Mike Lee says Senate Republicans will back House GOP in White House debt limit fight

Emily Jacobs

May 08, 02:44 AM May 08, 02:44 AM

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) said on Sunday that the Senate Republican Conference will work to strengthen House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) negotiating position as he attempts to force President Joe Biden to negotiate a debt limit compromise.

Lee collected an impressive 42 signatures, not including his own, from his Senate GOP colleagues for a letter sent Saturday to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that voiced support for pairing a debt limit increase with spending cuts. Asked about the letter, which included Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as a signatory, on WHD News's Sunday Morning Features, Lee said it was "imperative" McCarthy enter the White House "in a position of negotiating power."

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"We’ve got not only the Republican conference in the Senate backing what the Republicans in the House passed the week before last, but we’ve also got a solid bloc of Republicans," Lee said. "[We have] more than enough to block any sort of so-called ‘clean’ debt ceiling bill from going forward, anything that raises the debt ceiling without substantive spending and budgetary reforms."

"Whenever you’ve got 41 senators who are unwilling to bring debate to a close on any legislation, it cannot pass," he added, explaining how 59 yay votes fails reach the 60-vote filibuster threshold. "We’ve now got more than enough to stop exactly the kind of legislation that Joe Biden wants."

Lee went on to say that two other Senate Republicans privately expressed support for the letter but declined to sign "for strategic reasons." Those senators "indicated that they will stand with us in the votes," he claimed, adding that there were "a couple of others who may yet decide to join us yet."

McCarthy was able to hold enough of the House Republican Conference together to pass his debt ceiling budget proposal, which is meant to serve as an opening salvo in negotiations with the White House, late last month. Biden, backed up by Senate Democrats, has stood firm in his refusal to negotiate over the debt limit.

The debt ceiling, or the top amount the federal government can borrow, will either need to be raised or abolished sometime this summer to avert a debt default. Economists have long warned that such a default would wreak havoc on the economy.

McCarthy's legislation pairs nearly $4.8 trillion in deficit reduction measures with a debt limit increase into the next year. The bill would return government agency funding to 2022 levels and cap annual increases at about 1% annually, except for the Pentagon. It would also roll back parts of Biden’s expansive health, climate, and tax laws, expand mining and fossil fuel production, and impose work requirements on social programs.

The White House has decried the bill as an attempt at political "hostage-taking" and vowed that Biden would veto it if it reached his desk, though the likelihood of such legislation passing the Senate, where Democrats control the chamber 51-49, is slim.

Asked if he was confident McConnell and other Senate Republicans would withstand fiscal pressures and hold firm, Lee responded affirmatively, saying, "Even if we lost one or two here or there, we’d still be fine, and I don’t think we’re going to the lose any of them.”

Supreme Court declines to review Kansas racial gerrymandering dispute

Kaelan Deese

March 27, 01:02 PM March 27, 01:02 PM

The Supreme Court on Monday declined a request from Kansas constituents to hear their dispute over a state court decision that allowed the use of a Republican-drawn congressional map accused of being racially gerrymandered.

The Supreme Court of Kansas upheld the GOP-drawn map last year after it had been blocked in a lower court for partisan gerrymandering and diluting minority voting power. The map divided Kansas City's racially diverse Wyandotte County into two congressional districts for the first time in decades.

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The high court's decision not to take up the case means the redrawn map will remain. The vote count over the decision was not revealed, though the denial means fewer than four justices agreed to take up the petition.

Kansas asked the justices to avoid taking up the case, describing the case as a "creature of state law" and saying that the high court lacked jurisdiction over the matter. The state also said the map was lawful and did not involve intentional discrimination.

“Petitioners’ argument is premised on the theory that this case involves intentional minority vote dilution,” the state wrote. “But it is not plausible that the Kansas Legislature enacted SB 355 with a racially discriminatory purpose. Petitioners’ claims would therefore fail regardless of the answer to the question presented.”

The group of voters, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Kansas, and the Campaign Legal Center, wrote in court filings that the maps were in violation of the 14th Amendment, which bars "intentional racial discrimination in redistricting where the minority voters discriminated against are not sufficiently numerous to form a majority of eligible voters in a single-member district.”

“Under this conception of the Fourteenth Amendment, where minority voters are fewer in number or more dispersed, states have carte blanche to intentionally discriminate against them in drawing districts — even if the legislature announced that it acted specifically to disadvantage minority voters,” groups wrote in their initial petition.

The Supreme Court also declined to hear an appeal of Steven Donziger, a disbarred environmental attorney's challenge to his criminal contempt conviction. He argued his prosecution violated his rights because private attorneys appointed by a federal judge handled the case against him after the Justice Department declined to do so.

Another case the court declined was a challenge to U.S. steel import tariffs imposed in 2018 under President Donald Trump. The Biden administration has largely maintained the same policies, and at issue in the case was whether the findings of a 2018 Trump administration report that recommended steel tariffs were subject to court scrutiny under federal administrative law.

The justices granted one case, a challenge involving a Maine-based hotel owner's bid to dodge a lawsuit accusing it of being insufficiently clear on its website about whether the hotel had accessibility features for people with disabilities.

Supreme Court could take first transgender sports case after appeal from West Virginia soccer player

Kaelan Deese

March 09, 02:35 PM March 09, 02:36 PM

A West Virginia soccer player's appeal to the Supreme Court could give the 6-3 conservative majority its first chance to weigh in on the contentious issue of transgender athletes in women's sports.

West Virginia State University soccer player Lainey Armistead and her counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom on Thursday are slated to ask the highest court in the land to lift an appeals court injunction against the state's Save Women's Sports Act, which aims to ban biological male students who identify as women from participating in girls school sports teams.

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"We are now asking SCOTUS to vacate that unreasonable and incorrect injunction," West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said during a press conference Thursday.

The law was passed in 2021 but was subject to litigation by the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Becky Pepper-Jackson, a transgender middle school student who was blocked from participating with the girls cross-country team. The ACLU contends the law violated the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause and Title IX, a federal statute prohibiting sex-based discrimination.

A district court earlier this year ruled in favor of the West Virginia law, saying it was constitutional and consistent with Title IX, which shields against sex-based discrimination.

The ACLU appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit and requested an injunction, meaning the law is currently halted while the lawsuit unfolds.

"We know that we should win on the merits. We know that the original district court judge put in place an injunction that ultimately changed his mind and agreed with us that the law is constitutional," Morrisey said, adding that's why the state and ADF believe the Supreme Court will "ultimately lift the injunction."

Armistead decided to become a party in the case on behalf of herself and other female athletes, saying the ACLU's defense of Pepper-Jackson threatens her ability to compete fairly.

"I never dreamed this would be an issue in West Virginia," Armistead said in a statement. "Whenever I heard about the Connecticut lawsuit or just the girls losing out, I was really devastated for them because I know how much work all these athletes have put into their individual sports."

The Connecticut lawsuit surrounded three high school female track and field athletes who sued the state after being forced to compete against a transgender woman and claimed to miss out on several scholarship opportunities, as well as athletic recognition awards. That lawsuit has been ongoing for five years and is still playing out in lower courts.

Morrisey said the appeal to the Supreme Court is expected to become finalized later this afternoon.

The Washington Examiner contacted the ADF and ACLU for a response.