One of the last — and loudest — pro-life Democrats left in Congress lost his primary Tuesday night.Fun fact: Lipinski is a political scientist and Congress scholar (with a book on congressional communication).
Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) lost to former advertising executive Marie Newman, trailing by 48%-44% with 90% of precincts reporting.
Newman came just short of beating Lipinski two years ago, with the backing of a broad coalition of progressive groups. This time, she jumped into the election early, and they lined up to boost her past Lipinski, outspending him by a wide margin. EMILY’s List, which backs pro-choice Democratic women, backed Newman early on, as did a plethora of other groups including NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, MoveOn, Indivisible, The Sierra Club, Service Employees International Union and Our Revolution.
John Bresnahan et al at Politico:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate will work at "warp speed" to craft a massive new stimulus package to help Americans deal with the economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis, vowing that senators "will not leave" Washington until it's done.
And Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said Tuesday there is a "high level of interest" among Republicans for a Trump administration proposal to send as many as two $1,000 checks directly to individual Americans to help respond to the economic slowdown, a move that could cost an estimated $500 billion, according to GOP sources.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made a pitch for the initiative at a lunch with Senate Republicans on Tuesday, part of an $800 billion-plus package being floated by the White House that also includes as much as $250 billion in emergency loans for smalls businesses being hit by the economic slowdown.
Under the Mnuchin plan, direct payments — on a means-tested basis — could be sent to American via the IRS as early as next month, although even that may not be as fast as some in Congress want.
"I think there is a high level of interest among our members in that idea and seems it might be an area where there's some common ground with Democrats as well," Thune told reporters following the Republican lunch.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who has proposed a similar plan, said Mnuchin told senators the administration "could stand that up pretty quickly ... and get pretty significant relief out there pretty fast."And on April 2, we shall discuss the interplay of Congress and the executive branch when it comes to staffing the judiciary.
Carl Hulse at The New York Times:
Running out of federal court vacancies to fill, Senate Republicans have been quietly making overtures to sitting Republican-nominated judges who are eligible to retire to urge them to step aside so they can be replaced while the party still holds the Senate and the White House.
Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, who has used his position as majority leader to build a judicial confirmation juggernaut for President Trump over the past three years, has been personally reaching out to judges to sound them out on their plans and assure them that they would have a worthy successor if they gave up their seats soon, according to multiple people with knowledge of his actions.
...
Republicans have sent signals about judicial retirements in the past. In May 2018, with a midterm election looming that could have flipped the Senate, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee at the time, openly urged any Supreme Court justice pondering retirement to pull the trigger.
“If you are thinking about quitting this year, do it yesterday,” Mr. Grassley said during a radio interview. “If we have a Democrat Senate, you’re never going to get the kind of people that are strict constructionists.”
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy stepped down a little more than a month later and was replaced by Justice Kavanaugh, his former clerk.
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