#Rep. Ruben Gallego

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

If Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) decides to run for reelection next year, she’ll do so without the help of the big-name Democratic ad makers and pollsters who helped her win her Senate seat in 2018, and without access to the voter database maintained by the Democratic Party.

NGP VAN, which manages Democratic voter data, is set to cut off Sinema’s access at the end of January, according to a source with direct knowledge of the situation. The ad makers who worked with her in 2018, Dixon/Davis Media Group, have split with her campaign. Two other Democratic sources said polling firm Impact Research made the same decision.

Both Dixon/Davis and Impact have the type of pedigree you would expect for firms that work with Senators in key races. Dixon/Davis worked on President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, while Impact Research does polling for President Joe Biden. Both firms made the decision before Sinema’s recent party switch.

A spokesperson for Sinema did not respond to an email seeking comment. A spokesperson for Bonterra Tech, the parent company of NGP VAN, declined to comment.

The decisions make Sinema’s road to reelection even steeper and more complicated. Polls of Arizona’s electorate show that her efforts to ingratiate herself with Republicans have mostly backfired electorally, alienating Democrats en masse without building up an equivalent base of independent or GOP voters. Two Democratic congressmen from the state, Reps. Ruben Gallego and Greg Stanton, are both looking at runs for the party’s nomination, and a three-way battle with a Republican candidate seems likely.

Sinema does not lack selling points: While her approach doomed huge segments of Biden’s agenda, including many of his proposed tax hikes on the wealthy and corporations, she also has played major roles in crafting popular bipartisan deals on same-sex marriage, gun control and infrastructure funding. Successfully selling those accomplishments to an electorate is where pollsters and ad makers come in.

It’s unclear where Sinema might turn to run a reelection campaign. She and her staff have avoided any talk of reelection, saying she has not yet made a decision about a 2024 run. But any Democrat who works with her is likely to face fierce pushback from progressives who argue Sinema’s actions have imperiled a key Senate seat.

“Sinema abandoned the Democratic Party because she knew she couldn’t win a primary after spending years obstructing popular reforms and alienating her own voters,” said Sacha Haworth, who served as communications director at the start of Sinema’s 2018 campaign and now works for a group aiming to defeat her. “She chose to forfeit the Democratic Party infrastructure, so it’s only right that no Democratic staffer, consultant or vendor should work with her.”

Losing access to the Democratic Party’s voter data is also likely to be a headache for Sinema, since it will make it more difficult to target voters for digital advertising, mailers and door-knocking.

Other Democrats who work with Sinema privately signaled to HuffPost they are waiting for signals from top national Democratic leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Biden, about how to handle the newly independent Senator.

Many D.C. Democrats would prefer to find a way to back Sinema for reelection — from a legislative perspective, it would make their lives far easier if they could rely on her to back Biden’s judicial selections and in forthcoming fights over funding and the debt limit — but fear she could be running third in a three-way battle, which would make it difficult to convince either Stanton or Gallego to stay out of the race.

[vague-humanoid]

Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego (D) is gearing up to challenge Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema for the state's senate seat, but the Democratic Party is refusing to take a side – saying their "primary goal still is ensuring a Republican does not win," The Daily Beast reported.

As Gallego locks up support and fundraising from individual Democrats, some in the party "see no point to getting on Sinema’s bad side while she remains a key vote in the Senate," writes the Beast's Sam Brodey.

“This kind of fear that Democrats have of p--sing Sinema off, it’s making it harder for us to actually talk to voters in general,” Arizona political operative and Replace Sinema PAC adviser Luis Avila said. “They want to know where we stand on Sinema… what Democrats are doing is making it harder for us to make the case for them.”

Voters who want to see Sinema ousted are hesitant to throw their full weight behind an effort to defeat her. One big-name Democratic donor who supports Gallego said they would decline to donate to the PAC's efforts.

[shotofchinaco]

Failed pro-Trump Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has formally announced her candidacy for Senate, setting up what could potentially be a three-way race against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego if independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema tries to seek a second term.

There's just one issue: Lake still continues to insist, despite the vote having been certified against her and a long string of court losses, that she is legally the governor of Arizona.

Speaking on The Arizona Republic's The Gaggle podcast, host Mary Jo Pitzl and political analyst Ron Hansen walked through all the awkward implications of Lake's continued election denial on the current contest.

"Kari Lake is still in court arguing that she was cheated out of the governor's seat in last year's election," said Pitzl. "She claims she's the duly elected governor of Arizona. Does she need to resign that position that she believes she holds?"

[delcisco]

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.)  is HOT!

[kp777]

Social Security Benefits Could Be Dramatically Changed Under New Bill

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) is “thinking of running” for U.S. Senate, according to a fundraising text his campaign sent out on Friday.

Why It Matters: The text comes just hours after Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced she is leaving the Democratic Party to sit as an independent, which roiled Arizona Democrats already infuriated with the centrist Senator.

What It Says: “Ruben Gallego here, humbly asking you to donate to my campaign. Yes, I’m thinking of running for Senate,” says the text, a copy of which was obtained by Axios.

• Gallego, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, is a fourth-term Phoenix congressman and Marine veteran who has long been floated as a potential candidate to primary Sinema from the left.

• Gallego put out his own statement which didn’t address his own plans, but said: “I have never backed down from fighting for Arizonans … Unfortunately, Senator Sinema is once again putting her own interests ahead of getting things done for Arizonans."

Zoom Out: Arizona Democrats are sending strong signals they aren’t concerned about the risks of potentially splitting the Democratic vote if Sinema runs again.

• “Senator Sinema may now be registered as an Independent, but she has shown she answers to corporations and billionaires, not Arizonans,” the state party said in a scathing statement after her announcement.

• “Sinema just made our jobs easier by bowing out of a Democratic primary she knew she couldn't win,” said the Primary Sinema PAC. “Now, we'll beat her in the general election with a real Democrat."

[beardedmrbean]

On Thursday, Title 42 restrictions at the border will end. Fortunately, the Biden administration is on top of it, fully prepared to manage the coming crush of ...

Yeah, nobody’s buying that.

Even Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, a die-hard progressive, seems worried.

A year ago, Gallego was calling for an end to the pandemic-era policy that has been used more than 2.7 million times to expel border crossers since it was enacted in March 2020.

Now he’s sounding the alarm about what Biden’s plan — or possible lack of one — is going to mean for Arizona.

Sinema, Gallego expect Biden to act on immigration in a few days. He hasn't for years

“I’ve heard directly from leaders in our border communities and it’s abundantly clear that they, through no fault of their own, are simply unequipped to handle the surge of migrants that are expected when Title 42 ends,” Gallego said last week.

“They need tangible resources like buses, beds, personnel and funds to both process asylum claims in an orderly way and keep their communities safe. …. With Title 42 set to end on May 11, we need the Biden administration to act, and to act fast.”

Do we really want Biden vs. Trump again? Americans need a third choice for president.

Russia's Ukraine war is security issue: American leaders must understand Russia's war with Ukraine is a threat to our security

Gallego — who is hoping to replace Democrat-turned-independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema next year — is asking Biden to do, in a few days, what he hasn’t been able to do in a few years.

Sure, that’ll happen.

Right around the time when Biden catches up with those 85,000 unaccompanied migrant children his Department of Health and Human Services is supposed to be watching. A bunch of them are now working in factories and other sweatshops, according to The New York Times. (Welcome to the 19th century!)

“Everyone here in Arizona knows we are not prepared,” Sinema said on CBS’s “Face the Nation”, which aired on Sunday. “The Biden administration has had two years to prepare for this and did not do so. And our state is going to bear the brunt and migrants will be in crisis as soon as next week. It will be a humanitarian crisis because we are not prepared.”

We know what would fix the border, but politics get in the way

Last week, Sinema, along with Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., introduced a bill to temporarily extend Biden’s authority to expel migrants without a hearing after Title 42 ends. This, to give the administration and Congress time to finally act like leaders and address the problem.

That won’t happen.

Yet it seems painfully obvious what needs to be done.

The elephant in the room is that hunk of Swiss cheese we call a border.

Exhibit A in the case that it needs shoring up was on display late last month in Texas where five innocents were executed by a Mexican national who had been deported twice in 2009 and again in 2012 and yet again in 2016. Along with hardening up the border, we need to update our visa system so that the workers we need can come here legally (and to ensure they leave if and when those visas expire).

We need to retool the asylum system to provide protection more quickly for those who qualify for it and turn away those who don’t.

And yes, we need to offer “Dreamers” the chance to become citizens in this, the only country many of them have ever known.

Biden has a border plan, but it could take a while

Sadly, none of that will happen because it’s always an election year or the year before an election year and there are political points to be made. We are far too entrenched in our respective foxholes to actually come to a compromise.

And so we wait for Thursday and the inevitable run for the border once Biden lifts Title 42.

The Department of Homeland Security has predicted that upward of 10,000 migrants will cross the border illegally every day after Title 42 ends. That’s nearly double the daily average in March.

Other internal government projections suggest it could go as high as 13,000 daily crossings.

Relax, we are told. The Biden administration has a plan.

One that includes Latin American processing centers, a phone app and a new regulation making it more difficult for non-Mexican migrants to get asylum if they did not first seek it in a country they crossed to get here.

Biden's immigration plan fools no one: Biden's new immigration policy has something for everyone to hate

What's the endgame? Biden's White House is fine with the chaos it created at the border. What's the endgame?

“It’s going to take our plan a while to really take hold, for people to understand that they can access lawful, safe, orderly pathways before they reach the border,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Sunday on “Face the Nation”. “And quite frankly, if they come to the border, they will receive a consequence under our enforcement authorities.

“We are prepared."

Title 42 end has disaster written all over it

It’s just that nobody on the front lines here in Arizona has apparently seen evidence of it.

Me? I’m remembering that time when overwhelmed Border Patrol agents, having no place to put people, dumped weary Venezuelans and Chileans in a park in Gila Bend.

This tiny town of 2,000 people, set deep in the desert, has no bus stop, no shelters and absolutely no ability to help immigrants in search of asylum.

One of the children, hoping to reunite with his mother, asked if this was Delaware.

Yeah, Thursday has disaster written all over it.

[muddypolitics]

(via Gallego Goes After Sinema: ‘She Only Cares About Herself’ - TPM – Talking Points Memo)

Potential primary challenger Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) is going hard after Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) for what he says was her absence on the campaign trail, saying she could have helped Arizona’s Democratic candidates who were on the ticket last week but didn’t.

“We fought as a team in Arizona and we won,” said Gallego when asked about his public criticisms of Sinema on MSNBC. “Senator Sinema was nowhere to be found. At all. You did not see her at one public event for anybody. … She did nothing, because she only cares about herself.”

[shollowsource]

Democratic Rep.-elect Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who flipped a red Washington House seat in a surprising upset, credited her victory, in part, to support from BOLD PAC, the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Gluesenkamp Perez said in a Capitol Hill news conference Monday that almost no national organizations endorsed her in her race, but BOLD PAC “was one of the only ones that saw the opportunity, that believed in me.”

At the news conference, Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., chairman of BOLD PAC, introduced Democrat Latinos who were elected to Congress in last week's midterms. BOLD PAC spent a record $6 million supporting the candidates in their races.

There are currently 38 Latinos in Congress, 28 of them Democrats and 10 Republicans, according to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The fate of the Senate filibuster is on the ballot in the 2024 election as Democrats rally around weakening the 60-vote threshold to pass major legislation like codifying abortion rights and bolstering federal voting rights.

If President Joe Biden is re-elected and Democrats control the Senate, they would probably have the votes to change the filibuster. The cause has become a litmus test in the party, backed by senators who will remain in office next year, as well as the party’s candidates in key races that’ll decide which party controls the majority.

Meanwhile, Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., who cast decisive votes in 2022 to block Democrats from weakening the filibuster, are retiring. Manchin said he has “grave concerns” the filibuster will survive after he leaves.

Under the current filibuster, 60 votes are needed to begin and end debate on most legislation, meaning 41 senators can effectively veto bills. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said he’s optimistic Democrats will have enough support for “reforming the filibuster and imposing a talking filibuster” in the next Congress, so a minority can’t block bills without continuously holding the floor and talking.

“Unfortunately, two folks decided to support the no-effort obstruction, as opposed to the talking filibuster,” Merkley told NBC News. “But I think everyone who’s staying is pretty supportive of going through the process of making the Senate work again.”

It would have far-reaching impacts in establishing majority rule in a chamber that has normalized requiring a supermajority to pass most bills over the last two decades, with a key exception for temporary changes to taxes and spending. Such a change would be celebrated by progressives, who call the modern filibuster an undemocratic chokepoint for popular legislation.

Proponents call the filibuster a rare tool to encourage bipartisanship and promote stability in lawmaking. But even moderate Democrats say the modern 60-vote threshold makes the Senate dysfunctional.

“I’ve been here just over three years, and I’ve never seen an organization with rules like the United States Senate,” said Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a former astronaut. “If NASA had these rules, the rocket ship would never leave the launchpad. So as changes to the rules come up, I’ll evaluate it based on the merits.”

Many Republican senators insist they’d preserve the filibuster, even if they capture control of the White House and Congress. They include conservative Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who said he “absolutely” supports the 60-vote rule.

“We’re united in that. We realize the tables will turn, and if they had ultimate control, this country would be over,” Johnson said, calling it a bulwark against “socialist and radical left policies.” He said that if Donald Trump wins the presidency, he could use executive power to secure the border if Democrats filibuster immigration bills.

DEMOCRATS' PATH TO AN ANTI-FILIBUSTER MAJORITY

Changing the filibuster rules would require a simple majority in the Senate. If Democrats end up with 50 or more seats and have Vice President Kamala Harris to break a tie, they'd most likely have the votes.

With Manchin retiring, West Virginia’s open seat is all but certain to flip to the GOP this fall. But Democrats have a plausible — albeit difficult — path to hold their remaining 50 votes.

It requires holding seats in red-leaning Montana and Ohio, as well as in the purple states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona.

The likely Democratic nominee to replace Sinema in Arizona, Rep. Ruben Gallego, promises that if he is elected he would support “waiving the filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade.”

Democratic candidates for open seats in California (Rep. Adam Schiff), Michigan (Rep. Elissa Slotkin), Delaware (Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester) and Maryland (county executive Angela Alsobrooks) have all called for eliminating the filibuster.

“I am, like, loud and proud on reforming the filibuster so we can vote on gun laws, voter access, women’s rights,” Slotkin told constituents in a video she posted on Instagram. “All those things could be voted on tomorrow if we only needed 51 instead of 60.”

Alsobrooks, who won the Democratic primary in Maryland on Tuesday, says on her website: “Angela firmly believes that the filibuster in the Senate should be eliminated.”

Her GOP opponent, former Gov. Larry Hogan, said he’s “a big supporter of the filibuster.”

Schiff said he’d prefer major swings in policy to the current gridlock, emphasizing that killing the filibuster is the only way to pass abortion rights, gun safety and voting rights measures and to mitigate climate change. He said he doesn’t worry about Republicans’ using a filibuster-free Senate to reverse liberal gains when they take power.

“The Republican policies are so reactionary, backward and unpopular that should they ever really be in a position to put them into effect, they’ll be voted out of office in a heartbeat,” he said.

And the Democrats running in the red-leaning states of Texas (Rep. Colin Allred) and Florida (former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell) have also championed exceptions to the filibuster to establish federal abortion rights. The GOP is favored in those states, but Democrats can hold the majority without them.

Biden has said he supports carve-outs to the filibuster to pass voting rights and abortion rights legislation. The White House declined to comment beyond his public remarks and didn't say whether that would extend to other priorities, like gun legislation.

TRUMP HAS PUSHED TO NUKE THE FILIBUSTER

If Trump and Republicans sweep the election, GOP senators would probably face pressure from Trump to do away with the filibuster. He repeatedly demanded that they nuke the 60-vote rule during his term as president. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., refused in 2017 and 2018. Although McConnell is stepping down as GOP leader, it's unclear whether Trump would be more successful this time.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he expects a push to kill the filibuster to toughen immigration laws if the GOP wins in November.

“Quite honestly, if we run the table politically in November and we have control of both chambers and President Trump has the White House, it wouldn’t surprise me if getting additional tools to get the border under control would be used as an argument for nuking the filibuster,” Tillis told reporters.

But he said he would adamantly oppose that.

“The day Republicans vote to nuke it is the day I resign,” Tillis said, arguing that it would “destroy the Senate.”

Trump campaign spokespeople didn’t reply to requests for comment.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said he’s open to potential changes.

“Never say never, but I can’t think of anything that comes to mind immediately,” he said. “The filibuster has meant different things over time. And there are different ways to implement it. So we could talk about how the filibuster is structured. Do you have to hold the floor or not, etc. We could probably have a conversation on that.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who faces a competitive re-election bid, said he’s committed to preserving the 60-vote rule even if his party sweeps the election and Democrats use it to stymie legislation.

“Yes,” he replied when asked.

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who also faces re-election this fall, said, “I believe in the filibuster.”

Even if Republicans have control and it threatens their agenda?

“I believe in the filibuster,” he repeated.