(TUE 10/4/22)
We are joining the House of Representatives and the Senate in taking recess leading up to the midterm elections. We will return to discuss the next and likely final public hearing of the House Select Committee Investigating the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, which is expected to be re-scheduled in October.
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(MON 10/3/22)
Quote of the ... Millennium -- President Biden says he's visiting Puerto Rico "because they haven't been taken very good care of." ... "They're trying like hell to catch up from the last hurricane. I want to see the state of affairs today and make sure we push everything we can." -- via Politico
Week One for Ketanji Brown Jackson – The U.S. Supreme Court’s new term begins Monday with President Biden’s first nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson (pictured), taking the seat of retiring justice Stephen Breyer. It’s a one-for-one seat on the left side of the bench in a court that went from 5-4 to 6-3 conservative thanks to ex-President Trump’s three nominees in his four years in the White House.
A Monmouth University poll released Friday, September 30, says 59% of Americans feel SCOTUS is out of touch with the values and beliefs of most Americans, with just 34% saying the court is in-touch. This breaks down to 83% of Democrats, 62% of independents and 32% of Republicans saying they believe the court is out of touch, following last June’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning 49 years of abortion rights after Roe v. Wade.
Over the summer, the Dobbs ruling gave Democrats new hope they would defy the traditional midterm wins for the president’s opposing party in House and Senate elections, though recent polling indicates a GOP surge to potentially retake both chambers. Republican candidates need a net gain of just five seats in the House to take control, and one seat in the Senate.
SCOTUS Tuesday hears arguments in Merrill v. Milligan in which the state of Alabama is appealing a ruling by a three-judge court that it violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act with a redistricting map that denied or abridged the right to vote based on race, per SCOTUSblog. Two of the three judges on the lower court ruling against Alabama’s redistricting map are Trump administration appointees.
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Speaking of the House and Senate – Both chambers of Congress are on recess until after the November 8 midterms. However, the ninth public hearing of the House Select Committee Investigating the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, postponed the last week in September as Hurricane Ida pummeled Florida, is expected to reschedule for the second week of October.
--Edited by Todd Lassa