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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Chris Stein

House’s Republican majority gets to work with two abortion measures – as it happened

Joe Biden Abortion Hunter Biden Republican David Smith George Santos Donald Trump Karine JeanPierre Nancy Mace NBC
The US Capitol.
The US Capitol. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Closing summary

Republicans in the House are set to pass two measures concerning abortion later this afternoon, one a resolution condemning violence against opponents of the procedure, the other a bill meant to protect the life of babies who survive abortions. Democrats oppose both. Meanwhile, GOP officials in New York have called on George Santos to resign from Congress after he admitted to lying about his qualifications, but he says he’s not going anywhere.

Here’s what else happened today:

  • Domestic flights resumed across the United States after all departures were briefly halted this morning by a systems failure at the Federal Aviation Administration.

  • The top Republican investigator in the House demanded documents from the Treasury related to Hunter Biden and other members of the president’s family. He also wants testimony from three former Twitter executives involved in the platform’s temporary banning of the New York Post after it reported on the discovery of Biden’s laptop.

  • Republicans tried their best to get voters riled up over gas cookstoves.

  • Joe Biden’s aides found more classified documents at a location he once used, though further details are scarce.

  • Virginia’s Republican governor is unlikely to be able to ban abortion after 15 weeks, after Democrats flipped a state Senate seat in a special election.

More classified documents found in location used by Biden

Another batch of classified documents has turned up at a location used by Joe Biden that is separate from the Washington DC office where the first cache was discovered in November, NBC News reports.

The president has faced scrutiny ever since reports emerged this week that approximately 10 papers bearing government classification markings and dating to his time as vice-president were found at an office once used by Biden. According to NBC, the latest cache was found by aides to the president, though details of the documents’ content and how many were found were not available.

NBC reports the documents were discovered after the president ordered a search for any other classified documents that may have been taken from the White House when he departed in January 2017 at the end of Barack Obama’s presidency.

At 4 pm, the House is scheduled to vote on a GOP-proposed resolution and bill concerning abortion.

But first, the Democrats will try to attach an amendment to the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which is meant to protect babies who survive the procedure. The proposed amendment would “prohibit government restrictions on abortion care,” according to Democratic whip Katherine Clark’s office. “This would include any limits to providers’ ability to prescribe certain drugs, offer abortion counseling services via telemedicine, or provide emergency abortion services when a delay would risk the health of the mother.” Republicans are certain to vote this proposal down.

The chamber will then consider both the born-alive act and the resolution condemning violence against anti-abortion groups. Clark’s office is encouraging Democrats to vote against both, saying the resolution does not contain “any acknowledgment of violent attacks on providers or facilities that offer abortion care,” and the born alive bill “unnecessarily restates current law requiring a doctor to provide the same standard of medical care for an infant born during an abortion procedure as they would for any other infant.”

Republicans have the numbers to pass both, but at this stage, the effort is more about signaling priorities to GOP voters than changing the law. When the born-alive act arrives in the Senate, it is unlikely to be considered by its Democratic leadership.

The calls for George Santos to resign have spread from county level Republicans to the state party, Politico reports:

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked at her daily briefing about the classified documents discovered at an office formerly used by Joe Biden, and she said… not much.

The Guardian’s David Smith was in the White House briefing room to experience the illuminating exchange up close:

Reporters are wont to press, and press they did, at which point it grew a little heated:

Joe Biden has joined Donald Trump in the club of current or former American presidents who may be in trouble over classified documents. But as the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports, the two men are not facing identical peril:

Donald Trump’s retention of documents marked classified at his Mar-a-Lago resort has aggravating factors that might support his criminal prosecution unlike the discovery of some documents also marked classified stored at Joe Biden’s former institute from his time as vice-president, legal experts said.

The US justice department has clear criteria for prosecuting people who intentionally mishandle highly sensitive government documents, and the facts of the Trump documents case appear to satisfy more elements than in the Biden documents case.

Broadly, the Department of Justice has typically pursued prosecutions when cases have involved a combination of four factors: wilful mishandling of classified information, vast quantities of classified information to support an inference of misconduct, disloyalty to the United States and obstruction.

The criminal investigation into Trump touches on at least two of those elements – obstruction, where a person conceals documents with an intent to impede a government agency, and the volume of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago – unlike the Biden case, which appears to touch on none.

While they may have momentum in the US House, anti-abortion groups continue to lose ground at the state level, with a special election in Virginia bringing the latest setback for their movement.

Last night, Democrat Aaron Rouse claimed victory in the race for a vacant seat in Virginia’s state Senate, which, if confirmed, would expand the party’s margins in the chamber. It would also mean Republican governor Glenn Youngkin would not have the votes he needs to pass a proposed ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which he unveiled last month.

Abortion rights have faired well at ballot boxes ever since the supreme court last year overturned Roe v Wade. In the November midterms, voters rejected new limits on abortion or expanded access in every state where it was on the ballot.

Earlier this morning in the Capitol, George Santos kept it to the point with a quick “I will not,” when asked if he would resign.

He was a bit more loquacious on Twitter this afternoon:

House Republican: party is 'tone deaf' on abortion

Ahead of the introduction of two anti-abortion measures in the newly Republican-controlled House, one House Republican said her party was “tone deaf” on the issue.

Nancy Mace.
Nancy Mace. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA

Nancy Mace, of South Carolina, told NBC on Tuesday: “We have been tone deaf on this issue since the time that Roe was overturned.”

Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling which protected abortion rights, was overturned by the ruling in Dobbs v Jackson which the conservative-dominated supreme court handed down last June.

Extensive evidence, including Republicans’ disappointing performance in the midterm elections in November, suggests the ruling was drastically out of step with public support for abortion rights, which runs around 60%.

“We buried our heads in the sand,” Mace said. “We didn’t have any policy alternatives. We were not compassionate to both sides of the aisle on this argument.”

Mace also told NBC her party was “paying lip service to the pro-life movement” and said anti-abortion measures introduced in this Congress were “never going to pass the Senate. It’s never going to get to the president’s desk to be signed into law.

“If you want to make a difference and reduce the number of abortions with a Democrat-controlled Senate, the No1 issue we should be working on is access to birth control.”

Some pertinent lunchtime reading from our columnist Jill Filipovic, as House Republicans seek to advance their agenda in the chamber they newly control…

The Republican party didn’t exactly start 2023 hot out of the gate.

Despite a new House majority, the Republican members of Congress spent their first few days in office in an embarrassing protracted squabble over the speakership.

Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, who has spent the last few years assisting members of the extremist conspiracy-mongering Trumpian Republican radicals in their rise to power, found himself predictably on the receiving end of the extremist conspiracy-mongers, who wanted one of their own in charge as well as a series of rule changes. After largely capitulating to his party’s lunatic fringe, McCarthy squeaked through on the 15th vote.

Now, he holds the gavel, but it’s clear he doesn’t hold his party’s confidence, and that he’s not a leader in any meaningful sense of the word. If he can’t even get his troops lined up to vote for him, how is he going to get his clearly out-of-control party in line to support even tougher votes?

Which raises the question of what the party can reasonably accomplish in the House this term.

Read on…

Some good news for Joe Biden – according to polling by the Economist and YouGov, his approval rating is net positive, his best such rating since July 2021:

More from the Economist and YouGov, under the title “Weekly Insight”:

Two years on from the mob attack at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, a new poll from the Economist and YouGov finds that most Americans still disapprove of the insurrectionists who stormed the building. The poll finds that 64% of adults disapprove of “the Trump supporters taking over the Capitol building” on January 6, including 52% who say they “strongly” disapprove. Meanwhile 20% of adults – mostly respondents who also said they voted for Mr Trump in 2020 – say they approve. By 45% to 37%, a plurality of adults believe Mr Trump urged his supporters to engage in violence that day.

So that’s reassuring. Ish.

The day so far

Republicans in the House are set to pass two measures concerning abortion this afternoon, one a resolution condemning violence against opponents of the procedure, the other a bill meant to protect the life of babies who survive abortions. Democrats oppose both. Meanwhile, GOP officials in New York have called on George Santos to resign from Congress after he admitted to lying about his qualifications, but he says he’s not going anywhere.

Here’s what else has happened today thus far:

  • Domestic flights are resuming across the United States after all departures were briefly halted this morning by a systems failure at the Federal Aviation Administration.

  • The top Republican investigator in the House is demanding documents from the Treasury related to Hunter Biden and other members of the president’s family. He also wants testimony from three former Twitter executives involved in the platform’s temporary banning of the New York Post after it reported on the discovery of Biden’s laptop.

  • Republicans are trying their best to get voters riled up over gas cookstoves.

Here’s newly elected congressman Anthony D’Esposito becoming the first Republican lawmaker to call for George Santos’s resignation:

Like Santos, D’Esposito is a Republican who represents a Democratic-leaning suburban New York City district.

Here’s Joseph Cairo, chair of the Republican party in New York’s Nassau county, calling for George Santos’ resignation:

Santos’s congressional district includes part of the county in suburban New York City, and his victory in last November’s midterm election flipped it from Democratic to Republican representation.

ABC News caught up with Santos at the Capitol, who said he has no plans to step down:

There’s no shortage of business on the House’s agenda, but several Republicans are doing all they can to make the gas cookstove kerfuffle last.

Consider this, from Missouri’s Mark Alford:

Texas’s Ronny Jackson, the former White House doctor to Barack Obama and Donald Trump, is promoting a website…:

... and employing the all-caps approach:

Venture to certain corners of conservative media today and you’ll find lots of discussion of gas stoves. The Guardian’s Alaina Demopoulos explains why:

After Joe Biden’s administration announced it was considering regulating – or banning – gas stoves, Richard Trumka of the US consumer product safety commission (CPSC) offered some words of clarity: “To be clear, CPSC isn’t coming for anyone’s gas stoves,” he tweeted.

“You will have to pry my gas stove from my cold dead hands,” replied Matt Walsh, the rightwing political podcaster and Daily Wire columnist.

Despite Trumka’s words of assurance, and the fact that no regulation or ban has been put in place or announced as a course of action, conservative figures are trying to turn gas stoves into the next culture war.

Gas stoves have become a hot-button issue in the first weeks of 2022, as new research reveals that the appliances emit toxic chemicals and carcinogens, even while turned off. The report found that 12.7% of cases of childhood asthma in the US are due to the presence of gas stoves.

New York Republicans to call for Santos resignation

Republican leaders in New York’s Nassau county will later today call on George Santos to resign after he admitted to lying about his qualifications in his campaign for Congress, Politico reports.

The announcement will be made by the county’s GOP chair Joe Cairo along with other party officials. According to Politico, it is intended to mitigate the damage Santos did to the party’s standing in New York’s third congressional district, which leans Democratic.

Facts First USA, a group recently set up by Democrats to counter the GOP’s investigations against the Biden administration, has hit back on House oversight committee chair James Comer’s request for documents related to Hunter Biden.

“Comer’s latest letter is yet another rehashed conspiracy theory about a Biden family member that has already been thoroughly debunked by fact checkers,” Facts First USA president David Brock said in a statement.

“The interesting news here is that if Comer continues to move forward with this tinfoil hat hearing it is really bad news for the people in his Congressional district, where, ‘over 62,000 reports were filed between 2014 and 2022, averaging one filing for every 12 people in the district,’” he said, citing reporting in the American Independent.

House GOP requests Hunter Biden documents, Twitter execs testimony

House Republicans are making good on their promises to investigate the Biden administration and other perceived opponents, with the oversight committee chair James Comer today requesting the Treasury turn over documents related to the president’s son Hunter Biden, as well as calling for testimony from three former Twitter executives.

Comer sent Treasury secretary Janet Yellen a letter requesting “suspicious activity reports” related to Hunter Biden and other members of the president’s family, and their businesses. Suspicious activity reports are submitted to Treasury by banks that suspect a customer may be engaged in unlawful or dangerous business.

He is also calling former executives Vijaya Gadde, James Baker, and Yoel Roth to testify on the week of 6 February before the committee about Twitter’s decision in 2020 to briefly ban the New York Post’s account after it published reporting about a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden.

“For the past two years, the Biden Administration and Big Tech worked overtime to hide information about the Biden family’s suspicious business schemes and Joe Biden’s involvement. Now that Democrats no longer have one-party rule in Washington, oversight and accountability are coming,” Comer said in announcing the requests.

George Santos, the Republican congressman who admitted to lying about his qualifications, will not be serving on any major committees, House speaker Kevin McCarthy told CNN:

Republicans are today appointing members to some of the chamber’s most influential committees: appropriations, ways and means, financial services and energy and commerce. Santos may be banned from those panels, but the House Republican leadership hasn’t announced any other sanctions against him, though he’s in plenty of hot water nonetheless.

Democratic chair of the Senate commerce committee Maria Cantwell has pledged to investigate the Federal Aviation Administration’s computer outage today that caused flights to be briefly grounded nationwide:

In Texas, some cities are moving to become havens for abortion access in a state where the procedure is otherwise banned, the Guardian’s Poppy Noor reports:

Campaigners in San Antonio, Texas, on Tuesday delivered more than 38,000 signatures to the city clerk’s office, petitioning for a May vote that would decriminalize abortion in the city.

Abortion in Texas has been banned since August 2022, following the supreme court decision to overturn Roe v Wade last summer.

The campaigners hope to pass what they are calling the San Antonio Justice Charter, which would also end criminalization for low-level marijuana possession, and put limits on police use of no-knock warrants and chokeholds.

San Antonio, Austin and Waco – all in Texas – already passed resolutions to de-prioritize the investigation of abortion crimes through their city councils in 2022, at the same time as a string of progressive district attorneys across the country vowed to resist state abortion bans that came into effect when the federal right to abortion ended in June.

In Alabama, the state’s top prosecutor has reacted to the Biden administration’s expansion of access to abortion pills by warning that women who take the medication could be prosecuted under a law meant to protect children from methamphetamine fumes.

“Promoting the remote prescription and administration of abortion pills endangers both women and unborn children,” Republican attorney general Steve Marshall said in a statement to Al.com. “Elective abortion – including abortion pills – is illegal in Alabama. Nothing about the Justice Department’s guidance changes that. Anyone who remotely prescribes abortion pills in Alabama does so at their own peril: I will vigorously enforce Alabama law to protect unborn life.”

Alabama’s governor in 2019 signed the Human Life Protection Act, which bans abortion except to protect the life of the mother. It only went into effect last year, when the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade. But the law allows for abortion providers to be punished, not recipients, which is why Marshall is threatening to use the state’s chemical endangerment law against women who end their pregnancies medically.

“The Human Life Protection Act targets abortion providers, exempting women ‘upon whom an abortion is performed or attempted to be performed’ from liability under the law,” said Marshall, who has also threatened to prosecute veterans affair doctors who perform abortions in cases of incest or rape. “It does not provide an across-the-board exemption from all criminal laws, including the chemical-endangerment law – which the Alabama Supreme Court has affirmed and reaffirmed protects unborn children.”

The first days of a new Congress are typically when the party in charge lays out its priority, and today, it’s the turn of abortion foes.

The two measures the Republican-led House will consider don’t amount to the sort of draconian laws some abortion foes would like to see passed, and supporters of the procedure fear. They are not, for instance, the nationwide abortion ban Republican senator Lindsey Graham proposed last year.

Rather, they target more niche aspects and consequences of the procedure. One is a resolution condemning attacks on churches, groups and facilities that work against abortion. The other is the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which is intended to protect the rights of babies born after surviving an attempted abortion. Abortion rights advocate argue their rights are already secured by a 2002 law, and just last November, voters in Montana rejected a similar measure that was on their ballots.

Democrats are telling their members to vote against both measures.

Updated

Abortion foes have their moment as House GOP gets to work

Good morning, US politics blog readers. House Republicans will today introduce two measures concerning abortion, one being a bill that “secures medical protections for babies that survive an attempted abortion”, and the other a resolution condemning “attacks on pro-life facilities, groups, and churches”. That the party opposes the procedure is no surprise, but they still have to tread carefully. After all, it was outrage to the supreme court’s decision last year allowing states to ban abortion entirely that led to the GOP’s underperformance in the midterms. The House will convene at 12pm eastern time, with votes on these two bills expected at 4pm.

Here’s what else is happening today:

  • All domestic flight departures are paused until 9am eastern time due to a system failure, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

  • The White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will brief reporters at 2pm eastern time.

  • The House panel charged with determining which lawmakers sit on committees will meet at 10am today to continue filling out the ranks of key bodies, such as financial services, energy and commerce, ways and means and appropriations.

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