Closing summary
Democrats are cheering Marilyn Lands, who managed to seize a state house seat from Republicans in deep-red Alabama, fuelled by her promises to protect IVF access and repeal the state’s abortion ban. To be clear: the party does not have the numbers to make either of those promises happen in a state thoroughly dominated by the GOP, but it’s nonetheless the latest instance of Joe Biden’s allies using concerns about reproductive rights to win elections in hostile territory. Meanwhile, in Texas, a federal appeals court maintained the block on a Republican-backed law that would allow state police to arrest suspected illegal border crossers. The legislation will probably remain on hold until either appeals judges or the US supreme court rules on its merits.
Here’s what else happened:
Israel wants to reschedule a meeting with US officials that it called off after Washington allowed a UN security council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza to pass.
Disney ended its feud with allies of Republican governor Ron DeSantis, which erupted after the entertainment giant criticized the state’s so-called “don’t say gay” law.
Kansas Republicans moved to force abortion providers to ask patients the reason why they are seeking the procedure, and probably have the votes to get around an expected veto by the Democratic governor, Laura Kelly.
Donald Trump is under a new gag order in his hush-money case. But it does not apply to the presiding judge Juan Merchan, so the former president attacked him on his social media network this morning.
Jeffrey Clark, a former justice department official indicted alongside Trump in Georgia for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election, pleaded the fifth at a hearing that could lead to him losing his law license in Washington DC.
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Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis says a settlement reached between Disney and his allies over who controls Walt Disney World’s governing district “vindicated” his administration’s policies:
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) on reaching settlement with Disney over the state's control of the special tax district that includes the theme park:
— The Recount (@therecount) March 27, 2024
“There's going to be ways where we can do things that are in the best interest of...Florida. And I think Disney can be a part of that.” pic.twitter.com/4hyJqPUdwX
Here’s more on the end of the long-running squabble:
Jeffrey Clark, the former justice department official who was indicted in Georgia alongside Donald Trump for allegedly trying to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in the state, repeatedly declined to answer questions today at a hearing that could see him lose his law license in Washington DC, Politico reports.
Clark repeatedly invoked the fifth amendment’s protecting against self incrimination in response to questions from DC Bar panel investigators, who rested their case after today’s hearing.
Here’s more on that, from Politico:
Clark’s decision to invoke his constitutional right against self-incrimination underscores the criminal jeopardy he faces in other ongoing legal proceedings. In Atlanta, he’s charged alongside Trump in an alleged racketeering conspiracy to corrupt the 2020 election, and in Washington DC, federal prosecutors identified him – but have not charged him – as one of Trump’s alleged co-conspirators in a scheme to seize power.
“I will invoke the Fifth,” Clark said in response to a question about when he first met Trump. Clark also said the question was covered by attorney-client, law enforcement and executive privileges. “A veritable phalanx of privileges,” Clark added wryly as the exercise wore on.
The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution protects Americans from being forced to provide testimony that may incriminate themselves in legal proceedings. For Clark, that’s particularly important as he faces a potential criminal trial in Georgia. His attorneys worried that forcing Clark to take the stand simply to invoke his Fifth Amendment right would drive headlines or embarrass Clark, but the DC Bar panel presiding over the hearing permitted investigators to pose several dozen questions to Clark.
Clark himself grew combative as the questioning wore on, accusing the lead investigator, Hamilton Fox, of seeking to humiliate him on the stand by forcing him to repeatedly invoke the Fifth Amendment. His bristling prompted Merrill Hirsh, the chair of the panel presiding over the hearing, to admonish Clark not to argue with Fox or risk potentially waiving the privileges he invoked.
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Democrats nationwide are taking heart from Marilyn Lands’s victory in Alabama, seeing it as a validation of their strategy to make concerns over reproductive care access a centerpiece of their pitch to voters.
But Lands’s election does not change the fundamental balance of power in Alabama, where the Republican party firmly controls the levers of power. All elected officials are members of the GOP, which has supermajorities in the state house and senate.
Republican lawmakers in Alabama have lately spent their time passing laws restricting diversity and inclusion programs from being established at public schools and state agencies, and barring trans people from using public bathrooms that align with their gender identity at colleges and universities.
They also moved quickly to pass legislation allowing in vitro fertilization care to continue after the state supreme court issued a ruling that forced fertility clinics to cancel appointments. Democrats supported that effort:
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Marilyn Lands’s victory yesterday in the special election for Alabama’s state house is probably the most exciting thing to happen for Democrats in the state since Doug Jones won a Senate seat in 2018.
His victory came after multiple women alleged sexual assault or other inappropriate behavior by the Republican candidate, Roy Moore. In an interview last night with CNN, Jones, who was ousted from the Senate by the Republican Tommy Tuberville in the 2020 elections, described Lands’s win as “a huge deal”:
“This is a huge win for Alabama, not just for Democrats. It’s a huge win for women,” @DougJones says after Marilyn Lands, who made reproductive rights her campaign focus, won in Alabama's special election last night. pic.twitter.com/Ii2NjzSHWA
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) March 27, 2024
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After shock win in Alabama, the Democrat Marilyn Lands says voters are ready for 'change'
In an interview with Huntsville, Alabama broadcaster WHNT, the Democrat Marilyn Lands predicted better days ahead for the beleaguered party:
Marilyn Lands on winning a special election Tuesday for a state House seat as a Democrat in deep-red Alabama:
— The Recount (@therecount) March 27, 2024
“It's a victory tonight for women, for families, for Alabama in general. ... It feels like it's the start of a change here. And I think we'll see more change in 2026.” pic.twitter.com/QSF5j1z8e0
Lands yesterday was elected to Alabama’s state house in a special election to fill a vacant seat previously held by the GOP, in a rare instance of Democrats making inroads in one of the most thoroughly Republican states in the country.
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The recovery operation in Baltimore continues amid reports that a truck has been found amid the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key bridge.
For more on the disaster, and the effort to get the economically vital port of Baltimore back up and running, follow our live blog:
The White House media briefing is under way in the west wing now, with the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, just introducing the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, who’s appearing as the guest today to talk about the bridge disaster in Baltimore.
Buttigieg paid tribute to the six workers who are missing and presumed dead after the bridge collapse, and the two workers who survived, one badly injured, who were all repairing the bridge’s road surface “while we all slept”, he said.
Buttigieg said that the port will be reopened as soon as possible.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the bridge’s collapse, with Buttigieg saying that the bridge, which was completed in the 1970s, was not build to withstand an impact from the size of container ship that operates these days and which hit the bridge strut in the early hours of Tuesday morning, leading to the entire bridge’s collapse, closing the port for all traffic.
Guardian US has a dedicated live blog covering all the developments in the Baltimore bridge disaster and you can follow that news here.
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Israel has asked to reschedule a meeting with US officials to discuss its military plans in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, a US official said on Wednesday, days after the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, abruptly scrapped the planned talks, Reuters reports.
Netanyahu called off a planned visit to Washington by a senior Israeli delegation after the US allowed passage of a Gaza ceasefire resolution at the United Nations on Monday, in a move that appeared to reflect growing US frustration with the Israeli premier.
US officials said the Biden administration was perplexed by the Israeli cancellation and considered it an overreaction to the security council resolution, insisting there had been no change in policy.
On Wednesday, a US official said Netanyahu’s office “has said they’d like to reschedule the meeting dedicated to Rafah. We are now working with them to set a convenient date.”
Netanyahu is considering sending a delegation for a White House meeting on Rafah as early as next week but the scheduling is still being worked out, an Israeli official in Washington told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli prime minister’s office. The planned talks are expected to focus on Israel’s threatened offensive in Rafah, the last relatively safe haven for Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
The White House said last week it intended to share with Israeli officials alternatives for eliminating the Palestinian militant group Hamas without a ground offensive in Rafah that Washington says would be a “disaster”.
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The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will travel to France and Belgium next week, a state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, told reporters on Wednesday, Reuters reports.
Blinken will meet with the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, and the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, while in Brussels for a Nato meeting, Miller said at a regular news briefing.
Meanwhile, the state department does not think hostage talks with Israel and Hamas are over, Miller said, adding that Washington thinks there is an ability to continue to pursue the release of hostages.
He also said “we do” when asked if the department believed a limited military campaign in Rafah, in the south of Gaza, can take out remaining commanders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Hamas controls the territory and led the attack on southern Israel on 7 October last year in which more than 1,200 people were massacred and more than 240 people were taken hostage into Gaza, with more than 100 remaining captive at this time.
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The day so far
Democrats are cheering Marilyn Lands, who managed to seize a state house seat from Republicans in deep-red Alabama, fueled by her promises to protect IVF access and repeal the state’s abortion ban. To be clear: the party does not have the numbers to make either of those promises happen in a state thoroughly dominated by the GOP, but it’s nonetheless the latest instance of Joe Biden’s allies using concerns about reproductive rights to win elections in hostile territory. Meanwhile, in Texas, a federal appeals court maintained the block on a Republican-backed law that would allow state police to arrest suspected illegal border crossers. The legislation will probably remain on hold until either appeals judges or the US supreme court rules on its merits.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
Disney ended its feud with allies of Republican governor Ron DeSantis, which erupted after the entertainment giant criticized the state’s so-called “don’t say gay” law.
Kansas Republicans moved to force abortion providers to ask patients the reason they are seeking the procedure, and probably have the votes to get around an expected veto by the Democratic governor, Laura Kelly.
Donald Trump is under a new gag order in his hush-money case. But it does not apply to the presiding judge Juan Merchan, so the former president attacked him on his social media network this morning.
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Apparently in some kind of foul mood, Donald Trump also insulted his one-time ally Ronna McDaniel following her hiring from NBC yesterday, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:
Donald Trump mocked the former Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Ronna McDaniel, for her firing by NBC days after being hired as a political analyst.
“Wow!” the former president and presumptive Republican nominee, who ejected McDaniel from the RNC in favour of his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“Ronna McDaniel got fired by Fake News NBC. She only lasted two days, and this after McDaniel went out of her way to say what they wanted to hear. It leaves her in a very strange place, it’s called NEVER NEVERLAND, and it’s not a place you want to be.”
McDaniel’s hiring was announced by NBC last Friday. Interviewed on Meet the Press on Sunday, she disavowed Trump’s lie that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election but also claimed there were electoral “problems” in battleground states.
Protests from on-air talent and an NBC union group also concerned McDaniel’s combative relations with the press in seven years as RNC chair, a period coinciding with Trump’s takeover of the Republican party. On Tuesday evening McDaniel was gone – giving her a four-day NBC career, not the two claimed by Trump.
Speaking of Donald Trump, he has once again been gagged under an order issued yesterday by the judge handling his criminal case in New York on charges related to making hush-money payments.
But judge Juan Merchan’s ruling does not prevent the former president from attacking him, and so that’s what Trump did this morning, on his Truth Social network:
This Judge, by issuing a vicious “Gag Order,” is wrongfully attempting to deprive me of my First Amendment Right to speak out against the Weaponization of Law Enforcement, including the fact that Crooked Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, and their Hacks and Thugs are tracking and following me all across the Country, obsessively trying to persecute me, while everyone knows I have done nothing wrong!
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Disney and DeSantis allies end squabble sparked by Florida's 'don't say gay' law
Disney and allies of Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, have reached an agreement to end a nearly two-year-long court battle that began after the entertainment giant spoke out against the state’s so-called “don’t say gay” law, the Associated Press reports.
DeSantis put his conservative policies at the center of his quixotic attempt to win the GOP’s presidential nomination, but ended up dropping out after getting pummeled by Donald Trump in Iowa’s January caucuses.
Here’s more from the AP on what the settlement of the case will entail:
Allies of the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, and Disney reached a settlement agreement on Wednesday in a lawsuit over who controls Walt Disney World’s governing district.
In a meeting, the members of the board of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District approved the settlement agreement, ending almost two years of litigation that was sparked by DeSantis’s takeover of the district from Disney supporters following the company’s opposition to Florida’s so-called “don’t say gay” law.
The 2022 law bans classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades and was championed by DeSantis, who used Disney as a punching bag in speeches until he suspended his presidential campaign this year.
As punishment for Disney’s opposition, DeSantis took over the governing district through legislation passed by the Republican-controlled Florida legislature and appointed a new board of supervisors. Disney sued DeSantis and his appointees, claiming the company’s free speech rights were violated for speaking out against the legislation. A federal judge dismissed that lawsuit in January.
Before control of the district changed hands from Disney allies to DeSantis appointees early last year, the Disney supporters on its board signed agreements with Disney shifting control over design and construction at Disney World to the company.
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Christian D Menefee, the attorney for Texas’s populous Harris county, said the federal appeals court decision putting the state’s contentious immigration law on hold “shows that Republicans in Texas are overstepping their authority once again and disregarding the federal government’s jurisdiction over immigration laws”.
Menefee, a Democrat whose county includes the city of Houston, continued:
Our communities should not have to live in a state of fear and confusion, which is exactly what SB4 was designed to do. Unfortunately, Republican leaders in Austin are more interested in fueling anti-immigrant rhetoric than actually creating real, workable solutions to address our immigration laws.
While this back-and-forth can create a sense of uncertainty for the people who live here, this ruling makes me hopeful that the Fifth Circuit will follow clear Supreme Court precedent and rule against the law when it considers the merits.
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Appeals court keeps Texas law allowing police to arrest suspected illegal border crossers on hold
A ruling late on Tuesday from a federal appeals court will for now block a Texas law allowing police to arrest people suspected of entering the country illegally, the Associated Press reports.
The law passed by Texas’s Republican government has drawn criticism from the Biden administration, which warned it will undermine border security by involving state police in the enforcement of federal immigration law. Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, argues it’s necessary to deter migrants entering from Mexico, after such arrivals surged following Biden taking office.
This isn’t the final word on the law – its legality will likely be decided by a federal appeals court, or the US supreme court. Here’s more on the ongoing saga, from the AP:
The 2-1 ruling late Tuesday from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will likely prevent enforcement of the law until a final decision on its merits, either by the 5th Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court.
The ruling followed a March 20 hearing by a three-judge panel of the court. It’s just the latest move in a seesaw legal case over Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s strict new immigration law that is not yet ended.
The Justice Department has argued that Texas’ law is a clear violation of federal authority and would create chaos at the border. Texas has argued that President Joe Biden’s administration isn’t doing enough to control the border and that the state has a right to take action.
Chief Judge Priscilla Richman, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, cited a 2010 Arizona law that was largely stricken by the U.S. Supreme Court to say immigration enforcement is exclusively a federal responsibility.
“For nearly 150 years, the Supreme Court has held that the power to control immigration — the entry, admission, and removal of noncitizens — is exclusively a federal power,” wrote Richman, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush.
The Texas law, Richman wrote, “creates separate, distinct state criminal offenses and related procedures regarding unauthorized entry of noncitizens into Texas from outside the country and their removal.”
She was joined in the opinion by Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, a Biden appointee.
Judge Andrew Oldham, an appointee of former President Donald Trump and a former aide to Abbott, dissented with the majority decision.
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Here’s more of what the surprise Democratic victory in an Alabama special election might mean for the presidential campaign in November, from the Guardian’s Oliver Milman:
An Alabama Democrat who campaigned against the state’s near-total abortion ban has won a special election to the state legislature, a stark signal that reproductive rights is a potent issue for Democratic candidates, even in the deep south.
Marilyn Lands won the state house seat on Tuesday, defeating Teddy Powell, a Republican, by 63% to 37%. Lands, a licensed professional counselor, previously ran for the seat in 2022 and lost by 7% to David Cole, a Republican who resigned last year after pleading guilty to voter fraud.
Lands made Alabama’s abortion ban and access to contraception and in vitro fertilization central to her campaign, speaking openly about her own previous abortion experience in a TV ad that featured her saying that it was “shameful that today women have fewer freedoms than I had two decades ago”.
Lands said that her win sent a clear message in the wake of Alabama’s near-total abortion ban, which came into effect after the US supreme court struck down Roe v Wade in 2022. In February, there was also a highly controversial state supreme court decision that threatened the use of IVF.
One of the earliest indications that the overturning of Roe v Wade would represent an earthquake in American politics was seen in Kansas, another reliably Republican state.
Just weeks after the supreme court’s decision in 2022, Kansas voters rejected a referendum that would have allowed abortion to be banned in the state. But the Associated Press reports that Republicans who dominate the Kansas legislature haven’t given up, and yesterday approved a law that will require doctors to ask women the reasons why they are seeking an abortion. The Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, is likely to veto it, but the GOP appears to have the votes to override it.
Here’s more on that, from the AP:
At least eight states require similar reporting, but none of them has had a statewide vote on abortion rights as Kansas did in August 2022. In the first state ballot question on abortion after the US supreme court’s Dobbs decision, voters decisively protected abortion rights under the state constitution.
Democrats are frustrated because Republicans and anti-abortion groups have pursued new rules for abortion providers despite the 2022 vote. But supporters of the reporting bill say it would give the state better data that would help legislators make policy decisions.
The bill would require providers to ask patients 11 questions about their reasons for terminating a pregnancy, including that they can’t afford another child, raising a child would hinder their education or careers, or a spouse or partner wanted her to have an abortion. A woman would not be required to answer, however.
The bill also would require providers to report each patient’s age, marital status, race and education level, while using a “confidential code” for each patient so that they wouldn’t be identified to the state. The state would be barred for at least five years from identifying the abortion providers in the data it publishes.
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Reproductive rights were also on the minds of the supreme court justices yesterday, when they considered a challenge by a conservative group to abortion medication mifepristone. But while many of the justices who heard the case voted to overturn Roe v Wade, the Guardian’s Carter Sherman and Jessica Glenza report they don’t appear inclined to take similar action against medication abortion:
A US supreme court hearing that held the potential to reshape abortion access and the US Food and Drug Administration’s authority did not go well for anti-abortion doctors behind the case, legal experts said on Tuesday.
The consensus is a positive sign for abortion-rights advocates, who feared the case would curtail access to medication abortions, which now account for the majority of all abortions nationally.
“It’s very possible that they will just toss the lawsuit out because the anti-abortion doctors didn’t have legal standing to sue,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor at Georgetown Law School and an expert in global public health law, said about the justices.
“In my view, the lawsuit was absurd on its face and deserves to be thrown out because these anti-abortion doctors had very little injury,” Gostin added.
The case deals with FDA regulation of the drug mifepristone, one-half of a two-drug regimen used to terminate an early pregnancy. A group representing the doctors, called the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, has sought to roll back FDA decisions that expanded mifepristone access, such as allowing doctors to prescribe it via telehealth.
The politics sages at Sabato’s Crystal Ball have a breakdown of Democrat Marilyn Lands’s triumph in Alabama.
Lands lost by about seven percentage points in 2022, but the seat became open again after Republican David Cole resigned when it turned out he did not actually live in the district, according to the AP. That paved the way for Lands to crush the Republican challenger for the open seat, Teddy Powell:
In the Huntsville AL area, Democrats have flipped state House District 10 tonight. In 2022, Marilyn Lands (D) lost by about 7 points. This time, she won by almost 25%, sweeping nearly everything.
— J. Miles Coleman (@JMilesColeman) March 27, 2024
This was a stronger margin here than Doug Jones's 23-point spread from 2017. pic.twitter.com/NUlH8cZEeF
But Democrats may not want to get too excited about the victory, since the seat has been trending away from the GOP over the last few presidential elections:
Also, going with this, per DRA, it was roughly 60%-39% for McCain and gave Romney 62%. Trump won it by 14 in 2016, but was down to carrying by 1 in 2020--so def. one area of AL moving the wrong way for Rs longer term.
— J. Miles Coleman (@JMilesColeman) March 27, 2024
Democrats and Biden campaign cheer surprise special election victory in Alabama
Just how did Marilyn Lands end up ousting Republicans from a suburban state house seat in northern Alabama? The Associated Press reports that the licensed counselor’s pitch to voters included the following demands: “Our legislature must repeal Alabama’s no-exceptions abortion ban, fully restore access to IVF, and protect the right to contraception.”
Voters liked what they heard, and so did the Democratic party at large. Here’s what chair Jaime Harrison had to say about Lands’s victory:
Today’s election – one of the first since the devastating decision by the Alabama supreme court that stopped IVF care – was a referendum on Maga Republicans’ out-of-touch extremism on reproductive rights. Marilyn Lands’ victory demonstrates that voters aren’t going to sit idly by while Maga Republicans lay the groundwork for a national abortion ban.
And Julie Chavez Rodriguez, manager of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign:
Last month, Alabamans lost access to fertility treatments because of Donald Trump. Tonight, the voters in Alabama’s 10th house district elected a pro-choice champion in Marilyn Lands, sending Trump and extreme Maga Republicans a clear message: they know exactly who’s to blame for restricting their ability to decide how and when to build their families and they’re ready to fight back. Trump overturned Roe vWade, paving the way for attacks on women’s freedoms like we saw in Alabama – now he’s running to ban abortion and gut access to IVF nationwide. Tonight’s results should serve as a major warning sign for Trump: voters will not stand for his attacks on reproductive healthcare. This November will be no different.
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In surprise victory, Democrat wins state House seat in deep red Alabama after campaign focused on reproductive rights
Last night, Democrats in Alabama did something they do not often do in the deeply conservative state: win a seat in the state house of representatives back from the GOP. And how they did it may be a sign of what we can expect to work with voters nationwide as Joe Biden stumps for a second term while trying to gain complete control of Congress in November. In the case of Alabama, the Democrat Marilyn Lands campaigned on repealing Alabama’s strict abortion ban and fully restoring access to in vitro fertilization, the fertility treatment that the Alabama supreme court briefly outlawed last month. Lands lost the race for the seat in the swing district just two years ago, but in last night’s special election triumphed with a more than 25% margin over the Republican candidate.
Why does this all matter? For Democrats, it’s the latest sign that voters remain uncomfortable with the implications of the supreme court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v Wade, and those objections can be harnessed to make inroads even in the most inhospitable terrain, like Alabama. Whether Biden and his allies can repeat the act just over seven months from now is an open question.
Here’s what else we are watching today:
Six construction workers working on Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key bridge when it was struck by a container ship and collapsed are presumed dead, after rescuers spent most of yesterday attempting to locate them.
Ronna McDaniel, the former Republican party chair known for spreading Donald Trump’s election lies, was axed by NBC after an outcry.
Americans once narrowly supported Israel’s campaign in Gaza, but are now generally opposed to it, new polling from Gallup shows.
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