the talks and granted anonymity to discuss them.

But Republicans rebuffed the ideas, according to a GOP aide also granted anonymity to discuss the private talks. The aide said the new proposal attempted to reopen issues that had already been resolved.

The Republicans believe the White House will need to show more flexibility if the talks are to be successful, the aide said.

The bipartisan group originally appeared to be moving toward agreement on more money for transit. But Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, the top Republican on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which oversees public transit, raised questions. He cited, in part, previous COVID-19 federal relief money that had already been allocated to public transit.

“Nobody’s talking about cutting transit,” Toomey said Sunday. “The question is, how many tens of billions of dollars on top of the huge increase that they have already gotten is sufficient? And that¶¶Òőap where there is a little disagreement.”

Typically, spending from the federal Highway Trust Fund has followed the traditional formula of 80% for highways and 20% for transit. Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Tom Carper of Delaware say they will oppose the deal if transit funding falls below that.

In the latest offer, Democrats had accepted the Republican proposal on highway spending, contingent on Republicans agreeing to the Democratic position on public transit, the Democratic aide said.

“Transit funding is obviously extremely important to the president — the ‘Amtrak President,’ as we may call him,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday. “But we believe that members can get this work done and can work through these issues quite quickly.”

The senators also appeared to have resolved issues around public water infrastructure funding. The group had an agreement to add $15 billion deal with lead pipe contamination beyond funds already approved in a Senate water bill.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, made another proposal that Democrats found unworkable, the Democratic aide said.

Romney’s office dismissed that claim as “laughably false.”

Pointing to the White House’s own website, Romney’s office said the deal on water was always expected to be $55 billion in new spending — not $70 billion as Democrats now want.

The final package would need the support of 60 senators in the evenly split 50-50 Senate to advance past a filibuster — meaning at least 10 Republicans along with every Democratic member. Last week’s test vote failed along party lines.

There are other remaining issues still unresolved around how to pay for it. For instance, details on broadband funding, as well as whether to tap into the leftover COVID relief funds previously passed by Congress, continue to be discussed.

Democrats are seeking a compromise to pay for the package after they rejected a hike in the gas tax drivers pay at the pump and Republicans dashed a plan to boost the IRS to go after tax scofflaws.

Three rounds totaling nearly $70 billion in federal COVID-19 emergency assistance, including $30.5 billion that Biden signed into law in March, pulled transit agencies from the brink of financial collapse as riders steered clear of crowded spaces on subway cars and buses. That federal aid is expected to cover operating deficits from declining passenger revenue and costly COVID-19 cleaning and safety protocols through at least 2022.

But Democrats and public transit advocates see expanded public transit systems as key to easing traffic congestion, combating climate change and curbing car pollution.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, recently sent a letter with 30 Democrats on the panel warning that the Senate proposal was inadequate and that any deal should incorporate the House-passed $715 billion infrastructure bill, which includes more money for rail and transit.

“The historical share for public transit from the Highway Trust Fund is 20%,” Paul Skoutelas, president of the American Public Transportation Association, said Sunday. “It is the absolute minimum acceptable level to help sustain our nation’s public transportation systems. It is imperative that we make robust, forward looking investments to modernize and expand public transit that will assist in our economic recovery from the COVID pandemic and get Americans back to work.”

Portman appeared on ABC’s “This Week,” Toomey was on CNN’s “State of the Union” and Warner spoke on “Fox News Sunday.”