meadows, mark REP
capt/bak 520
main ranter in impeachment, bailled for trump gig?! COS
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/white-house-turmoil-as-senior-staffer-denied-key-promotion-after-right-wing-fury-on-twitter-report/
according to a report from Politico, a senior White House official slated to take a high profile position overseeing domestic policy had his appointment derailed by a furious response on Twitter from extremist conservatives questioning his bonafides.
The report notes that Derek Lyons was on the verge of being announced as President Donald Trump’s next top domestic policy adviser before having the rug pulled out from him and seeing the job suddenly go to Brooke Rollins.
According to Politico’s Anita Kumar and Daniel Lippman, “The abrupt shuffle at the Domestic Policy Council was the result of several typical Trump-era factors: an announcement that got out early, conservative anger and differing internal messages.”
“Nothing’s done until it’s done, and that’s always been true in Trump world and this is yet another of many examples,” explained a person close to the White House.
jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, _{:{floated:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:}_several people for the role, including both Lyons and Rollins. Newly installed chief of staff Mark Meadows floated his own name, Stephen Miller, an influential immigration policy aide. It was expected that the domestic policy chief would play a significant role in the president’s efforts to reopen the country amid the coronavirus pandemic,” the report notes. “After several days of deliberations, it appeared Kushner and Meadows had selected Lyons to serve as acting DPC director for the rest of Trump’s term, while continuing in his current role as White House staff secretary, a key official who manages document flow to the president.”
However, after a Politico report noted the upcoming announcement, it set off a furor among conservative hardliners about Lyons association with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
“Lyons, a lawyer and Harvard Law School grad, started his career as a law clerk to Brett Kavanaugh when the Supreme Court justice was still a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals. He later worked on Capitol Hill,” the report continues. “But it was his time with Jeb Bush’s campaign that made some conservatives suspicious. His affiliation with Kushner also raised some eyebrows, given that Trump’s son-in-law has_{:{pushed:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:}_ for some more moderate policies, including business-friendly immigration changes that hardliners say are too lenient.”
That announcement set off anti-immigration gadfly Michelle Malkin who tweeted out, “This is not what #AmericaFirst voters signed up for,” along with the hashtag, “#JaredKushnerIsNotMyPresident..”
Conservative writer and political consultant Ryan Girdusky, piled on, tweeting, “Trump has picked Derek Lyons as the head of the Domestic Policy Council…- he’s a former Jeb! Person.”
The report notes that the outside criticism set off alarms in the White House that eventually led to Lyons being skipped over.
“A White House official said Meadows received praise internally about Lyons but some in the White House worried that criticism from influential conservative pundits, such as Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson of Fox News, would soon follow,” the report states. “There was another problem that arose during deliberations: Meadows and Kushner had yet to have Trump sign off on Lyons’ appointment when the news broke, according to two White House officials. The White House official said Lyons and Rollins were finalists for the job, but the job ultimately went to Rollins in part because she would be able to appear on television as part of ‘the public facing role’ of DPC director.”
“By the end of the week Rollins had been tapped to head the DPC in an acting capacity,” the report notes before adding, “Lyons was elevated to the title of counselor, making him one of the closest advisers to the president alongside Hope Hicks and Kellyanne Conway, who have similar titles, although Conway is senior counselor. The move was seen internally by some as a face-saving measure and by others as a Kushner attempt to diminish Conway’s status.”
You can read more here.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/trumps-newest-chief-of-staff-mark-meadows-is-already-facing-damaging-leaks-from-white-house-staffers/
no lnx
Trump’s newest chief of staff Mark Meadows is already facing damaging leaks from White House staffers
Written by Travis Gettys / Raw Story April 9, 2020
President Donald Trump’s new White House chief of staff is already in hot water after just a couple of weeks on the job.
Mark Meadows, who resigned from Congress in late March to begin work in the White House, quickly pushed out legislative liaison Mike McKenna and then replaced press secretary Stephanie Grisham — and other aides could soon be on their way out, reported Bloomberg.
The North Carolina Republican has also ruffled feathers by calling Republican governors who have resisted issuing stay-at-home orders and asking them to do so immediately, according to two people familiar with the calls.
The president has said those decisions are the responsibility of individual governors and has not publicly criticized those who held out — all of them Republicans — and it’s not clear whether Meadows had his blessing to make the calls.
Meadows has ratcheted up tensions in a White House known for infighting and frequent turnover, according to multiple sources.
Two sources told Bloomberg that Meadows told Grisham over the weekend that he wanted her to give up the press secretary job and serve only as communications director, but she declined.
Grisham stepped down and returned to her job as first lady Melania Trump’s chief of staff.
Top aides say they are trying to work with Meadows but complained that he didn’t spend enough time learning how the West Wing works before making changes.
Meadows also pushed out Jessica Ditto, who had worked for Trump since 2016 and was the primary spokeswoman for Ivanka Trump.
One source said aides have gone to Meadows to suggest other staffers to push out, which has raised anxiety and damaged morale.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/trumps-new-chief-of-staff-hasnt-resigned-from-congress-why-is-he-representing-the-white-house-in-coronavirus-negotiations/
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he git to work in da big house now
PO'd at him for a while (get over it") --> mark meadons needs a job b/c fixed gerry?!
320 an
trump announces Mick Mulvaney is out as chief of staff — to be replaced by a congressional ally
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Rep. Mark Meadows
At the 2014 Values Voters Summit, Meadows said, "How ridiculous is [sic] that when you have our fighting men and women, they get up and they say, 'man, it's a little chilly, maybe today is the day that we've got to worry about climate change.' It's just ridiculous."
In a slight movement from his previous denial of climate science, Meadows told reporters in March 2019 that "there are some things I'm willing to look at," related to climate change. Though he didn't fully back climate science, he reportedly said, "I think that greenhouse gas emissions is certainly something that we need to look at."[// djt ploy?]
League of Conservation Voters score: 1%
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april 2019
Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican and the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, suggested this week that he might be willing to support climate change legislation.
During a House oversight hearing on Capitol Hill Tuesday, Meadows accused former Secretary of State and onetime Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry for politicizing climate change.
But while he excoriated Kerry for his approach to the issue, Meadows mentioned that his staff was considering the merits of a carbon tax — a climate change policy that has long had bipartisan support.
“Mr. Secretary, I am one of the few people here that … is more predisposed perhaps to your message than most on my side of the aisle,” Meadows told Kerry.
“I was a wind, solar and geothermal expert for an electric utility many years ago, back when the Department of Energy actually started. I have people on my staff that are looking at a carbon tax and a number of issues.”
That may come as a surprise to some, given Meadows’ past reluctance to back climate policies.
When President Obama announced the Paris climate agreement in 2016, Meadows issued a statement saying, “With the Paris Climate Agreement, this administration is throwing away significant gains made in our country’s energy sector and handcuffing the American economy and job creators to burdensome regulations that will hurt, not help, American workers.”
He added, “The American people are tired of watching our government hamstring the economy and burden U.S. businesses in a fruitless pursuit of climate change goals that are both ineffective and unenforceable globally.”
Meadows has a 1 percent lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters, and scored zero percent in 2018.
Meadows’ office did not respond to a request for comment about what sort of climate change policy he might be open to.
Still, Meadows told Kerry on Tuesday, “There is no doubt that human contributions have attributed to greenhouse gases.”
The North Carolina Republican also told Roll Call in February, “I think that greenhouse gas emissions is certainly something that we need to look at.”
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https://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/some-gop-lawmakers-are-thawing-on-climate-change
2/19?
Congressional Republicans seem to be thawing on climate.
Rep. Mark Meadows, the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who has denied the science behind climate change, told reporters Wednesday he was open to confront the peril of the warming planet.
“There are some things I’m willing to look at,” the North Carolina Republican said of addressing climate change. While he remains skeptical of climate science, he said, “I think that greenhouse gas emissions is certainly something that we need to look at.”
Last week, SenateEnvironment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso of Wyoming said America can cut its carbon output. It’s a business opportunity for U.S. firms, he said. “You know, as other countries grow their economies, they should be using the best possible technology to capture carbon emissions.”
And Illinois Republican Rep. John Shimkus, who in 2008 called a carbon tax “the only intellectually honest way to move forward on global climate change,” said Wednesday, referring to a possible climate bill, that there are “areas of agreement where Republicans can be supportive so that you might have a legislative solution that actually gets signed into law.”
As the long-set Republican opposition to addressing climate change recedes on Capitol Hill, even highly conservative members in the House and Senate are indicating they view greenhouse gases as a problem and are open to climate measures that would emphasize an expanded role for the private sector rather than the federal government.
While no deal is imminent or likely in this Congress, Republicans have set out areas they might be willing to compromise on or use as bargaining chips in negotiating climate legislation, including carbon-capture technology, energy efficiency, nuclear power, battery storage and funding for basic energy research and development.
In a column published Wednesday, a trio of top Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee — ranking member Greg Walden of Oregon, Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, and Shimkus — offered an “innovation” pitch to address the issue with what they called “bipartisan solutions”: renewable energy development, carbon capture and utilization, hydropower and nuclear power.
“These are bipartisan solutions we must seize on to deliver real results for the American people,” they wrote.
That type of offer may have an audience with Democrats who may view a proposal with more federal involvement, like the Green New Deal resolution from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, as less politically palatable. The resolution aims to overhaul the U.S. energy system and swiftly pull away from carbon-heavy sources.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Peter A. DeFazio of Oregon, who opposed cap-and-trade legislation Democrats narrowly passed when they last had control of the House, said he was interested in what Republicans had to offer.
“Renewable energy, R&D, energy efficiency, research into new battery technology, massive federal investments in those areas? Sure, I’m interested in that,” DeFazio said.
He said that before he’s willing to work with Republicans on these efforts, they must acknowledge the science behind climate change and the related risks presented to the planet.
“They have to acknowledge there’s a problem if they want to spend a bunch of money to solve it,” he said. “If they’re going to spend a bunch of money on a problem they say doesn’t exist, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
Shimkus said that he, with Walden and Upton, was trying to move beyond the topic of climate science, which “we all agree with,” to a strategy of “how we can move forward.”
Republicans are considering “where are there areas of agreement where Republicans can be supportive so that you might have a legislative solution that actually gets signed into law,” he said.
‘No-regret solutions’
At a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing last week, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who chairs the committee, laid out similar grounds for compromise.
“I have often spoken about clean energy innovation policies as ‘no-regret solutions,’” the Alaska Republican said. “But in reality, these are just those first steps.”
Deploying low-carbon energy infrastructure worldwide requires research and cost-cutting, she said, underscoring carbon capture technology, which is still in its infancy.
“It is time to push hard to bring down the cost of clean energy technologies like renewables, advanced nuclear, next-generation energy storage and carbon capture,” Murkowski said. “If we want credible technological solutions that are cost-effective and deployable globally and at-scale, we must ensure that the policies we put in place propel those efforts.”
Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Joe Manchin III said at that hearing that a comprehensive measure like the Green New Deal could be a way for lawmakers of both parties to “come together and understand that it’s a really lofty goal.”
“We get these divides where our caucuses, whether it be within the Democrat or Republican, or divide within the whole Senate or the whole Congress,” the West Virginia Democrat said. “We don’t want to drink dirty water. We don’t want to breathe dirty air. We want our kids to have a future. We really do. They also realize they have to have a job to sustain themselves.”
Shimkus agreed with the sentiment that Democrats’ Green New Deal created an opportunity to craft a more politically-moderate approach to addressing climate that could receive buy-in from his party.
“I think that’s helpful in getting us to look at something ... that we might be willing to consider,” he said.
In an interview, Rep. Paul Tonko, who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce’s Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee, lauded the Republicans’ willingness to address climate change but said their push for innovation falls short of what is needed to tackle such as sprawling threat.
"Innovation and research are important but again that's only picking two tools out of the kit,” the New York Democrat said. “And if we’re going to get to this very lofty ambitious goal with urgency, we’re going to need to have many more elements to be part of the equation for success.”
Tonko, whose subcommittee would be the first stop for legislation in the House to address climate change and energy issues, said there are opportunities to work out a deal between both chambers and parties.
He mentioned energy efficiency, weatherization, conservation, research and upgrading the electric grids as areas of collaboration — points Republicans have broadly said they would be open to.
“I applaud they're coming around,” Tonko said. “It appears as though the denial syndrome or the delay syndrome has been abandoned and that people are now talking solutions.”
Trump: Green New Deal sounds like a ‘high school term paper that got a low mark’]
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Search Results
Web results
Mark Meadows – climate policy champion? | The Progressive ...
pulse.ncpolicywatch.org › 2019/04/11 › mark-meadows-climate-policy-ch...
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Missing: pledge | Must include:pledge
Some GOP lawmakers are thawing on climate change - Roll Call
https://www.rollcall.com › news › congress › some-gop-lawmakers-are-tha...
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Missing: pledge | Must include:pledge
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https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-and-republicans-congress-global-warming-2019-2
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no lnx
GOP mass exodus continues: Freedom caucus co-founder and ‘warrior for the president’ Mark Meadows is quitting Congress
Written by David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement December 19, 2019
The GOP mass exodus continues. U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, will not run for re-election and may not even finish his term in Congress. Meadows is a powerful Republican who is a co-founder and former Chairman of the far right House Freedom Caucus. He is one of President Donald Trump’s top supporters in Congress.
Politico first reported that Meadows will not run for re-election and may leave Congress early, to go to work directly for Trump. He becomesat least the 28th House Republican to retire or quit before the end of their term during the 116th Congress.
While no formal role has been determined, the four-term Congressman could end up in the White House or in the re-election campaign. Last year Trump strongly considered making Meadows his Chief of Staff.
Rep. Meadows is an anti-LGBTQ extremist who pushed Trump hard to ban transgender service members from the U.S. Armed Forces. He is also among the 38 House Republicans who signed a letter last year urging Trump to remove protections for LGBTQ workers from his USMCA trade pact.
Even before Trump was sworn into office, Meadows began to pressure the president-elect to roll back or rescind a variety of President Barack Obama’s LGBT protections, including guidelines to help protect the rights of transgender students. The administration, via Secretary Betsy DeVos and then-Attorney General Jeff Session, complied.
In 2013 Rep. Meadows claimed if the Supreme Court were to rule same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry it would create “a constitutional crisis.”
Senior Advisor to the President, Jared Kushner, told Politico, “Congressman Meadows has been awarriorfor the president and a champion of his agenda. We have greatly valued his guidance for the last three years in the administration, and I have no doubt that Mark will play an important role going into 2020.”
Meadows sees his job, now and in the future, as fighting for Trump.
“So this is not me shrinking away from a fight. In fact, it’s just going to be continuing to fight a different capacity, whether that’s officially as part of the Trump team or unofficially in my capacity as a sitting member of Congress,” he says.
SYSTEMIC ANALYSIS
https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/the-decade-republicans-hijacked-our-democracy-via-the-gerrymander/
no lnx
The decade Republicans hijacked our democracy — via the gerrymander
Written by David Daley / Salon December 30, 2019
As this decade comes to a close, 59 million Americans live in a state where one or both chambers of the state legislature is controlled by the party that got fewer votes in the 2018 election.
In Wisconsin in 2018, voters elected a Democratic U.S. senator, defeated an incumbent Republican governor, picked Democrats for every statewide office, and favored Democratic candidates for the state assembly by more than 200,000 ballots. Republicans nevertheless controlled more than 63 percent of the seats.
We end the 2020s with voter purges in Ohio, Wisconsin and Georgia, with precinct closures weaponized to lower voter participation across the South, with Texas, Tennessee and Florida making it harder to register new voters. The ball drops on the 2010s with state legislatures in Florida, Michigan and Missouri willing to undo voting reforms approved by upwards of 60 percent of the people via initiative.
One of our final images of the U.S. House will be the floor debate over impeachment, with its dueling images of older, white men defending the president’s actions over Ukraine and younger members, largely women and people of color, insisting that no one, even a president, stand above the law.
White men make up a smaller slice of the American electorate with each election. Yet they maintain outsized power in Congress and state legislatures. A new decade dawns with a crisis of representation that threatens the integrity of representative democracy itself.
We’re in this mess, in many ways, because of gerrymandering. This was the decade that the gerrymander — perhaps the oldest political trick in the book — pushed American politics into a dangerous state of anti-majoritarianism, grounded in racial fear and identity politics, that may take at least another decade to overcome, assuming we ever do so.
It’s worth remembering how we got here. After all, the decade began with the likelihood that changing American demographics might push the nation in a very different direction.
As thousands celebrated America’s first black president in Chicago’s Grant Park on election night 2008, the smartest analysts on every network, left and right, watched Barack Obama defeat John McCain and wondered whether an increasingly diverse nation might render Republicans a minority party for decades.
Top Republican strategists had a different idea. The 2008 election might have been historic, they understood, but 2010 had the potential to be transformative. Every state legislative and congressional district in the nation would be redrawn after the 2010 census. State legislatures would draw most of the lines. If Obama and the Democrats suffered a difficult midterm election, as new presidents often do, Republicans could quickly change their fortunes, dominate redistricting, and draw themselves an enduring advantage, even in competitive states they’d lost in 2008, such as Wisconsin, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
The GOP plan — known as REDMAP, or the Redistricting Majority Project — was headquartered at the Republican State Leadership Committee, led by former party chairman Ed Gillespie. It was announced on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal by no less than GOP mastermind Karl Rove. The RSLC’s key benefactors included Koch Industries, Walmart, Reynolds American and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The RSLC identified just over 100 state legislative races in crucial states, and drowned Democratic incumbents in waves of sophisticated negative advertisements in the final weeks of the 2010 race. (It helped that cocky Democrats snoozed on the importance of redistricting and barely put up any fight.) And when it came time to remap these states in 2011, using the most exacting voter data andsophisticated mapping technology ever deployedon redistricting, the political operations of new House Speaker John Boehner, Paul Ryan and many other establishment figures would play key roles.
It worked. In 2012, the first election held under these lines, Democratic U.S. House candidates won 1.4 million more votes than Republicans nationwide. Republicans held the chambers nevertheless, decisively, 234-201. In targeted swing states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, Democratic candidates would earn tens of thousands more votes, but the Republican-drawn districts packed and cracked those votes so precisely that the GOP would win 13 of the 18 seats from Pennsylvania and nine of 14 from Michigan. Democratic state legislative candidates would routinely win more votes in these states as well; Republicans would hold both chambers in Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin regardless.
So yes, it worked. But it also contained the seeds of the party’s unraveling, placed a frustrated and impossible-to-please base in charge, and set the stage for an outsider to sweep up the pieces four years later.
But first, something else would happen in 2012: Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney, and shaken Republicans realized they’d lost the popular vote in five out of six presidential elections, GOP leaders commissioned a warts-and-all diagnosis of the party’s brand. It wasn’t pretty. One-time Republican voters now described the party as “scary,” “out of touch,” “narrow-minded,” even “stuffy old men.”
Its authors named the report the Growth and Opportunity Project but it soon became known by everyone as something catchier and more urgent: the Republican autopsy. Among the causes of death? Republicans had “lost their way with younger voters.” Many minorities “think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country.”
It recommended that the party modernize itself, learn how to persuade and appeal to a wider variety of people, champion policies that make life better for working Americans rather than the rich, then head to communities Republicans had tended to avoid and make their case. “We need to campaign among Hispanic, black, Asian and gay Americans and demonstrate that we care about them, too,” the autopsy concluded.
When Donald Trump captured the GOP nomination in 2016, many Republicans bemoaned not following this advice from the autopsy and more, such as championing immigration reform and becoming genuinely welcoming and inclusive on social issues. But it was already too late. The autopsy itself had been dead on arrival, and long before Trump descended his gilded Manhattan escalator and joined the Republican race. It had already been smothered, unaware, by the very Republican establishment who commissioned the report.
REDMAP made it impossible.
The new districts drawn by Republicans made their districts older, whiter, and more conservative. These new districts — where the Republican primary was the only race that mattered — produced a different kind of congressman (and most of them were men), incentivized against compromise, insulated from the ballot box, interested in listening only to their base.
These members also didn’t much care for the Republican establishment in Washington. They would bring a much different tone and tenor to Congress. Boehner, now the House speaker, learned this right quick. In summer 2013, a first-term congressman from North Carolina’s 11th district wrote Boehner a letter, suggesting that the GOP look to defund Obamacare by threatening a government shutdown. Boehner knew it was folly. Democrats controlled the White House and the Senate. It was a strategy doomed to fail. Rove blasted it in the Wall Street Journal.
ButMark Meadows enlisted 79 other Republicans in this quest. His own district, previously a swing district that most recently produced a conservative Democrat, had been redrawn so that he captured it by more than 15 percentage points. It was 87 percent white.
In the New Yorker, Ryan Lizza and David Wasserman looked at the districts of the 80 signatories. They were, on average, 75 percent white and just 9 percent Latino, compared to an average district that’s 63 percent white and 17 percent Latino. In 2012, Obama won the national popular vote by 4 percentage points. In those districts, Romney won by an average of 23. The Republican members exceeded even that landslide margin: They won their seats by an average of 34 percentage points. As the nation changed, redistricting not only held back demographic change, but it turned back the clock and solidified conservative white power. As Lizza concluded, “these 80 members represent an America where the population is getting whiter, where there are few major cities, where Obama lost the last election in a landslide, and where the Republican Party is becoming more dominant and more popular. Meanwhile, in national politics, each of these trends is actually reversed.”
Boehner, given little choice, followed the “suicide caucus” over the cliff. Predictably, disaster ensued and he had to change course. And predictably, the “suicide caucus” saw no reason to compromise or change its own. This was just one of more than four dozen battles to repeal Obamacare in the House, none of which stood any greater likelihood of victory.Immigration reform, one of the only policy options the autopsy’s authors saw as crucial for the party’s future, stood no chance in this climate.
Neither did the GOP leadership. A year later, Meadows would turn on Boehner, filing a parliamentary motion to “vacate the chair” that would ultimately lead to the speaker’s resignation.
The House had been set on a dangerous new course. REDMAP, like some Frankenstein’s monster, would not only devour Boehner, but the new members empowered by these toxic, technology-driven gerrymanders would accelerate all of the worst polarizing trends in our politics. The Freedom Caucus, legislators created and empowered by REDMAP, would run the House. Ryan, Boehner’s successor, would later step aside in frustration as well, proven ineffective despite GOP control of Congress and the White House. The autopsy wouldn’t be worth the paper it was printed on. The GOP establishment hoped that controlling redistricting would buy themselves time to set a new course. Instead, the party’s course, and our nation’s history, would beset by the new leaders that their gerrymandering rendered unbeatable and uncontrollable.
Did Boehner learn any lesson from his unholy creation? Well, earlier this month he and Ryan signed on as chairs of a Speakers Advisory Council generated to fundraise for the REDMAP creators’ 2020 redistricting strategy.
Here’s the thing: When you’re trying to ensure that the side with less support continues to hold power, when you’re trying to maintain control without talking to a changing nation, your tactics aren’t likely to end with redistricting. [MAX X DRIVES SYS OUT OF BALANCE --> UNINTENDED CONSEQ AND SYS FAIL?]
Indeed, efforts to make it harder for citizens to vote were among the very first actions by gerrymandered state legislatures, especially in Wisconsin and North Carolina, where a federal court found that those barriers were “surgically” crafted to target blacks. Gerrymandered legislatures can take such anti-democratic actions because the people’s representatives need not fear the judgement of the people. [no FEEDBACK] And after the U.S. Supreme Court [MOD] undid essential protections within the Voting Rights Act, in the 2013 case Shelby County v. Holder, states and other entities didn’t have to fear the courts, [DISABLE CHECKS AND BALANCE] either, when they wanted to change the rules around voting. Across much of the nation, but especially in the South, as well as in states with one-party control and newly gerrymandered legislatures, came aflood of voter ID bills, cutbacks in absentee and early voting, voter roll purges, precinct closures and more.
Gerrymandered legislatures felt free to ignore the will of the people. Other legislatures followed along. In Florida, for example, where 64 percent of voters approved a 2018 state constitutional amendment ending felony disenfranchisement, lawmakers added an additional burden instead — complete repayment of any fines and fees connected to the sentence or prison term — that many critics compared to a poll tax. Legislators also undermined a legal victory allowing campus sites to be used for early voting with a sneaky provision that requires something always at a premium on colleges: Easy parking.
Texas would make it a felony for anyone to cast an ineligible ballot, even by accident. Arizona looked to dial back early voting and expand voter ID requirements. Tennessee passed legislation that would make it put those who run voter registration drives in jeopardy of massive fines if they submitted too many incomplete applications. Indiana made it harder to sue in state court to extend voting hours, often necessary when machines malfunction or when lines are long.Legislatures in Missouri, Utah, Michigan and Idaho worked to unwind popular 2018 initiatives won by citizens demanding reforms politicians had refused to make.
And so we end this decade with the water in Flint still undrinkable, thanks to gerrymandering.
In 2011, Michigan’s GOP-controlled legislature dramatically expanded the state’s power to take over financially struggling municipalities and place them under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager. Angry voters toppled the law in a November 2012 ballot initiative, concluding that it gave the state too much power to usurp local control and run roughshod over elected officials. One month later, lawmakers ignored the public and reinstated the program.
Then, in 2014, the emergency manager appointed to run Flint changed the city’s water supply to the Flint River and decided against installing corrosion inhibitors to properly treat the water, saving an estimated $140 a day. It sparked a lead contamination crisis and an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease that killed 12 people and sickened hundreds of children.
And so we end this decade with fetal heartbeat laws on the march in aggressively gerrymandered states like Ohio, Georgia and Alabama, that would enact abortion restrictions dramatically out of sync with the wishes of voters even in these red states.
And so we end this decade with a national consensus on gun controland putting an end to the horrifically numbing routine of mass shootings, but an anti-majoritarian and broken political system where large majorities are ever-stymied and unable, again and again, to translate the will of the people into action. The decade closes with consensus on climate change, but progress and agreements being rolled back.
We stand on the verge of the next redistricting cycle, which will begin in 2021, without the prospect of intervention from the federal courts, with the gerrymander wars headed south and the prospect of states using citizen population, rather than total population, to draw state legislative districts, all, again, with the goal of standing athwart demographic change and shouting “stop.”
These wars will be fought with Democrats, at last, fully awakened and focused on state legislatures. They’ll take place with dramatically more public awareness and media attention paid to the importance of structural voting issues that once made eyes glaze over. And they’ll be undertaken with solid majorities of Americans of all ideologies backing rules and reforms enshrine the best promises of our democracy.
But the damage that has done is severe and will be long-lasting. Forty years ago, when Raymond Donovan, the labor secretary under Ronald Reagan, was acquitted on fraud and larceny charges, he famously asked “Which office do I go to to get my reputation back.” We should all pose the same question about the way urgent issues went unaddressed during this bitter and polarized decade, stolen from us, in part, by the gerrymander.
It may require a generation to repair the damage to our civic fabric from this decade’s cynical and corrosive festival of partisan gerrymandering. It helped heightened and accelerated polarization, extremism and our dysfunctional politics. It’s incumbent on all of us to ensure it doesn’t get worse before it gets better. There may not be any battle in the next decade that’s more urgent.
David Daley, a former editor of Salon, is the author of the national bestseller “Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count” and the forthcoming “Unrigged: How Americans Fought Back, Slayed the Gerrymander and Reinvented Democracy.”
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Republicans "cracked" the liberal city of Asheville into two safe…
This week gave the GOP no shortage of opportunities for controversy.
President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen testified before the House Oversight Committee. A new report showed Trump overruled his own officials to grant his son-in-law Jared Kushner a top secret security clearance, provoking outrage from intelligence experts. Some Republican senators warned the president his border emergency declaration may fracture the caucus. And throughout all this, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) took place, giving the far right a bizarre echo chamber in which to cheer each other’s nonsense.
Here are five of the craziest right-wing moments this week:
Matt Gaetz tries to tamper with Cohen’s testimony — and lands in hot water.
Trump’s Republican allies had a singular strategy to try to discredit Cohen: destroy him personally, and paint him as a disreputable sleazebag who cannot be trusted on anything (while ignoring the rather obvious question of what that says about Trump’s judgment for retaining him for years.)
But one congressman, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) took things way too far in a tweet directed at Cohen on Tuesday night:
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Spin Doctor
@SpinDr
Matt Gaetz’s tweet likely violates 18 USC § 1512(b): Whoever knowingly uses intimidation or threatens with the intent to cause or induce any person to withhold testimony shall be fined and/or imprisoned for not more than 20 years.
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Gaetz initially brushed off the controversy, saying he hadn’t engaged in witness tampering, only “witness testing.” But faced with furious criticism and a stern rebuke from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Gaetz eventually deleted the tweet and apologized to Cohen. Even after that, however, he was allegedly overheard telling Trump he was “happy to do it for you” in a phone call — although he denies this happened.
Regardless, Gaetz’s damage control may not be enough to avoid consequences. It is unlikely he will be criminally prosecuted, but the Florida State Bar, where he is licensed as an attorney, is now investigating him.
Mark Meadows invites a black Trump appointee to the Cohen hearing to prove Trump isn’t a racist.
Another Republican who humiliated himself trying to take down Cohen was Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus and ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. Ahead of rumors that Cohen would offer examples of Trump’s racist behavior behind closed doors, Meadows thought he had the perfect plan to discredit him: invite Lynne Patton, a black woman and former party planner who serves in Trump’s Department of Housing and Urban Development, and point to her to prove Trump is not racist.
This stunt enraged freshman Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), another woman of color, who proceeded to shame Meadows for the “prop” of dragging out a black woman as a “racist act” itself. Meadows, visibly stung to the point of tears, demanded Tlaib’s words be stricken from the record.
==
House hearing to shine spotlight on Clinton Foundation
Posted By -NO AUTHOR- On 11/22/2018 @ 3:45 pm In APP Frontpage,Politics,U.S. | No Comments
Hillary Clinton at the American Federation of Teachers Union on July 13, 2018 (Video screenshot)
**Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C.,** told Hill.TV on Wednesday that U.S. Attorney John Huber, who has been working with the DOJ and the FBI on the the probe, will testify before the House Oversight Committee Dec. 5,the Daily Caller reported.
Meadows said Huber was tasked in part with investigating possible “improper activity” by the Clinton Foundation.
The allegations center on “pay for play” donations to the charity while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.
Critics, including investigative journalistPeter Schweizer, have presented evidence Clintons exchanged political favors for donations and pushed favorable policies to receive donations.
The New York Times reported Trump told his White House counsel earlier this year he wanted the DOJ to prosecute Clinton.
In March, Attorney General Jeff Sessions decided a special prosecutor was not needed to investigate Hillary Clinton regarding allegations the sale of Uranium One to a Russian state-owned company while she was secretary of state was related to donations made to the Clinton Foundation.
Sessions said Huber also was reviewing the allegations of Republican lawmakers that the FBI used the unsubstantiated anti-Trump dossier to obtain a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign in 2016.
Meadows said in a Twitter message at the time that Sessions’ decision not to appoint a special counsel was “disappointing.”
“So the Obama DOJ can open a legally questionable investigation into the Trump campaign — allegedly based on a campaign volunteer mouthing off at a London bar — but this DOJ can’t appoint a second special counsel after all the troubling documents we’ve seen? Disappointing,” he wrote.
Schweizer, the author of “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” was the first to report nine foreign investors in the Uranium One deal gave $145 million to the Clinton Foundation. The New York Times confirmed in an April 2015 story Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation. The Times found that the Clintons, however, did not publicly disclose the contributions, despite an agreement Hillary Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors.
In addition, Bill Clinton received a $500,000 speaking fee from a Russian bank tied to the Kremlin in 2010, when Hillary Clinton opposed sanctions on Moscow. She reversed her position the following year.
Article printed from WND: http://www.wnd.com
URL to article: http://www.wnd.com/2018/11/house-hearing-to-shine-spotlight-on-clinton-foundation/
==
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/lawmaker-decries-republican-grilling-fbi-agent-peter-strzok-orwellian-report
https://www.alternet.org/deputy-ag-rosenstein-battles-trump-loving-gop-rep-contentious-hearing-your-use-attack-me-personally
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Thursday battled Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), a Donald Trump supporter who is among the House Republicans leading an investigation into special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
During his combative testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Rosenstein pushed back on Jordan’s attempt to paint the Russia investigation in a nefarious light as fellow members of Congress objected to Jordan’s line of questioning. At one point, Rosenstein told Jordan, “your use of this to attack me personally is deeply wrong."
“It’s not personal,” Jordan assured Rosenstein, before launching into a personal attack on Rosenstein’s role as deputy attorney general.
Jordan asked Rosenstein if the threatened to “subpoena phone calls” from members of the House Intelligence Committee.
“No sir, and there’s no way to subpoena phone calls,” Rosenstein said as the chamber erupted in laughter,
“Who are we supposed to believe?” Jordan asked. “Staff members who we’ve worked with who’ve never misled us? or you guys, who we’ve caught hiding information from us, who tell a witness not to answer our questions, who are we supposed to believe?”
“Thank you for making clear it’s not personal, Mr. Jordan,” Rosenstein replied. “You should believe me because I’m telling the truth and I’m under oath.”
Watch below:
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"Your use of this to attack me personally is deeply wrong."
==
https://www.alternet.org/trumps-gop-house-henchmen-lay-groundwork-hold-top-doj-official-overseeing-russia-probe-contempt
Ryan caved to Donald Trump's Russia hatchet squad and now the GOP caucus is closer than ever to delivering Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein an ultimatum: hand over every sensitive document they want on the Russia probe or be held in contempt and possibly impeached. Bloomberg writes:
Passing the resolution would escalate pressure on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to hand over material, including some related to the origins of the investigation into whether Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The measure would give Rosenstein and other officials until July 6 to comply.
The resolution itselfdoesn't explicitly reference impeachment or even contempt and it's effectively unenforceable, but the House henchmen have been hanging that threat over Rosenstein's head for months. GOP Reps. Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan, so-called Freedom Caucus staples, now say the resolution is coming to the House floor on Thursday, contingent on the Rules Committee giving it final approval Wednesday afternoon.
full House vote would supercharge a battle that has primarily been waged by a handful of GOP zealots into potentially having the imprimatur of the entire Republican caucus. The showdown comes as both Rosenstein and FBI director Christopher Wray prepare to testify before the House Judiciary Committee Thursday morning about the agency's Inspector General report on the Clinton email investigation.
Rosenstein does not appear to be without some recourse. He has already threatened to request that the House conduct an internal investigation of the House Intelligence Committee staff. Though it's unclear where that stands, doing so would give him the ability to subpoena the internal communications of the staff.
...
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==
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/house-republicans-want-straight-break-actual-system-law-itself
House Republicans are attacking the Department of Justice and by extension the special counsel's Russia probe on so many fronts it's impossible to keep track. Freedom Caucus chair Mark Meadows's new tact is to push for a federal audit of Robert Mueller under the guise of oversight in order to get an unredacted copy of the "scope memo," which lays out the boundaries of his Russia investigation. The Washington Post writes:
Meadows, speaking Thursday during a taping of C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” that is to air Sunday, said he believed the audit is required under federal law and could not be completed without an unredacted copy of the memo written in August 2017 by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein. [...]
Meadows and fellow Freedom Caucus member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)has pushed for weeks to get unfettered access to the memo, but the Justice Department has so far refused them access. Only a heavily redacted version has been publicly shared as part of the prosecution of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort because, according to people familiar with the Justice Department’s thinking, prosecutors think its full disclosure could compromise Mueller’s probe
...
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Just to make the whole situation really crazy, our old friend Steve Bannon has apparently taken on the role of chief strategist for the extremist faction of the GOP. Jonathan Swan at Axios reported that Bannon recently met with Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., the head of the House Freedom Caucus, which has about 40 hardcore right-wing members ready to rumble.Swan writes that they plan to fight the leadership’s decision to attach hurricane relief to the debt ceiling increase. The only good news is that unctuous Sen. Ted Cruz won’t be leading the opposition to relief funds this time around, since his constituents in Texas are the ones who need it. Swan quotes a source saying this:
This is bigger than Breitbart or the Freedom Caucus . . . The topics discussed included conservative alternatives to everything the anti-Trump Republican leadership has planned on every major policy matter facing the United States of America in September. Including Paul Ryan’s and Mitch McConnell’s demonstrated failure to govern, and how to effectively implement the Trump agenda moving forward.
A source told Hallie Jackson and Kristen Welker of MSNBC that “they focused on the idea that the GOP should brace for a ‘bloody September,’ as the president’s far-right base prepares to dig in on key issues from DACA to the debt ceiling.” This may well include Bannon’s desire to settle scores with his enemies, like White House economic adviser Gary Cohn, but it’s also likely to result in some twisted legislative scenarios in which Republicans will be battling each other simply to keep the country from defaulting on its debts or the government from shutting down.
wapo 1/17
This year’s agenda from House and Senate Republicans has clarity that was often lacking from Trump’s own campaign. Senate Republicans favor using a procedure known as “budget reconciliation,” in which measures can be passed with a simple 51-vote majority rather than a filibuster-proof 60 votes, to tackle the ACA and to undo much of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform.
As part of undoing the financial overhaul law, some GOP leaders have begun planning strategies for how to effectively kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, whether by giving Congress control over its budget or finding cause to replace its director, Richard Cordray, with a weaker board.
“I’d like to repeal the whole thing, period,” Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard C. Shelby said of Dodd-Frank in a December interview with the Wall Street Journal.
The reconciliation process is also likely to be used to pass tax changes, which both Trump and congressional Republicans want to use to lower rates and end the estate tax.
Republicans also are examining ways to undo many of the regulations and other orders enacted by Obama and his administration, including ones issued in the weeks since Trump’s victory and designed to solidify the Democratic president’s environmental legacy.
GOP leaders have cited the 21-year old Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to cast simple majority votes of disapproval for regulations, as a way to block anything the administration has ordered since June 2016.
Since its passage, the CRA has been used only once. But in December, the conservative House Freedom Caucus began compiling a list of more than 200 regulations it views as vulnerable to a disapproval vote. They include “burdensome” school lunch standards, tobacco regulations, laws that set higher wages for contractors and elements of the Paris climate-change agreement.
“Talking to some individuals with the Trump transition team, they are taking this extremely serious[ly],”Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the Freedom Caucus, told the Heritage Foundation last month.
Republicans intend to supplement the CRA by enacting a law that would subject any regulation with an economic impact greater than $100 million to a vote of Congress, a change that would have prevented nearly every climate or employment rule change of the Obama years. The measure, called the Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act, or Reins, is a conservative priority that passed the Republican House in 2011, 2013 and 2015 with backing from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Republican aides now hope for a vote on Reins in the coming days so it can be sent for Trump’s signature immediately after he is sworn in on Jan. 20.
Some Republican lawmakers also want legislation that would stop courts from deferring to federal agencies’ interpretations of statutes — a practice known as “Chevron deference,” after the 1984 Supreme Court case that went against the energy company — and have them instead defer to Congress.
==
bb bs
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/12/05/mark-meadows-wins-chairmanship-house-freedom-caucus/
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), a strong conservative with a history of actually taking action inside the Beltway — known for doing nothing — has won the chairmanship of the House Freedom Caucus.
Meadows replaces outgoing two-term chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and will serve alongside the House Freedom Caucus’S new whip Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA). Jordan will become chairman emeritus of the House Freedom Caucus.
“Mark Meadows is one of the most principled people I have ever been around in politics,” Wayne King, Meadows’ deputy chief of staff and the only senior staffer from his original team still there, told Breitbart News. King is a former vice chairman of the North Carolina GOP, and a top conservative leader both in his state of North Carolina and in the national party and on Capitol Hill—a key, critical reason why conservatives have won so many battles in recent years.
“Meadows has a record of taking action and actually accomplishing things that further the conservative agenda in a city that is renowned for gridlock,” King told Breitbart News on Monday night. “He deeply understands what drove millions upon millions of people to deliver Donald Trump a landslide electoral victory over Hillary Clinton and looks forward to fighting day in and day out to drain the swamp in Washington.”
Meadows is perhaps best known for being the man who toppled now former House Speaker John Boehner. Back in 2015, on the third such try for conservatives, Meadows employed a tactic right before the August recess known as introducing a motion to vacate the chair. The motion, which could have later been offered as a privileged resolution that would have forced a floor vote determining whether the House still supported Boehner as Speaker, gained support among House Republicans who rallied to Meadows’ side. As Meadows obtained enough support to oust Boehner, before he forced a vote on the resolution, Boehner resigned—shocking the political establishment.
Meadows is known AS a rock-ribbed conservative and haD a history in business and real estate—just like President-elect Donald J. Trump—before he ran for public office. In fact, when Breitbart News was profiling him in his district for a day before Boehner resigned, some of his constituents actually mistook him for Trump and thought the congressman was Trump.
Meadows moving into the position of House Freedom Caucus chair means bad news for the career politicians in Washington, and for the bureaucracy throughout the D.C. swamp, as the action-oriented businessman-turned-reformer-in-Congress is unlikely to stand for shenanigans pushed by either the Republican establishment or the institutional left.
The House Freedom Caucus, with more than 40 members, has become an important bloc of votes with an extraordinary amount of power that can essentially veto any legislative priorities of the GOP establishment if it sticks together as a minority within the majority.
Read More Stories About:
Big Government, Congressman Mark Meadows, House Freedom Caucus, Jim Jordan, John Boehner, Scott Perry
http://www.alternet.org/human-rights/gop-lawmaker-wants-make-campus-rape-rules-more-lenient
he majority of sexual assaults on college campuses go unreported to the police. Rape convictions are notoriously diffcult to achieve, and often involve months of rehashing traumatic events for the survivor. Even after being convicted, rapists sometimes walk free (as in the case of Stanford swimmer Brock Turner). Despite all of this, North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, incoming Freedom Caucus chairman, apparently thinks college campuses are too hard on potential rapists. He recommended this week that the Trump administration dismantle 2011 campus sexual assault guidelines that he believes “deny the often-innocent accused basic due process rights.”
Rape and sexual assault are global epidemics, as the World Health Organization declared in 2013 after its study showed 1 in 3 women experiences sexual violence worldwide. On college campuses in the U.S., the statistics are not much better. Last year, the Association of American Universities published the results of a vast study of campus sexual assault that surveyed 150,000 students at 27 institutions of higher education. In the survey, 23.1 percent of female undergraduate participants reported "sexual contact involving physical force or incapacitation since enrolling in the college.”
Congressman Mark Meadows is working to make it even less likely that a woman who is raped or assaulted in college will have a viable route to justice. His recommendation for rolling back college sexual assault guidelines was part of a report he issued this month on 230 rules that should be targeted for repeal or change in the first 100 days of the Trump administration. He published an updated version last week, adding 70 more rules to the list.
Meadows claims the current guideline for how universities should handle sexual harassment and sexual violence complaints, which is based on an April 2011 document from the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, “has pressured colleges to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and to create vast campus bureaucracies…the incidence of which may be overstated.”
Meanwhile, the evidence points to the contrary, with rape vastly underreported and the vast majority of rapists never facing time behind bars.
As Sofie Karasek, director of education at End Rape on Campus, told USA Today, “There is a huge amount of evidence that campus sexual assault is a problem. The number of false rape accusations is between 2% and 8% — on par with the rate of false accusations for other crimes.”
==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meadows_(North_Carolina_politician)
Mark Randall Meadows (born July 28, 1959) is an American politician who has been the U.S. Representative for North Carolina's 11th congressional district since January 2013. He is a member of the Republican Party.
Contents
Early life, education, and business career
Meadows was born at a United States Army hospital in Verdun, France where his father was serving in the Army and his mother worked as a civilian nurse. His mother was from Sevierville, Tennessee, and his father from Pineville, Arkansas.
He grew up in Brandon, Florida and graduated from the University of South Florida in 1981 after briefly studying at Florida State University. During his collegiate years, Meadows joined Sigma Chi Fraternity.
In 1987, Meadows started "Aunt D's", a small restaurant in Highlands, North Carolina. He later sold it and used the proceeds to start a real estate development company in the Tampa, Florida area.[1]
While living in Highlands, Meadows served as chairman of the Republican Party in Macon County, and was a delegate to several state and national Republican conventions.[2]
Meadows previously served on North Carolina's Board for Economic Development in Western North Carolina.[3] In 2011 he moved to Cashiers, North Carolina, where he now lives. He is currently the owner of Highlands Properties, which specializes in construction and land development.[4]
U.S. House of Representatives
2012 election
In late 2011, Meadows announced he was running for Congress in North Carolina's 11th congressional district, for the seat being vacated by Democratic incumbent Heath Shuler. The district had been significantly altered in redistricting. New lines were drawn straight through the middle of Warren Wilson College. Notably, it lost most of Asheville to the 10th district, while picking up some heavily Republican territory in the foothills. The old 11th had a slight Republican lean, but the new 11th was on paper the most Republican district in the state.[citation needed] In 2011, the North Carolina state legislature re-drew the congressional districts in 2011 based on updated population information from the 2010 census.[5] As a result, the district is now 91.2% White, 3.0% Black, 1.4% Native American and 1.0% Asian.[5] District 11 now includes the counties of Buncombe (Asheville), Clay, Cherokee, Graham, Haywood (Waynesville), Henderson (Hendersonville), Jackson (Sylva), Macon (Franklin), McDowell (Marion), Madison, Polk, Swain, Transylvania (Brevard) and Yancey (Burnsville).[6][Notes 1]
He won the Republican primary runoff, in July 2012,[7] and in the general election in November, faced the Democratic candidate, Hayden Rogers, who had been Shuler's chief of staff. During the campaign, on August 28, 2012, Meadows spoke at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida.[8] Meadows won the general election with approximately 57 percent of the vote[9] and took office, in January 2013.
Tenure
Meadows has signed the Contract from America, a list of ten policies assembled by the Tea Party movement.[10][11]
Meadows voted against relief for Hurricane Sandy[12] along with a group of other Republicans who cited pork barrel spending in the relief bill that had nothing to do with hurricane relief.[13]
Meadows introduced the :{Hezbollah:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: International Financing Prevention Act of 2014, a bill that would impose sanctions on foreign financial institutions that facilitate transactions or money laundering on behalf of Hezbollah or its agents.[14] Hezbollah is designated a terrorist organization in the United States.[14] The bill passed in the House on July 22, 2014.[15] Meadows said that "we must pass this legislation to make sure that we can do is cripple their ability to finance and put people out of harm's way."[15]
On July 23, 2014, Meadows introduced the Federal Records Accountability Act of 2014, a bill that would change the record-keeping requirements about some types of communications to ensure that information is not lost.[16] The bill would make it easier to fire a person who willfully and unlawfully concealed, removed, mutilated, obliterated, falsified, or destroyed any record, book, or other thing in the custody of such employee.[17] It would also ban federal employees from using instant messaging for work purposes.[16]
Meadows served as Chair of the Subcommittee on Government Operations up until June 20, 2015, when fellow Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz removed him from the position. Rep. Chaffetz, a member of the House Republican leadership, removed Meadows due to Meadows' vote against a procedural motion presented by Republican leadership. Meadows was one of 34 Republicans that voted against the motion to allow for consideration of President Barack Obama's request for fast-track authority on trade agreements. Speaker John Boehner supported the measure, but many Republicans felt that the move gave too much power to Democrats and President Obama, specifically.[18] This action was seen as controversial with many prominent Republican politicians, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz, speaking out against the punishment.
On July 28, 2015, Meadows filed a motion to vacate the chair in order to force Speaker of the House John Boehner from his leadership position. The action was widely seen as an escalation of the feud between a faction of conservatives and the GOP leadership. Conservatives long have urged a coup against Mr. Boehner, who they view as too eager to make deals with Democrats and unwilling to go to the mat fighting for conservative principles.[19]
Budget
Meadows is a fiscal conservative and is part of a group that has advocated for a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution. In addition he opposed the recent federal stimulus spending and has expressed desire for the federal spending growth rate to be capped at the inflation rate. He supports a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget has been balanced. Meadows opposes any cuts to military spending levels.[20]
Taxes
Meadows has signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, and he opposes a raise in all taxes, including the income tax. Meadows supports a flat-rate income tax for all income-earners, and a repeal of the raise in the capital gains tax. He also supports the elimination of the estate tax.[20]
Jobs
Meadows supports lowering corporate tax rates as a strategy to promote new employment and thus create more jobs. In addition he has called for free trade.[20]
Gun control
Meadows opposes any restrictions on gun purchases and opposes a national gun registry that would list detailed information about firearm ownership.[20]
Energy
Meadows has stated that cap-and-trade emission policies are ineffective and have minimal impact on the global environment. He has proposed that the United States should tap into oil and gas reserves to keep energy prices low, and to develop energy independence. He supports tapping into off-shore oil and gas supplies.[20]
Healthcare
Meadows opposes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), and states that it should be replaced by private enterprise.[20]
Abortion
Meadows is a pro-life supporter and has called abortion a 'tragedy'. He opposes any federal funding for abortion and believes parents should be notified of underage abortion procedures. He also opposes churches and other religious sites providing birth control options.[20]
Gay marriage
Meadows opposes same-sex marriage. In March 2013 he stated that if the Supreme Court allowed gay marriage, it would cause a constitutional crisis if the Federal government decided to dismiss state decisions and thus infringe on state's rights.[21]
2013 Federal Government Shutdown
Meadows has been described as playing an important part of the United States federal government shutdown of 2013.[22][23][24] On August 21, 2013 Meadows wrote an open letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor encouraging them to "affirmatively de-fund the implementation and enforcement of Obamacare in any relevant appropriations bills brought to the House floor in the 113th Congress, including any continuing appropriations bill."[25][26] The document was signed by 79 of Meadows' colleagues in the House.[22][26] Heritage Action (which opened operations in North Carolina in January 2011[27]), ran critical Internet advertisements in the districts of 100 Republican lawmakers who failed to sign the letter by Meadows.[28] The letter has been described as being controversial within the Republican Party.[22][29]
The New York Daily News said Meadows put the federal government on the road to shutdown, saying calls to defund "Obamacare" through spending bills languished until Meadows wrote his letter.[24] Meadows downplayed his influence, saying "I'm one of 435 members and a very small part of this."[24] CNN described Meadows as the "architect of the brink" for his letter suggesting that "Obamacare" be defunded in any continuing appropriations bill.[22] Meadows said that was sensationalizing his role.[23]
John Ostendorff of the Asheville Citizen-Times wrote Meadows "said it's best to close the government in the short term to win a delay on 'Obamacare', despite the potential negative impact on the economy."[23] Ostendorff wrote that Meadows said he was doing what Tea Party members in Western North Carolina wanted him to do.[23] Meadows said his constituents wanted him to fight against "Obamacare" "regardless of consequences."[22] Jane Bilello, head of the Asheville Tea Party and political action committee said Meadows "truly represents us" on the issue of "Obamacare".[22] Meadows reportedly holds conference calls with members of the Asheville Tea Party, telling them what's going on in Congress, and about challenges he faces promoting their agenda.[22]
In public comments, Meadows stated he was working on a compromise that involved passing appropriations bills that would fund only parts of the government, such as a bill to fund the National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution, National Gallery of Art, and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and a bill to fund the National Institutes of Health. However, partial or "mini" funding bills were rejected by the Democratic majority in the United States Senate.[23]
Resolution to vote to remove Speaker Boehner
On July 28, 2015, Meadows filed a resolution[30] to vote on whether to remove John Boehner as Speaker of the House.[31] If the resolution were successful, the House would then vote to elect a replacement Speaker of the House.[31]
Because Meadows filed it as a nonprivileged resolution, it was sent to the House Committee on Rules for a vote first, rather than the House floor.[31] The Committee on Rules was considered to have many members who were loyal to Speaker Boehner, so the resolution was seen as unlikely as moving forward.[31]
Meadows said he filed the resolution because Speaker Boehner has "endeavored to consolidate power, bypassing the majority" of Congress; "through inaction, caused the power of Congress to atrophy," "uses the power of the office to punish Members who vote according to their conscience"; "has intentionally provided for voice votes on consequential and controversial legislation to be taken without notice and with few Members present"; "uses the legislative calendar to create crises for the American People"; allows members less than three days to review legislation before voting; and limits meaningful debate on the House floor.[30][32]
The resolution received support from Congressman Walter B. Jones, Jr.[33][34]
Boehner responded, "Listen, you have a member here and a member there who are off the reservation. No big deal. ... Listen, this is one member. All right. I've got broad support amongst my colleagues. And frankly, it isn't even deserving of a vote."[35]
Despite this, on September 25 John Boehner announced his intention to resign as Speaker.[36] He officially resigned on October 31, 2015.[37]
Committee assignments
Notes
- District 10, with three counties, (Burke (Morganton), Mitchell and Rutherford) that border on District 11, also includes the counties of Avery, Caldwell, Catawba (Hickory and Newton), Cleveland (Shelby), Gaston (Gastonia) and Lincoln (Lincolnton).
References
- Parker, Brittney (October 18, 2012). "Candidate Profiles Continue as Election Looms: 11th Congressional District Seat; Mark Meadows". Macon County News. Franklin, NC.
- "Election 2012: Winner U.S. Representative NC-11; Mark Meadows". Wall Street Journal. New York, NY. November 7, 2012.
- "Meadows Officially Enters Race for Shuler's Seat". BlueRidgeNow.com. Hendersonville, NC. February 12, 2012.
- Bowling, Caitlin (October 31, 2012). "Meadows Touts Rise as Self-Made Businessman". Smoky Mountain News. Waynesville, NC.
- *North Carolina's 11th congressional district: Race*
- *NC11 Map*
- Parker, Brittney (19 July 2012). "Mark Meadows sweeps 11th congressional GOP run-off". The Macon County News. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
- *http://www.hendersonvillelightning.com/blog/2012/uncategorized/meadows-back-on-with-tuesday-slot-at-convention/*
- *NC State Board of Elections*
- "Contract from America". Project Vote Smart. Retrieved 9 October 2013.
- "Mark Meadows on Government Reform". On the Issues. Retrieved 9 October 2013.
- Moss, Bill (7 January 2013). "Meadows votes no on Sandy relief". The Hendersonville Lightning. Retrieved 7 January 2013.
- http://hotair.com/archives/2013/01/04/bloomberg-blame-pork-not-boehner-for-sandy-relief-delay/[not ^in ^citation given]
- "CBO - H.R. 4411". Congressional Budget Office. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
- Marcos, Cristina (22 July 2014). "House votes to toughen sanctions on Hezbollah". The Hill. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
- McElhatton, Jim (24 July 2014). "House federal records plan would prevent repeat of IRS email scandal". The Washington Times. Retrieved 18 September 2014.
- "H.R. 5170 - Summary". United States Congress. Retrieved 18 September 2014.
- Sherman, Jake (20 June 2015). "Jason Chaffetz strips Meadows of subcommittee chairmanship". Politico. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
- *http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/28/john-boehner-coup-mark-meadows-files-motion-oust-h/*
- "Mark Meadows : (Republican, district 11)". On the Issues.
- "Rep. Mark Meadows Warns Of 'Constitutional Crisis' If SCOTUS Rules For Gay Marriage". On Top. Mar 29, 2013.
- Caldwell, Leigh Ann (1 October 2013). "Architect of the brink: Meet the man behind the government shutdown". CNN. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
- Ostendorff, John (3 October 2013). "Meadows says constituents back his shutdown fight". Asheville Citizen-Times. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
- Straw, Joseph (September 30, 2013). "Tea Party-backed Rep. Mark Meadows put government on road to shutdown". New York Daily News. Retrieved October 8, 2013.
- Meadows, Mark (21 August 2013). "Letter to Boehner and Cantor" (PDF). Meadows.house.gov. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
- "U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows Sends Letter to Boehner, Cantor Encouraging House Leadership to Defund Obamacare". High County Press. 22 August 2013. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
- Rob Christensen (January 11, 2011). "Heritage Foundation sinks its roots in N.C.". The News & Observer. Retrieved October 11, 2013.
- Stolberg, Sheryl Gay; McIntyre, Mike (October 5, 2013). "A federal budget crisis months in the planning". The New York Times. Retrieved October 11, 2013.
- Omarzu, Tim (4 October 2013). "The letter behind the shutdown; GOP missive urges defunding of Obamacare". Times Free Press. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
- Meadows, Mark (July 28, 2015). "Resolution Declaring the office of Speaker of the House vacant" (PDF). Retrieved July 29, 2015.
- Neewhauser, Daniel (29 July 2015). "Mark Meadows Tries to Boot Boehner From Speakership". National Journal. Retrieved July 29, 2015.
- "BREAKING: John Boehner Faces GOP Effort to 'Vacate' Speaker's Chair". Blue Nation Review. Jul 28, 2015. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
- "BOOM! NC Congressman stands with Mark Meadows, tells CNN Boehner is a bully who MUST GO". The Right Scoop. July 29, 2015. Retrieved July 29, 2015.
- Bresnahan, John (July 29, 2015). "John Boehner: Bid to boot him 'no big deal:{':(style="padding-right:0.2em"):}:". Politico. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
- Fox, Lauren (July 29, 2015). "John Boehner's Not Giving Mark Meadows the Chance to Oust Him". National Journal. Retrieved July 29, 2015.
- Shesgreen, Deirdre (September 26, 2015). "Amid revolt, Boehner steps aside to avoid 'irreparable harm' to Congress". USA Today. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
- Gomez, Harry (October 30, 2015). "John Boehner exits, John Kasich books Stephen Colbert: Ohio Politics Roundup". cleveland.com. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
External links
- Congressman Mark Meadows official U.S. House site
- Mark Meadows for Congress
- Mark Meadows at DMOZ
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
- Profile at Project Vote Smart
- Financial information (federal office) at the Federal Election Commission
- Legislation sponsored at The Library of Congress
| United States House of Representatives | United States House of Representatives | United States House of Representatives |
|---|---|---|
Preceded by | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from North Carolina's 11th congressional district 2013–present | Incumbent |
| Party political offices | Party political offices | Party political offices |
Preceded by | Chair of the Freedom Caucus Elect Taking office 2017 | Incumbent |
| United States order of precedence (ceremonial) | United States order of precedence (ceremonial) | United States order of precedence (ceremonial) |
Preceded by D-New York}: | United States Representatives by seniority 336th | Succeeded by D-New York}: |
- 1959 births
- Living people
- Members of the United States House of Representatives from North Carolina
- Military brats
- North Carolina Republicans
- People from Jackson County, North Carolina
- Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives
- Tea Party movement activists
- Activists from North Carolina
- 21st-century American politicians