Women's history -- We see it in the making -- Column of March 3, 2022

 By MARSHA MERCER

It’s hard to imagine a better start to Women’s History Month.

As President Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union address March 1, Kamala Harris, the first woman and first woman of color elected Vice President, and Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Speaker of the House, sat in the power seats behind him.

Next to first lady Jill Biden in the gallery was Ukraine ambassador Oksana Markarova. Prompted by Biden to show their support of the brave Ukrainians at war with Russia, the assembled leaders of the federal government gave the ambassador thunderous applause and a standing ovation.

Days before, Biden nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to the Supreme Court.

“For too long, our government, our courts, haven’t looked like America,” Biden said Feb. 25, announcing his first Supreme Court pick. “I believe it’s time that we have a court that reflects the full talents and greatness of our nation, with a nominee of extraordinary qualifications.”

If confirmed by the Senate, Jackson will become the fourth woman associate justice on the nine-member court. Her addition will not change the ideological makeup of six conservative and three liberal justices.

Biden has praised Jackson as “one of our nation’s top legal minds,” a “consensus builder” and her experience as a former federal public defender.

Jackson, 51, a Harvard University and Law School graduate, would replace Justice Stephen Breyer, who is retiring and for whom she was a law clerk early in her career.

Beyond being a historic first, Jackson, a former special counsel to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, would also bring to the court a unique personal and professional perspective on criminal justice.

Her uncle received a life sentence in 1989 for a nonviolent drug crime under a “three-strikes” law. Year later, President Barack Obama years commuted the harsh  sentence, The Washington Post reported.

Confirmation hearings are scheduled for the week of March 21, and a full Senate vote could take place in mid-April. That still would be more time than Republicans took to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the court in October 2020.

Confirmation requires a simple majority, but nothing is simple in a Senate that is split 50-50 between the parties. Jackson, a federal judge since 2013, was confirmed just last year to the appellate court 53-44, with support from three Republican senators -- Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

But Graham has indicated he now may oppose Jackson as the choice of the “radical Left.” Republicans are expected to concentrate their questioning on her judicial philosophy.  

If all Democrats and independents are present and vote in favor of Jackson, Harris could cast the tie-breaking vote, although Democrats hope a few Republicans will back Jackson. 

Confirmation would be a historic first for Biden, too. In his official proclamation of Women’s History Month, the president touted his Cabinet as “the most diverse and gender-balanced” in history, including the first women to serve as Treasury Secretary and Director of National Intelligence, the first Native American woman as Cabinet secretary, and women leading the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Housing and Urban Development.

Women have also made gains in state government. The most women ever serve in state legislatures, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

In Virginia, the 2021 election brought a record number of women – 35 – to the House of Delegates and elected the first woman of color statewide, Republican Winsome Sears, as lieutenant governor.

Women’s History Month gives us the opportunity to reflect and celebrate the contributions of women in American history and to inspire – much as a young Black girl was inspired years ago by Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman federal court judge.

“We were born exactly 49 years to the day apart,” Jackson said at the White House. “If I am fortunate enough to be confirmed . . . I can only hope that my life and career, my love of this country and the Constitution, and my commitment to upholding the rule of law and the sacred principles upon which this great nation was founded will inspire future generations.”

Let’s hope the Senate gives her that chance.

 ©2022 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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A call + a `favor' = impeachment -- Sept. 26, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

For Democrats, the smoking gun arrived gift-wrapped from the White House. 

President Trump ordered notes of his phone call with the president of Ukraine released Wednesday because, he said, they showed the call was “innocent,” “wonderful” and “perfect.” Hogwash.

Trump told President Volodymyr Zelensky he needed “a favor” and directed him to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, who Trump believes his likely Democratic opponent in 2020, and his son, Hunter Biden.

“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great,” Trump told Zelensky, referring to Attorney General William Barr.

He also urged Zelensky to work more closely with his personal attorney, Rudolph Giuliani.

The United States has been “very, very good to Ukraine,” Trump said, adding Ukraine hadn’t reciprocated.

At the time – July 25 -- Trump was holding up nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine, although Zelensky did not know it.

There’s no explicit quid pro quo in the call, and Trump insists he’s innocent and wanted only to investigate corruption. Most Republicans on Capitol Hill are backing him up.

“Nothing (no-quid pro quo) burger,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, tweeted, although Sen. Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, said the matter is “deeply troubling in the extreme.”

The five-page memo reconstructing the call provided a picture of Trump’s misuse of his office for political gain.

The call came to light through news reports about a secret whistleblower complaint in August by an intelligence officer. While Trump had promised an “unredacted transcript” of the call, the notes contain ellipses indicating words left out. 

The call persuaded House Democrats who had been on the fence it was time to begin the impeachment inquiry.

The complaint, unclassified and released Thursday by the House Intelligence Committee, reports an “urgent concern” that Trump “is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election.”

The complaint also reports the White House tried to cover up the call.

“The actions of the Trump presidency have revealed the dishonorable fact of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday, announcing the official impeachment inquiry, even before the notes and the complaint were released.

Trump’s defiant defense appears to be “I did it. So what?”

As we know, Trump’s MO is to tar his rivals. Joe Biden is the new Hillary Clinton, the 2016 presidential rival Trump labeled “crooked Hillary.”

In a news conference Wednesday, Trump lobbed unsubstantiated charges against the Bidens, as he has previously, claiming they took $1.5 billion out of China. He also claimed several congressional Democrats threatened to withhold funds from Ukraine.

Hunter Biden served on the board of a natural gas company in Ukraine that was investigated by Ukrainian authorities, but he was not accused of any wrongdoing.

As for impeachment: “It’s all a hoax, folks. It’s all a big hoax,” Trump said. “Impeachment for that?”

Impeachment is serious business, a last resort used only three times in American history.

The House draws up an indictment, called Articles of Impeachment. A simple majority vote of the House would send the indictment to the Senate for a trial presided over by the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Two-thirds of the Senate must vote to convict and remove the president from office.

The constitutional standard for impeachment is “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

These do not have to be violations of criminal laws, but, as Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist Papers: “offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.”

Democrats have little time to make their case before the end of the year. The danger for them is winning the battle but losing the war. If the Republican-controlled Senate leaves Trump in office, he and his supporters will celebrate his victory and vindication all the way to the polls in November.

Impeachment now seems inevitable. It will be an ugly spectacle, a mud bath from which no one will emerge clean. Even if he wins, Trump will carry an indelible stain into history.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Divide on gun laws sets stage for 2020 -- column of May 2, 2019

By MARSHA MERCER

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris threw down the gauntlet on gun control.

“Upon being elected, I will give the United States Congress 100 days to get their act together and have the courage to pass reasonable gun safety laws, and if they fail to do it, then I will take executive action,” the senator from California declared April 22 at a CNN town hall in New Hampshire.

Taking a strong stand on gun control used to be politically risky. Today, not so much.

Not after the Virginia Tech massacre of 32 students and professors in 2007, the slaughter of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, the mass murder of 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last year – and countless other shootings, including at a synagogue in California Saturday and a university in North Carolina Tuesday.

Democratic leaders agree on the need for universal background checks for gun purchases, reinstatement of the ban on sales of military-style assault weapons and red flag laws meant to keep guns out of the hands of those likely to hurt themselves or others.

In February, House Democrats passed two gun safety bills with a smattering of Republican support. If lightning should strike and the bills make it through the Republican-controlled Senate, though, President Donald Trump will veto them.

And that divide sets the stage for the 2020 campaign.

Trump told the National Rifle Association convention April 26 the constitutional right to bear arms is “under assault – but not when we’re here. Not even close.”

He urged NRA members to “get out there and vote” next year. “It seems like it’s a long ways away. It’s not,” he said. 

The NRA poured tens of millions of dollars into electing Trump, but its clout appears to be fading amidst internal strife and investigations into its tax exempt status.

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, hardly a “gun grabber,” reportedly is drafting a red flag bill to help police confiscate guns temporarily from people who are likely to hurt themselves or others.

“I think most Americans believe that multiple murderers shouldn’t have gun rights. Most Americans support background checks,” he told The State newspaper in South Carolina. “The Second Amendment’s important to me, but it’s not a suicide pact.”

Polls show the major issues for 2020 are likely to be health care, the economy and immigration. Gun laws don’t make the cut, although few polls even ask the question.

But Quinnipiac University does ask, and its polls since 2014 consistently have found over 90 percent support for background checks for all gun buyers. Most recently, in January, 95 percent of Democrats, 94 percent of independents and 89 percent of Republicans said they favored background checks.

Gun rights groups say background checks are ineffective and infringe on constitutional rights. When several states passed more stringent firearm laws after the shootings in Parkland, Florida, dozens of rural counties declared themselves Second Amendment “sanctuaries,” refusing to enforce the new laws.

How did we get here? For a clear-eyed account, I suggest reading “After Virginia Tech” by award-winning journalist Thomas P. Kapsidelis, a friend and former Richmond Times-Dispatch colleague.

Kapsidelis tells victims’ stories and what happened next to survivors, families, first responders and others -- and where the political system failed them.

“One Tech parent told me that all sides could have come together to make progress. That hasn’t happened,” he writes.

It’s a sobering, unsentimental assessment, but Kapsidelis cautions against losing hope.

He quotes an editorial by Gerald Fischman, who was murdered, along with four colleagues, last summer when a gunman with a grudge burst into the newsroom at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis. After the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando where 58 were killed in July 2016, Fischman wrote: 

“Of all the words this week, hopelessness may be the most dangerous. We must believe there is a solution, a way to prevent another mass shooting.”

No one wants more mass shootings. The 2020 campaigns and election offer us the chance to show we care enough to try to stop them.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Mend, if not end, Electoral College -- March 28, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER        

President Donald Trump now praises the Electoral College as genius and brilliant, but he wasn’t always a fan.

On Election Night 2012, citizen Trump tweeted the Electoral College was “a disaster for a democracy . . . a total sham and a travesty.”

He thought, mistakenly, that his choice for president, Republican Mitt Romney, would win the popular vote but lose in the Electoral College.

“More votes equals a loss . . . revolution!” Trump later deleted this and several other 

tweets.

President Barack Obama won both the popular and electoral votes. Four years later, Hillary Clinton won nearly 3 million more votes than Trump, but she lost in the Electoral College.

When we vote for president, we’re actually voting for electors. To win the White House, a candidate needs 270 of the total 538 electoral votes. Trump won 304 to Clinton’s 227. Seven electors voted for others.

Trump says he realizes “the Electoral College is far better for the USA.” But is it?

The Electoral College has been unloved for decades. Author James A. Michener, an elector in 1968, called the college a “time bomb lodged in the heart of the nation.”

He presciently worried that one day “the man who wins the largest popular vote across the nation will not be chosen President, with all the turmoil that this might cause.” Indeed. Except the man was a woman.

Since the ‘60s, Democrats and Republicans have told pollsters they favor the popular vote over the Electoral College, but numerous attempts to amend the Constitution and abolish the college have failed.

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren says she’ll scrap the college as part of a plan to expand voting rights. The current system results in small states being mostly ignored, while swing states get all the attention, she said March 19 at a CNN Town Hall in Mississippi.

“We need to get rid of the Electoral College so that presidential candidates have to ask every American in every part of the country for their vote, not just those in battleground states,” she said.

Democratic contenders Pete Buttigieg and Beto O’Rourke also support changing to the popular vote.

Trump warns letting the popular vote prevail would mean “the cities would end up running the country. Smaller states & the entire Midwest would end up losing all power & we can’t let that happen,” he tweeted.

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham and other Republicans oppose a constitutional amendment -- but that’s not the only avenue to change the system.

The Constitution determines how many electors a state has: one for each House member and two for the senators. But it does not say how states must allocate their votes.

All but two states use a winner-take-all system, which means most states are not in play. A candidate doesn’t have to win a majority of votes in a state to win all its electoral votes.

“In 2016, Donald Trump won all the electoral votes, totaling 101, in six states where he received less than 50 percent of the popular vote: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. (Hillary Clinton won seven states this way),” Edward B. Foley, a law professor at Ohio State, wrote in an essay for Politico in January.

“In reality, the current system works to the detriment of both Republicans and Democrats,” he said. His book, “Presidential Elections and Majority Rule” will be published in December by Oxford University Press.

Nebraska and Maine use a better system, splitting their electoral votes according to  the outcomes statewide and in each of their congressional districts.  

Another approach is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. So far, 12 states and the District of Columbia with 181 electoral votes have pledged their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, ensuring the popular vote winner was also the Electoral College winner.

The compact would kick in only after the total number of Electoral College votes in member states exceeds 270. It likely would be challenged in court.

The Founding Fathers couldn’t agree whether the president should be elected by popular vote or the Congress, and their compromise led to the Electoral College.

That compromise has outlived its usefulness. It’s time to look at ways to minimize its role, whether through the compact or splitting up results by congressional district. 

Either would deliver fairer and more representative presidential elections.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Congress must stop Trump from firing Mueller -- March 22, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Why does he act so guilty? What does he have to hide? What does Vladimir Putin have on him?

Those are questions being raised by Republicans as well as Democrats as President Donald Trump seems poised to end special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian tampering in the 2016 election. 

“When you are innocent . . . act like it,” Rep. Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, urged the president Sunday on “Fox News Sunday.”

“If you’ve done nothing wrong, you should want the investigation to be as fulsome and thorough as possible,” said Gowdy, a member of the House Intelligence Committee.  

Sen. Lindsey Graham warned firing Mueller would “probably” be an impeachable offense. Graham should know. He was one of the House managers of the impeachment case against President Bill Clinton in 1998. 

If Trump were to fire Mueller, “I can’t see it being anything other than a corrupt purpose,” Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said Tuesday on the Hugh Hewitt radio show.

Sen. John McCain, Republican of Arizona, tweeted: “Special Counsel Mueller has served our country with honesty and integrity. It is critical he be allowed to complete a thorough investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election – unimpeded.”

Fine words. Now it’s time for Congress to pass stalled legislation to protect the work of special counsels, including Mueller.

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee voted Thursday to release, after classified material is redacted, their report that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, a finding they announced March 13. Democrats on the committee strongly oppose release, saying Republicans ended the investigation prematurely.

Until now, many GOP members of Congress have said legislation to protect special counsels was unnecessary because Trump would never fire Mueller.

But Trump is reshaping his legal team, hiring Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney who claims the FBI and Justice Department framed Trump. And last weekend Trump launched tweets attacking Mueller personally.

“The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime,” he tweeted. The Mueller probe is “a total WITCH HUNT with massive conflicts of interest!”

John Dowd, Trump’s personal attorney, said Saturday it was time to shut down the Mueller probe, although he later claimed he was only speaking for himself. He resigned Thursday, reportedly because Trump was ignoring his advice.

White House lawyer Ty Cobb said in a statement Sunday: “The White House yet again confirms that the president is not considering or discussing the firing” of Mueller.

But Trump’s calling out Mueller by name was a barrage too far. The timing was also suspect, coming just after Mueller reportedly subpoenaed financial records of the Trump Organization.

“Unfortunately, the statements and actions from the president and his lawyer over the weekend have led me to believe that the special counsel is now at real, immediate risk of being removed, and I believe the Senate needs to pass legislation to ensure that does not happen,” Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat and cosponsor of a bipartisan bill with Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, said Monday.

The Special Counsel Integrity Act would create a judicial review process to prevent the removal of special counsels without good cause.

Another bill, the Special Counsel Independence Protection Act, would permit the firing of a special counsel only if a federal court found “misconduct, dereliction of duty, incapacity, conflict of interest, or other good cause for removal.”

Introduced by Graham in the Senate, it has three Democratic cosponsors, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

Companion bills for both bills have been introduced in the House. One bill by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Democrat of Texas, has 130 cosponsors, all Democrats, including Reps. A. Donald McEachin and Don Beyer of Virginia.

The bills had hearings in the respective Judiciary committees but are stalled.

Trump seems eager to shut Mueller down or at least to discredit his findings. Republicans as well as Democrats say Mueller should be allowed to complete his investigation.

Members of Congress must do their work so Mueller can do his.

© 2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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`Huddled masses' need not apply? -- Aug. 3, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER

In the White House briefing room, a senior White House aide lectured on the Statue of Liberty.

The statue is a “symbol of American liberty lighting the world,” senior policy adviser Stephen Miller said Wednesday. Welcoming immigrants was only an afterthought, he suggested.

“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, inscribed on the base, with its line about “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,” was added later, he said.

Miller was right about the timing, but why make that historical footnote now? Because President Donald Trump intends to set the United States on a new path regarding immigration. He wants to halve legal immigration over a decade.

“Very, very important, Trump said of the proposal. “Biggest change in 50 years.”

Trump sees his America First ideology in conflict with America’s traditional role as beacon to the world’s persecuted and downtrodden.

The RAISE (Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment) Act would slash the number of green cards to about 500,000 annually and change the face of immigration. Green card holders are lawful permanent residents who can live in the country permanently and serve in the military.

The current system prizes family unification; people who are kin to citizens get top priority. The new system would prioritize green cards for English speakers, people who can support themselves financially and have job skills.

Miller emphasized most voters support such changes. To be sure, Trump’s pledges to curb illegal immigration were central to his election. But this bill goes a step farther. 

Now, legal immigration is also on the chopping block, as it has been at various points in history.

But legal immigration should not be an us-versus-them issue in the 21^st century. We rightly celebrate hard-working legal immigrants who follow the rules. We need immigrants to keep our economy humming.  

Democrats on Capitol Hill declared the bill a nonstarter. Two Republican senators – Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona – drenched the proposal in cold water.

Graham said it would hurt his state’s agriculture, tourism and service industries. McCain told reporters he “wasn’t interested.” Why? “Because I’m not interested.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce argued the bill would hurt the economy.

“Dramatically reducing overall immigration levels won’t raise the standard of living for Americans,” said Randy Johnson, a senior vice president at the chamber.

“In fact it will likely accomplish the opposite, making it harder for businesses, communities, and our overall economy to grow, prosper and create jobs for American workers,” Johnson said.

The bill proposed by two Southern Republicans, Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia, has undeniable political appeal in Trump country. But it’s helpful to think about what the RAISE bill is not.

It is not comprehensive immigration reform. It does not address the 11 million people who entered the country illegally or guest workers or border security or deporting “bad hombres,” in Trump’s phrase.

This is not 1986, when Congress passed and President Ronald Reagan signed the bipartisan Immigration Reform and Control Act.

Trump is not Reagan, who said: “I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.”

Reagan understood that society can’t prosper with “a class of individuals who must hide in the shadows, without access to many of the benefits of a free and open society.”

The 1986 law -- called Simpson-Mazzoli for sponsors Sen. Alan Simpson, Republican of Wyoming, and Rep. Romano Mazzoli, Democrat of Kentucky – promised a path to legalization – amnesty -- for millions of undocumented immigrants in return for 

cracking down on illegal immigration.

The law is now widely viewed as a failure. Nearly 3 million illegal immigrants did come out of the shadows, but the border remained porous. To pass the bill, Congress jettisoned key enforcement provisions, including penalizing employers who hired workers here illegally. 

Thirty-one years later, a new president wants to remake immigration. Surely we can do better this time around – without halving legal immigration. Curb illegal immigration, yes, while affirming America’s role as a beacon to the world, while helping our citizens prosper. Our future demands no less.

© 2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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The Trump budget cometh -- May 18, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER

In a time of nonstop surprises in Washington, we’re about to experience a reassuringly familiar ritual.

On Tuesday, the Trump administration will deliver to Congress the president’s proposed budget for fiscal 2018 – and it will land with a thud.

“Dead on arrival,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in March.

Graham was reacting to Trump’s preliminary, so-called “skinny budget,” with massive hikes in defense and deep cuts in foreign aid and the State Department, along with other domestic programs.

Declaring the president’s budget dead is part of the familiar scenario on Capitol Hill.  

“We generally – no matter who the president is – we don’t pay a whole lot of attention to the president’s budget,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Bloomberg News Tuesday.

The president’s budget does serve a purpose. As a blueprint of where he wants to bulk up or starve programs, it’s worth more than a thousand impulsive tweets about his values.

As a political document, it lets him say he has delivered on campaign promises – and blame Congress if his proposals go nowhere.

Trump’s first four months in the White House have been a brag, bumble and blame festival. His “America first” campaign has devolved into a “Trump first” presidency that has left in its wake disappointment, if not yet disillusionment, among long-suffering supporters.

“They are in a downward spiral right now,” Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said of the White House.

In Trump’s self-centered world, though, he’s always the victim.

     

“Look at the way I’ve been treated lately,” he told the graduating class at the Coast Guard Academy Wednesday, “especially by the media. No politician in history – and I say this with great surety – has been treated worse or more unfairly.”

Trump and his chief strategist Steve Bannon want to “deconstruct” Washington. To that end, the budget reportedly will call for $800 billion in entitlement cuts over 10 years, including to Medicaid, envision fantastic economic growth of 3 percent a year, and result in a balanced budget in 10 years.  

But it’s a starting point, not a road map.

“We share some of his priorities,” McConnell said. He and other Republicans favor spending more on defense, but they insist tax cuts must be paid for.

Tax cuts “will have to be revenue-neutral,” McConnell said.

In 1981, Ronald Reagan proposed higher defense spending, tax cuts and reductions in dozens of domestic programs aimed at shrinking the size of the federal government. Congress went along with about 60 percent of the proposed spending cuts, but the national debt still soared.

There already is push back on Trump’s proposals to cut the State Department, Environmental Protection Agency, National Institutes of Health, public education, the arts, and safety net programs.

For example, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee in charge of NIH funding, said at a hearing Wednesday he was “very proud” Congress approved a $2 billion increase, to $34.1 billion, in NIH funding in 2017. Trump had sought a $1 billion cut.

Cole and other lawmakers plan to fight Trump’s proposed $5.8 billion cut in NIH funding for fiscal 2018 as well.

With crises du jour from the White House dominating the news and Congress, Trump’s agenda seems to be slipping away.

His much-promised tax cut is somewhere over the rainbow, along with the $1 trillion plan to rebuild the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. A GOP plan to repeal and replace Obamacare finally passed the House, but the Senate is proceeding slowly.

McConnell pointedly said he’d like less drama from the White House, although that seems unlikely, given the personality of the man in the Oval Office.

Still, the Justice Department’s appointment of former FBI Director Robert Mueller III as special counsel overseeing the investigation into the Russian involvement in the election may tamp down the chaos.

In another ritual of Washington, Republican leaders will be working against the clock to wrap up budget negotiations and avoid a government shutdown when the fiscal year begins Oct. 1.

That’s a heavy lift, especially with the government running up against the debt ceiling this fall as well.

So watch for Republicans to ignore most of Trump’s budget proposals. He’ll win a few victories – and blame others for his defeats.

©2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Write-in for president? Not so fast -- Oct. 20, 2016 column

By MARSHA MERCER

You say you can’t stand voting for the presidential candidates on the ballot, so you’re going to write in Mickey Mouse, your own name -- or mine? Don’t. Really.  

Yes, several prominent Republicans say they will write in GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence for president because they can’t abide Donald Trump. They include Sens. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Rob Portman of Ohio.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona said he might write in the name of his buddy Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina.

The urge to protest the presidential choice is strong, but a write-in could be wrong. You might as well tear your ballot into tiny pieces and swallow them as write in someone’s name, even Pence or Bernie Sanders -- unless you do your homework.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, won a write-in campaign for re-election in 2010 after losing the GOP primary, but no write-in presidential candidate has ever won a single state.

Votes for a third party or write-in candidate could tip close states to one candidate or the other, however. Hillary Clinton finally called on Al Gore to make the point.

“Your vote really, really, really counts. A lot. You can consider me as an Exhibit A of that truth,” Gore said at a Clinton rally in Miami Oct. 11.

In the 2000 presidential election, Gore came within a whisker of winning Florida’s popular vote and the White House. Many Democrats still blame Ralph Nader for Gore’s loss.

It’s worth reviewing this bit of ancient history. In the official Florida tally, George W. Bush beat Gore by 537 votes – and Nader got 97,488 votes.

Nader was on the ballot as the Green Party presidential candidate, so his votes counted. Each state sets its own election rules, though, and many states are unfriendly to write-ins.

In 34 states, including Virginia, write-in presidential candidates must file papers with the state before the election. Otherwise their votes don’t count.

A write-in presidential candidate in Virginia needs to submit to the state a list of 13 electors at least 10 days before Election Day. Alabama does not require advanced paperwork, but Tennessee does.

In Florida, write-in presidential candidates must file an oath with the state in order to have a blank space provided for their names to be written in on the general election ballot.

A write-in presidential candidate in Florida must file the form and a list of electors “at any time after the 57^th day, but before noon of the 49^th day, prior to the date of the primary election in the year in which a presidential election is held,” according to Florida law.

Got that?

Only seven states allow voters to write in whomever they please for president, and nine states don’t allow presidential write-in votes at all.

Presidential candidates also must file with the Federal Election Commission. So far, more than 1,800 individuals have filed paperwork as presidential candidates with the FEC.

Clinton, Trump and Libertarian Gary Johnson are on ballots in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Green Party candidate Jill Stein is on the ballot in 44 states and D.C., and she has qualified as a write-in in three other states. 

Independent Laurence Kotlikoff, an economics professor at Boston University, insists he has a shot largely as a write-in candidate at the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the White House.

On the ballot in only two states, Kotlikoff says by Election Day he will be registered as a write-in in all but one of the states that require certification.  

Independent Evan McMullin, a conservative who made news when a poll in usually red-state Utah put him in a tight race with Trump and Clinton, told NPR Sunday he is on the ballot in 11 states and will be on the ballot or certified as a write-in in 43 to 45 states by Election Day.

It’s totally understandable that voters appalled by Clinton and Trump would want to protest by writing in someone else’s name. The smart thing to do first: Check with your local election office whether a write-in vote for president will be tallied.

Make sure “your vote really, really, really counts.”

©2016 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Ignored no more -- why this Super Tuesday matters -- Dec. 31, 2015 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Democratic presidential contender Martin O’Malley soon may be a footnote in history, but he made news the other day by simply showing up.

Braving a blizzard, O’Malley made it to Tama, Iowa, population 2,877, and found exactly one voter waiting for him.

“The very last event of the night, we actually had a whopping total of one person show up, but by God, he was glad to see me. So we spent the time with him,” O’Malley told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Tuesday.

O’Malley sat and talked with the man, identified only as Kenneth, about Syrian refugees, prison reform and other issues. In the end, though, Kenneth remained undecided. He needs to see some other candidates before making up his mind.

Of course he does. Iowa and New Hampshire voters expect to see the whites of presidential candidates’ eyes while voters elsewhere rarely catch a glimpse a contender in the flesh.

As the election year begins, candidates and the news media are focused on the first four contests – Iowa caucuses Feb. 1, New Hampshire primary Feb. 9, and South Carolina’s Republican primary and Nevada’s Democratic caucuses Feb. 20.

This year, though, another date looms large -- March 1. That’s Super Tuesday, when a dozen states hold presidential primaries or caucuses, the most on a single day. They are: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia. 

Some have dubbed March 1 the “SEC primary” after the Southeastern Conference in college sports.

After the first Super Tuesday in 1988, former Virginia Gov. Chuck Robb, an architect of Super Tuesday, said it was intended to “reduce the influence of the so-called Iowa syndrome” and nationalize the political message. Southern Democrats also hoped it would give the region more clout.   

It hasn’t worked out that way, but in 2016 Super Tuesday may live up to its potential. It could do what Iowa and New Hampshire likely won’t do – winnow the crowded Republican field.

Super Tuesday states are getting more attention than usual. Ted Cruz took a bus tour of the South last summer and blitzed a dozen cities in a week in December. Marco Rubio stumped in Georgia and announced dozens of endorsements in Virginia. He plans a rally in Texas Jan. 6.

Donald Trump drew a huge crowd to a rally in Mobile, Ala., in August. Just how many attended was in dispute – he claimed 31,000 while some media outlets estimated about 20,000.

Determined to be ignored no more, Alabama Secretary of State John H. Merrill, a Republican, says he will promote visits by candidates of both parties, although deep red Alabama draws more Republican contenders.

Trump conceded the other day that he might not win Iowa. He was looking ahead to Super Tuesday when he lambasted Virginia Republicans for requiring a party loyalty pledge to vote in the primary. The pledge -- “My signature below indicates that I am a Republican” -- could turn off independents and Democrats who might be Trump voters.

“Suicidal mistake,” Trump tweeted.

If Super Tuesday delivers a Republican candidate that appeals broadly, it could finally weaken Iowa’s parochial influence. 

Iowa’s record picking nominees is dismal. Rick Santorum won the Republican caucuses in 2012 and Mike Huckabee won in 2008. After Lindsey Graham of South Carolina dropped his presidential bid the other day, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad said Graham told him he had learned two things about Iowa: “You need to love Jesus and ethanol.”  

Mitt Romney and John McCain won the New Hampshire primary in 2012 and 2008, respectively, and both became the party’s presidential nominees.

In the 2008 Democratic contests, Barack Obama won in Iowa – and Hillary Clinton came in third, behind John Edwards. She won the New Hampshire primary that year.

The hard truth is that most presidential candidates end up as also-rans. If they’re lucky, they may be remembered for a good line. Mo Udall was a Democratic congressman from Arizona when he ran for president in 1976. He finished second in six primaries the year Jimmy Carter rode his win in the Iowa caucuses to victory.

Udall often told a story about meeting some elderly fellows in a barber shop in New Hampshire, where he said, “I’m Mo Udall, and I’m running for president of the United States.”

“Yeah,” the barber replied, “We were just laughing about that this morning.”

©2015 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved. 30

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