Booker Sets New Record – Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) set a new record for a Senate speech, taking 25 hours, four minutes, with the “intention of disrupting the normal business of the US Senate” to protest President Trump’s actions (per Politico). Booker beats Sen. Strom Thurmond’s (D-SC) 1957 filibuster against civil rights by about 50 minutes.
Wisconsin Maintains Liberal-Majority Supreme Court – All of Elon Musk’s millions poured into Tuesday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election didn’t work for conservative former state attorney general and current Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Brad Schimel, who lost to Dane County Circuit Court Judge Susan Crawford, maintaining a 4-3 liberal majority, The Associated Press reports. Crawford beat Schimel by a decisive 54.7% to 45.3% of the vote, in a state where such races typically are decided by wafer-thin margins.
Republican Florida Men win … The liberal majority in the Wisconsin Supreme Court is likely to result in two additional Democratic-majority congressional districts among the state’s eight, in 2026. But for now, the Republican Party holds the House majority with 218 out of 435 seats.
In a special election in Florida’s 6th District, Republican Randy Fine defeated Democrat Josh Weil, 56.7% to 42.3%, Tuesday, the AP reports. Fine will replace Mike Waltz, whom President Trump tapped to become his national security advisor in January.
This was considered the better chance for a Democratic candidate upset, but the huge GOP margin is about equal to the 1st District race, where Republican Jimmy Patronis beat Democrat Gay Valimont, 56.9% to 42.3% (per AP). Patronis fills the seat vacated when Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) stepped down to become Trump’s only failed nominee, in this case for US attorney general.
--TL
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TUESDAY 4/1/25
No April Fool – DOGE chief Elon Musk tops Forbes magazine’s 39th Annual World’s Billioinaires List released Tuesday, with an estimated $342 billion in the bank. He tops No. 2 Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook and its parent Meta, at $216 billion, and edging out No. 3 Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Washington Post-ownership fame, at $215 billion. Oracle’s Larry Ellison is worth $192 billion, according to the list.
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Election Day – Tuesday is special election day in Florida, where special elections will replace ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz, who was President Trump’s first choice for attorney general until his nomination was withdrawn, and ex-Rep. Mike Waltz, the president’s national security advisor now enmeshed in the Signalgate controversy. (The Trump White House, with help from Fox News, has been working to ensure Signalgate does not become a scandal.)
On, Wisconsin … Meanwhile, it’s Trump and Elon Musk-backed Judge Brad Schimel versus George Soros-backed Judge Susan Crawford for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Tuesday.
The Florida special elections have implications for the US House majority in the short term, while the Wisconsin election has implications for the 2026 mid-terms.
Scroll down … center column for details. Email YOUR COMMENTS to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings in the subject line, so we can post your comments in the proper column.
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Gold Standard is Back – We are one day away from the Trump White House’s “Liberation Day” of 25% taxes on imported autos, plus other tariffs. Wall Street has just finished its worst quarter in three years, NPR’s Morning Edition reports, while gold as a commodity has topped $3,000 per ounce.
Still, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1% Monday to 42,001.76 points, while the tech-heavy NASDAQ was off 0.14% to 17,299.29. Elon Musk’s Tesla was off 1.67%, to 259.16. Share price for the automaker is way down from its Trump-bump after election day, in which it hit 488.54 to boost Musk’s wealth to nearly a half-trillion dollars.
--TL
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This Big Week
MONDAY 3/31/25
Such a Tease – President Trump often has spoken about running for a third term, then quickly dismissed the notion as a “joke” that the “fake news media” will pick up and run with.
On Sunday morning, Trump called NBC News Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker to “tease” yet again.
“A lot of people want me to do it,” he said. “But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.”
One-time advisor Steve Bannon already has told News Nation he believes Trump will “run and win again in 2028,” (when, by the way, the president will be 82).
A number of ways to get around the 22nd Amendment, passed by Congress in 1951 to limit the US president to two terms, have been floated by the MAGA faithful, including having Trump run as JD Vance’s running mate and Vance resigns after taking office. There’s also the vagueness of 22A as to whether the two-term limit only applies to two consecutive terms. But we digress.
Meanwhile … A White House post on X-Twitter quotes Trump’s previous comments on Truth Social, according to NBC News: “LONG LIVE THE KING.”
But first … Trump must get past Tuesday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race pitting liberal Dane County Judge Susan Crawford against conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, which could affect redistricting in the state, as well as abortion laws, separation of powers and the legality of Act 10, a law that cut back public employees’ collective bargaining power.
Even more pertinent, the race is yet another potential sign of how the voting public, especially those in the middle, are taking Trump’s authoritarian executive orders and actions.
The Wisconsin race is expected to break the $56 million national spending record for a state court race set in 2023, when liberal Janet Protasiewicz won to flip conservatives’ 5-4 majority.
That’s right – a Schimel win would flip it back. Crawford’s war chest includes serious backing by liberal billionaire and Fox News bogeyman George Soros, while DOGE chief Elon Musk’s backing of Schimel includes two $1 million checks he handed out to Wisconsinites who signed an America PAC petition opposing “partisan” judges, at a rally in Green Bay Sunday.
That liberal-majority state Supreme Court declined to block Musk’s giveaway, according to Politico, which reports about 2,000 attended his event at the KI Convention Center, with hundreds of protesters lined up across the street, a couple of miles from Lambeau Field.
Tuesday’s contest might affect “the entire destiny of humanity” in part because of ripple effects on the 2026 midterms, Musk told his crowd. A proposal for redistricting reportedly could flip two of Wisconsin’s eight House seats to majority-Democratic.
And then there’s Florida … A special election for Florida’s 6th congressional district Tuesday could affect the GOP’s already wafer-thin House majority. An internal poll by the GOP firm of Fabrizio Ward shows Democratic candidate Josh Weil +3 points to Republican state Sen. Randy Fine, according to The Hill, in the race to replace Trump’s national security advisor, Mike Waltz. While maybe not as apocalyptic in Elon Musk’s mind as the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, his America PAC has poured an additional $76,200 into Fine’s campaign in just the last week.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa
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MONDAY 3/31/25