‘Keep your mouth shut!’ Republican gets earful after ambushing top Dem in hallway
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) was accused of embarrassing himself after causing chaos in a congressional hallway by confronting House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).
Instead of meeting with Jeffries in private on Wednesday, Lawler stopped the Democratic leader in front of a crowd of people to ask him to sign on to a temporary extension of subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. Democrats have said that they would not accept only one year of subsidies for the health care program.
"Did your boss, Donald Trump, give you permission?" Jeffries asked.
"He's not my boss!" Lawler insisted. "And by the way, why did you vote to shut the government?"
"You're making a show of this to make yourself relevant," Jeffries charged. "You're embarrassing yourself right now. You're chasing a crowd."
"You have to sign on to the bill," Lawler demanded.
"Let me ask you a question," Jeffries said. "You voted for the 'One Big Ugly Bill,' correct?"
"I voted for a tax cut bill that gave the largest tax cut to Americans in history," Lawler countered. "Are you against that?"
"You're embarrassing yourself right now," Jeffries noted as Lawler talked over him.
"You're not going to talk to me and talk over me because you don't want to hear what I have to say," the Democrat said. "So why don't you just keep your mouth shut?"
"And so you voted for this 'One Big Ugly Bill, a permanent extension of massive tax breaks for your billionaire donors," he added.
‘Nightmare scenario’: Analysis warns Supreme Court may ‘clear path’ for one-party rule
A Democratic voting rights group was "sounding the alarm" Wednesday, warning of a "nightmare scenario" wherein the U.S. Supreme Court could "clear the path for a one-party system" and give Republicans control of Congress.
The high court is slated to rehear Louisiana v. Callais on Oct. 15, and in a new Politico report, Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter Fund signal that removing Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act could give Republicans a path to redraw up to 19 House seats to benefit their party.
The Voting Rights Act — the landmark Civil Rights-era legislation — has been targeted by Republicans, aiming to remove this particular section, Politico reports.
The move would "clear the path for a one-party system where power serves the powerful and silences the people,” Black Voters Matter Fund co-founder LaTosha Brown said in a statement.
The ruling could also ultimately remove 30% of Congressional Black Caucus seats and 11% of Congressional Hispanic Caucus seats, according to Salon.
This could leave limited options for Democrats.
"Democrats could also find ways to use any changes to the VRA to their benefit. The party could redraw maps in heavily-blue areas with VRA protections to try and expand their margins, but there will be fewer opportunities," Politico reports.
The law has been used to offer protections against racial gerrymandering in redistricting, a topic that's become a key move ahead of midterm elections amid President Donald Trump's push to maintain GOP control in Congress, putting pressure on Republicans to redraw district lines and saying "there could very well be consequences" if they don't take action.
Australian reporter lays into fleeing Rick Scott over unconstitutional ‘witch hunt’
An Australian TMZ reporter confronted Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) outside a Senate hearing Thursday, challenging him to explain how punishing someone for using the Fifth Amendment could be constitutional.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee had just voted 8-5 along party lines to hold former top federal health official Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress for invoking his Fifth Amendment right 111 times at a hearing last week. TMZ reporter Charlie Cotton caught Scott in the hallway immediately after.
"Now maybe I'm just, like, not in the know because I'm Australian," Cotton said to Scott, "but how can you hold someone in contempt and punish someone for using a constitutional right? Isn't it there to use as a right?"
Scott argued Fauci had no grounds to use it.
"He had a pardon, so he — he didn't have that right to do that once he had the pardon," the senator said.
"But didn't he have risk of prosecution because if he'd misspoke, or if he'd lied or something?" Cotton pressed.
"Yeah, if he lied," Scott admitted.
"So he was at risk?" Cotton pointed out.
"He didn't have the right," Scott insisted.
"But not from the hearing," Cotton said, "because the hearing — if he lied, you said that he could be held, you know, accountable for that."
"He could've just told the truth," Scott said. "That's all he had to do."
"Well, he felt like it was a witch hunt," Cotton pushed back, "and you guys would stop at nothing to catch him and send him to prison."
"That's not my intention," Scott said. "I just want to get information."
"It's Rand Paul's intention, though," Cotton pressed.
"No," Scott said. "It's for his actions."
As Cotton was asking his next question, the Republican senator quickly walked away.
"Yep. Okay then," the TMZ reporter said.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Newsweek that invoking the Fifth was "the right legal move" — the pardon covered past conduct, but pleading the Fifth protected Fauci from perjury charges based on anything he said at the hearing.
As CEO of Columbia/HCA, Scott himself invoked the Fifth Amendment 75 times in a 2000 civil deposition while the company faced a federal investigation that led to a $1.7 billion settlement — at the time the largest Medicare fraud case in American history, Florida Phoenix reported.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) planned to hand-deliver the contempt referral to the Justice Department Thursday, bypassing a full Senate floor vote, CBS News reported.
