Editors’ Blog

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss a bill to codify the right to same-sex marriage, Joe Manchin’s latest antics and the possible last Jan. 6 hearing.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.

The Secret Service text destruction story has been a sort of slow burn. As Kate Riga and I discussed in the new podcast episode, I think this is due to the fact that a lot of people in government and media are having a hard time making sense of the story. They keep wanting to hear more because the current facts don’t make any sense. More to the point, both the guilty and the innocent versions of events seem equally absurd. Is it really possible that the Secret Service would purge its records of Jan. 5th and 6th and somehow not think anyone would notice or care? It seems too over-the-top and brazen even for some of the most cynical of observers. At the same time, the Secret Service’s explanation seems even more absurd. Let’s take a moment to walk through what that story is.

The Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security has ordered the Secret Service to stop its internal investigations into its deleted text messages because it could interfere with his own investigation of what happened. I was wondering why this hadn’t happened yet, frankly. Given the facts as we know them, no Secret Service investigation would be credible. And it would be hard to have confidence that it would not become a vehicle for destroying or covering up evidence about the data purge itself.

President Biden has tested positive for COVID. The White House says Biden is experiencing “very mild symptoms” and has begun taking the Paxlovid antiviral treatment and will isolate in the White House. He will continue with regular meetings and work by phone and Zoom.

It’s standard protocol for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to say a little bit in order to say a lot, and without actually having to say the thing you know he’s actually saying. But this little remark from this afternoon is worth noting, even though he is typically evasive.

Okay, folks. The TPM Roe and Reform list is here. It is our best effort to categorize where all 50 Democratic senators (and an expanding list of major candidates) stand on passing a Roe law and suspending the filibuster rules to guarantee that bill gets an up or down majority vote. Kate Riga and I came up with 29 senators who have clearly committed to doing that. Two are dead set against. 11 more are pretty close but still choosing to keep their position vague. Yet another 6 are still sticking with no comment. And then two we’ve put in a “problem child” category. Not nos but to the extent they’ve spoken to the issue at all have expressed continuing resistance. Those are Sen. Warner of Virginia and Sen. King of Maine.

Once again. This is not intended as a definitive list. We will be sprucing up and refining the visuals over the next few days. But I’m mostly talking about the substance. This is a list that is meant to change. It is intended as a guide or worksheet for whipping a legislative vote. Most of these will quickly answer in the affirmative when pressed for an answer. Others will hold out longer. I’m pretty confident all 48 will eventually sign on. But that will be up to constituents, citizens, voters who press the matter. So as I said, this is your guide to press the matter.

Has something changed? Did someone switch? Did we miss something? As I said, it’s a list that is meant to change, to quickly become outdated and then brought up to date. That’s a feature not a bug.

Be in touch.

* I wanted to note for your attention that the full slate of fake Trump electors in Georgia for the 2020 election have now gotten “target letters” (sub req) from the office of Fulton County (Atlanta) District Attorney Fani Willis. A target letter doesn’t guarantee someone will be indicted. But it generally means, be ready to be indicted.

* Another number in a collection of data points that don’t fit the standard narrative about the 2022 midterm: Democratic Senate candidate are wildly out-raising their GOP competitors among small donors (less than $200). That margin will likely be largely made up by big donors. But it’s still providing a significant advantage for Democrats and belies the narrative about flagging enthusiasm.

When Roe was overturned, it took with it a series of legal doctrines that undergirded other Court-mandated rights like the right to same sex marriage (Obergefell), to contraception (Griswold) and, less directly, the right to marry regardless of racial categories (Loving). Congressional Democrats have been pushing in recent days to pass new legislation to protect these rights by statute. For Democrats, it’s a win whatever the outcome. If Republicans block it in the Senate, as seems likely, it’s another issue to run on. If they don’t and it passes, great: a whole swath of Americans in jeopardy from the Court’s corruption get their rights confirmed by law.

This afternoon House Democrats brought a bill called the Respect for Marriage Act to a vote. But something unexpected happened.

Seventeen members of Congress were arrested outside the Supreme Court today while protesting the high court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Those arrested for “illegal demonstration activity” — aka blocking traffic during the protest — included Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Jackie Speier (D-CA), Katherine Clark (D-MA) and several others, such as Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI), the only male lawmaker arrested in the bunch.

As I mentioned yesterday, we’re putting together a “Roe and Reform” list to find out where senators stand on passing a Roe law in January 2023 if Democrats hold the House and add two Senate seats. The key question is: do you clearly state your support for a Roe law and suspending the filibuster rules to give that law an up or down majority vote? For the purposes of this exercise we don’t care whether you want to “abolish” the filibuster or “reform” it or ditch it for some things and not others. Many of us have strong feelings about the damaging impact of the modern filibuster generally. But here we’re narrowly focused on this one question.