Next week's Supreme Court election in Wisconsin could be the beginning of the end of the GOP's near-dominance in Wisconsin.
With the exception of the governorship, Republicans have long had a lock on most levers of power in the state. They have a strong majority of the congressional delegation. They're on the cusp of supermajorities in both legislative chambers. And conservatives currently hold sway on the state Supreme Court.
But a liberal win in the April 4 election could upend all of that. It would give liberals an effective majority on the high court — and with it, the possibility to redraw state and congressional district lines in ways that dramatically curb Republican power.
“Wisconsinites are very familiar with hearing ‘this is the most important election of our lifetime,’” said Sarah Godlewski, a Democrat who was recently appointed to be the Wisconsin secretary of state after running for the Senate last year. But, she emphasized, this race is actually incredibly “consequential” for the longer-term political control of the state.
A liberal takeover of the supreme court could even be a factor in the race for control of the U.S. House in 2024.
A win by Democrat-backed Janet Protasiewicz — which could shift control of the court from a one-seat advantage for conservatives to a 4-3 liberal majority — could have a domino effect in the state. She is facing former state Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly, the conservative candidate backed by the state GOP in the technically non-partisan race.
Most immediately, the court will likely decide the fate of abortion rights in Wisconsin; that and crime have been the focus of much of the debate surrounding the race. But there’s another hugely consequential matter the court could take up: a challenge to the state's congressional district and legislative lines. And an adverse ruling for Republicans would pose a direct threat to the delegation's GOP-heavy makeup.
Currently, Republicans have a near-ironclad hold on the state legislature, a fact that has hamstrung Democratic Gov. Tony Evers throughout his two terms. The GOP is a few seats shy of a supermajority in the state Assembly, and a special election for a red-leaning state Senate seat on Tuesday will determine if the GOP hits the two-thirds mark in the state Senate again.
The state’s congressional delegation, meanwhile, is 6-2 Republican — four safe Republican seats, two deep blue Democratic districts and a pair of red-leaning but potentially competitive districts that the GOP carried in the midterms.
But that GOP dominance is built upon conservative-friendly state and congressional district maps — lines that Democrats are itching to challenge in court.
Wisconsin’s congressional and legislative lines went through lengthy court fights following the 2020 census, after the GOP-controlled legislature and Evers could not reach an agreement on the maps. After a series of rulings from both the state and U.S. Supreme Courts, the state landed on its current legislative and congressional lines.
The U.S. House map ultimately selected by the state Supreme Court was one proposed by Evers — but it was still one that heavily favored Republicans because the court previously ruled the maps must be based on the last decade’s lines.
A win for Protasiewicz could reopen those decisions. Broadly, operatives on both sides believe a redrawn map could endanger the seats of Reps. Bryan Steil and Derrick Van Orden, the two Republicans who represent the red-leaning seats. And the district of Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) could be redrawn to become more competitive.
More than $37 million has already been spent on the race as of late last week, according to WisPolitics.com — easily the record for spending on a state Supreme Court race anywhere in the country. But even with the stakes riding on the election, those involved say the contest is still running into the same attention gap that off-year elections face.
“For people that aren’t paying attention, it seems hard to believe that there's a spring election that has cataclysmic importance,” said Ben Wikler, the chair of the state Democratic Party. “And breaking through that natural skepticism to convey that fact is maybe the central challenge in this organizing push.”
Operatives on both sides believe the race between the two candidates is close, though there have been no nonpartisan public polls.
In the only debate between Protasiewicz and Kelly that took place last week, Protasiewicz criticized the maps, saying they were unfair. “I don’t think anybody thinks those maps are fair. Anybody,” she said during the debate. “The question is am I able to fairly make a decision on a case. Of course I would.”
Some Republicans have attacked these comments, saying she is projecting how she would rule in cases. “I think that it really goes beyond the partisan makeup of the legislature or what the congressional delegation is going to be,” state Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August, a Republican, said in an interview. “It really goes to ‘are we going to start to allow Supreme Court justices to just make unilateral decisions?’”
But even setting aside the outcome of Tuesday’s election, there is significant uncertainty over what role the Wisconsin Supreme Court will play in redistricting in the future. There is a case pending in the U.S. Supreme Court that risks cutting state supreme courts out of that role in most federal election questions.
Perhaps even more consequential than any would-be redistricting case is the potential for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to rule on the outcome of a future election — including the 2024 presidential race. In the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election, the state Supreme Court tossed then-President Donald Trump’s challenge to the outcome in the state. At the time, Justice Brian Hagedorn — a conservative who still serves on the court and has been a swing vote in other big cases — joined the liberal minority on the case.
The most glaring near-term issue the court will grapple with, however, is abortion rights. The state currently has an 1840s law on the books banning abortion in almost all circumstances. A challenge to that law is expected to eventually land in front of the state Supreme Court, but abortion providers in the state have, in the interim, stopped performing the procedure.
Earlier this month, Republican Assembly leaders put forward a proposal to allow for the procedure in cases of rape or incest up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, along with clarifying a “health of the mother” exception. But Republican Senate leaders promised to not take it up, and Evers said he would veto it. Soon after, the governor introduced his own proposal to repeal the 1849 law, but it will not pass the legislature.
Protasiewicz and her allies are hoping the issue will propel her to victory, as it did for many Democrats last fall who outperformed expectations in the midterms. But the race has attracted significant attention from both pro-abortion rights and anti-abortion groups, who say their supporters have been fired up by the contest.
Gracie Skogman, the legislative and PAC director of Wisconsin Right to Life, said there has been an “unprecedented” response from anti-abortion advocates. “I have been truly shocked to see the amount of people who are willing to be involved in this election. That was very unexpected for us,” she added.
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Donald Trump has tapped an operative to lead his 2024 efforts in New Hampshire. And for the role, he’s turned to a veteran of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential bid, a campaign he mercilessly roasted.
Trevor Naglieri will serve as Trump’s New Hampshire state director, according to two GOP operatives familiar with the move.
Naglieri was a field coordinator for Bush in 2016 and went on to serve as New Hampshire field director and then national field director for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). He most recently managed Pennsylvania Republican Jeremy Shaffer’s unsuccessful 2022 congressional bid. He also did stints at Republican consulting firm Axiom Strategies.
Naglieri is Trump’s second big hire in New Hampshire. Two months ago, POLITICO first reported that former state GOP Chair Steve Stepanek, a longtime ally, would serve as a senior adviser to the former president in the first-in-the-nation primary state. The two join Alex Latcham, one of Trump’s Iowa hires, who’s overseeing all early state operations.
New Hampshire handed Trump his first primary win in 2016 — in which he defeated both Bush and Cruz. But he went on to lose the state in both the 2016 and 2020 general elections.
The Naglieri hire further illustrates the dual tracks that Trump is currently on: moving aggressively on a third run for the White House while simultaneously battling legal woes on several fronts.
His rivals have yet to take similar steps on the staffing front.
Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley has been leaning on volunteers including former U.S. Senate candidate Don Bolduc and former congressional hopeful Matt Mayberry to help coordinate her meetings and events in New Hampshire. Mayberry also volunteered at a recent county GOP event for former Vice President Mike Pence.
And when former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who’s also mulling a bid, came to Manchester this week for a town hall and dinner with his 2016 supporters, former aide Matt Mowers was there to lend a helping hand.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not have any current plans to visit the United States following days of mass protests in Israel over plans for a judicial overhaul.
On Tuesday morning, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides said in a radio interview that the White House would soon invite Netanyahu to visit, according to the Associated Press. Nides said Netanyahu would most likely visit after the weeklong Passover holiday beginning next week.
Though later on Tuesday, Principal Deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton told reporters that the United States has no immediate plans for Netanyahu to visit.
"There's no plans for Prime Minister Netanyahu to visit Washington. Israeli leaders have a long history, tradition of visiting Washington, and Prime Minister Netanyahu will likely take a visit at some point, but there's nothing currently planned,” Dalton said.
After two days of protest, Netanyahu announced a delay in his judicial overhaul plan Monday, stating that he wanted to find a compromise with his political opponents. Over the weekend, Netanyahu also fired his defense minister for opposing the overhaul.
The White House on Monday said they welcomed Netanyahu’s announcement as an “opportunity to create additional time and space for compromise.”
“Compromise is precisely what we have been calling for. And we continue to strongly urge Israeli leaders to find a compromise as soon as possible,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Monday.
The collapse of President Joe Biden's effort to fill the top job at the Federal Aviation Administration leaves the administration starting from scratch with an agency that has lacked a Senate-confirmed leader for nearly a year.
But a Republican lawmaker who helped sink Biden's nominee says the president has an obvious solution — hand the job to the acting chief who has been running the agency since April.
Acting Administrator Billy Nolen, a former airline pilot who led the FAA's safety office, has already gotten a public endorsement from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who predicted during a hearing this month that he would "get confirmed quickly.” Some people in the aviation industry have also called Nolen an obvious choice, given his experience as a pilot and safety executive and his pledges to address a recent spike in near-collisions among planes.
On the other hand, Nolen would not represent the clean break from industry dominance at the FAA that Biden had promised with his original nominee, Denver airport CEO Phil Washington. Washington withdrew his nomination on Saturday, following attacks from Cruz and other critics who called him too inexperienced.
The questions about Washington's successor offer Biden a fundamental choice in what direction to take the FAA, an agency that has presided over an era of unprecedented safety in air travel but has also faced doubts about its oversight of companies such as Boeing, whose 737 MAX jetliner killed 346 people in crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia in 2018 and 2019.
The White House hasn't announced any plans for a new FAA nominee and did not respond to a request for comment Monday. On Saturday, the White House said it would move quickly to nominate another candidate.
Cruz led the opposition to Washington as the top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, which vets FAA nominations. But Washington had also faced doubts from non-GOP lawmakers on the panel.
Those include Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who said in a statement Monday that Biden "should quickly nominate a permanent FAA Administrator with the necessary, substantial aviation safety experience and expertise." Sinema and Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) had both declined to declare a stance on Washington before Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) postponed a committee vote on his nomination last week.
Cantwell, who gave a tepid reaction to Washington's nomination when it was first announced, spent months avoiding taking a position on him. She finally came out in support of him early this year, arguing that the FAA needed a fresh, independent voice.
Now, if Nolen gets the nod, Cantwell would face the possibility of advancing a new nominee who is engrained in the aviation industry. Besides being a pilot, Nolen spent time at the aviation industry's trade group Airlines for America after a long career at American Airlines before joining the FAA in early 2022.
Nolen, like Washington, would be the first Black person to serve as the FAA's permanent administrator if confirmed.
Cruz endorsed Nolen during an aviation safety hearing earlier this month, asking Democrats on the panel: "Do you think Phil Washington could come anywhere close to acting Administrator Nolen's knowledge? I think the answer is no."
Cruz said in his podcast on Monday that his endorsement of Nolen "was an audible" called in the middle of the hearing.
"I turned back to my staff and said, 'What do you think about Nolen? Would it be crazy for me to suggest right now that they should withdraw Washington and nominate Nolen?'" Cruz said. "And my guys were like 'No, that's fine.'"
Cruz added that a former Biden White House official reached out afterward to say his remarks had caught the administration's attention.
Aviation industry consultant Robert Mann also said Nolen would be an obvious choice.
"We have a very competent acting administrator in Mr. Nolen," said Mann, who works with airlines operators to make their flight operations more efficient. "He's been doing the job and he's been responding to issues."
In contrast, Mann said Washington's lack of knowledge about aviation showed itself during his confirmation hearing this month, where Cruz asked him detailed questions about technical issues such as the 737 MAX's "angle of attack" sensors. While conceding that "I'm not a pilot," Washington contended that his career as an Army officer and his leadership of transit agencies had shown his ability to manage large organizations.
Still, "I don't know why he was proposed, to be perfectly honest," Mann said of Washington. "At the end of the day you have to actually understand something about the business."
On the other hand, Nolen's nomination would not win unanimous support.
Michael Stumo, who helped draft a letter in support of Washington from family members of people killed in the 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia, said Nolen probably disqualified himself from winning their support after telling senators this month that the plane is safe. Nolen was responding to questions from Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) about recent, nonfatal incidents involving Boeing's jet, which returned to service in late 2020.
"I can say categorically that the 737 MAX ... is safe," Nolen said during that hearing, while adding that he "would want to know more" about the incidents Vance was citing.
That was troubling, said Stumo, who lost his daughter Samya in the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March 2019.
"He said the MAX qualified as safe but he didn't know about the [most recent] incidents," Stumo said. "That is ... probably disqualifying in my view."
Groups speculating about potential leaders for the FAA in the past have floated names including C.B. "Sully" Sullenberger, the retired US Airways pilot who safely landed a passenger jet on the water during the January 2009 "Miracle on the Hudson." Sullenberger left his Senate-confirmed role as U.S. ambassador to the International Civil Aviation Organization last July after five months on the job, and didn't give a reason for his departure.
One union coalition that supported Washington's nomination was at a loss Monday on who should get the nod now.
"From my perspective, it's not like we have been asked about potential backups at this point," said Greg Regan, president of the AFL-CIO's Transportation Trades Department. "I think there was the full commitment to try to get him across the finish line. Phil had their full trust and support. I think there's a little bit of urgency here with how they move next."
Burgess Everett contributed to this report.
NEW YORK — Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified Monday before the grand jury examining Donald Trump’s alleged role in paying hush money to a porn star, according to a news report and related photograph.
A POLITICO reporter viewed a photograph of Pecker and his attorney exiting the courthouse Monday afternoon after The New York Times wrote about the testimony.
A spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Pecker’s attorney, Elkan Abramowitz, also didn’t immediately comment.
Monday was the first time in a week that the grand jury heard evidence in the Trump case. The panel was called off Wednesday and then examined an unrelated matter Thursday. The delay prompted a fiery response from Trump, leading some Democrats to rally around Bragg on Monday morning.
Bragg’s investigation is centered on a $130,000 payment facilitated by Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, and made to the porn star, Stormy Daniels. The adult entertainer alleged she had an affair with Trump and considered selling her story to the National Enquirer, at a time when Pecker was the tabloid’s publisher, according to federal prosecutors. Instead, Cohen paid Daniels directly, a step he told a court he took “in coordination with and at the direction of” Trump.
Trump has denied the affair and any wrongdoing with the payment.
Pecker previously testified before the Manhattan grand jury examining the Trump investigation, according to a person familiar with the matter. It wasn’t clear why he was called back to provide further testimony. Before the publisher, the grand jury heard from Robert Costello, a former legal adviser to an ex-fixer for Trump, Michael Cohen, who is the prosecution’s central witness in the case.
Costello said at a press conference after his testimony that he sought to discredit Cohen while speaking to the grand jury.
