The effort is being led by Democratic leaders in both chambers.
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Tuesday 11 April 2023
Hochul nominates new chief judge in New York after initial rejection
ALBANY, N.Y. — After a historic failure to get her first pick confirmed to the New York's highest court, Gov. Kathy Hochul nominated Rowan Wilson to the position Monday. And this time, it was met with praise from Senate Democrats.
Wilson has served as an associate judge of the seven-member Court of Appeals since 2017, and if confirmed, he would be the state’s first Black chief judge. To fill Wilson’s position, Hochul nominated Caitlin Halligan, a former state solicitor general.
"Judge Wilson's sterling record of upholding justice and fairness makes him well-suited to lead the court at this critical time,” Hochul said in a statement.
Senate Democrats rejected Hochul's initial pick for chief judge, Hector LaSalle, in a floor vote in February, saying he was too moderate and had several decisions that were anti-abortion rights or anti-labor — positions he disputed during his hourslong testimony in January.
But Democrats were on board with Wilson, who is deemed as part of the more liberal side of the court. They said it is important to pick a candidate that will defend abortion rights in the face of last year's U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and the recent Texas case to ban the abortion pill mifepristone.
“I am particularly excited about the prospect of Judge Wilson leading our state’s highest court as chief judge,” Senate Deputy Majority Leader Mike Gianaris said in a statement. “He is exactly the type of person who can restore the integrity and reputation of the Court of Appeals after the damaging tenure of the previous administration."
Hochul is able to nominate both Wilson and Halligan from the same pool of candidates after lawmakers approved a law change earlier this month. Previously, each pick to the Court of Appeals required a separate list from the Commission on Judicial Nomination.
Hochul said Wilson has also agreed to recommend Joseph Zayas, an appellate court judge in New York City, as chief administrative judge to oversee the entire court system.
The Democratic governor began her year with a rocky start when the Senate Judiciary Committee, for the first time since governors nominated chief judges in the 1970s, rejected LaSalle. After a GOP lawsuit pushed Democrats for a full floor vote, LaSalle was then voted down on the Senate floor.
Several others expressed their support for Hochul’s latest picks, including Senate Judiciary Chair Brad Hoylman-Sigal. The Senate will need to soon take up confirmation hearings on both judicial nominees.
“The importance of these nominees to New York’s highest court cannot be overstated, especially given recent decisions by federal courts on issues such as abortion, gun safety, labor and the environment,” Hoylman-Sigal said in a statement. “I look forward to working with my colleagues to conduct fair and thorough hearings to examine the extensive records of Associate Judge Rowan and Ms. Halligan.”
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Biden eyes seasoned Dem operative to be State spokesperson
Matthew Miller, a veteran Democratic communications operative, is the top contender to be the spokesperson for the State Department, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Miller led the effort to confirm Antony Blinken to be secretary of State earlier in the Biden administration and had a more recent stint last year as a special adviser to the National Security Council at the White House to lead communications and legislative work on the Ukraine invasion.
Miller would replace Ned Price, who took a policy focused role in Blinken’s office. The three people familiar with the matter were granted anonymity to freely discuss the information ahead of a formal announcement.
“We’re looking forward to announcing a new State Department spokesperson soon but have no personnel announcements to make at this time,” according to a statement released by the department.
Miller did not respond to a request Monday for comment.
Miller is currently a partner at the strategic advisory firm Vianovo, where he advises boards, executives and well-known individuals on “government investigations, congressional inquiries, high-stakes litigation, activist campaigns, and social and political issues,” according to his firm's biography. He is also an MSNBC analyst.
Miller served as director of the office of public affairs at the Justice Department in the Obama administration and has also worked as communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.).
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Monday 10 April 2023
Rutgers University workers will strike, a historic first for New Jersey's state school
Rutgers University workers plan to strike Monday after failing over many months to reach a new contract, a historic moment in the school’s nearly 260-year history.
The strike also adds New Jersey to a national wave of walkouts as teachers and staff grow increasingly frustrated with their wages and benefits.
Leaders of three unions representing about 9,000 workers voted to strike Sunday night, and it takes effect Monday morning at all three of Rutgers’ major campuses — Camden, Newark and New Brunswick.
“We are not alone,” Todd Wolfson, general vice president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT, said in an online meeting after the vote. “The strikes that are happening right here in New Jersey and in other parts of the country right now are building on a historic strike wave in higher education.”
The strike means instruction and non-critical research to “come to a halt” and picket lines will instead go up at the campuses, union leaders said. The workers plan to continue not working until a deal is reached.
The potential for a strike has loomed over Rutgers since late last year. University faculty and staff from multiple unions had been working without a contract since summer, and they publicly rallied for higher wages and increased benefits while threatening to strike if the school did not “bargain in good faith.”
In March, with its members still without contracts, unions voted to authorize a strike. Sunday night’s vote took that authorization to the next step as negotiations have stalled.
“We take this very seriously,” said Rebecca Givan, president of Rutgers' AAUP-AFT union. “We have bargained and bargained and bargained and bargained and bargained and we’re not getting anywhere, and we need to do something more.”
The three unions — AAUP-AFT, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union and AAUP-BHSNJ — represent about 9,000 full-time faculty, counselors, part-time faculty and others. More than 6,000 other union workers in nine other unions are also seeking new contracts.
Rutgers' president, Jonathan Holloway, said it's "deeply disappointing" to reach this point, especially given the progress the two sides have made recently.
"We have all been hard at work trying to resolve issues around compensation, benefits, and other terms and conditions of employment," he wrote in a message to the Rutgers community. "For the past several weeks, negotiations have been constant and continuous. Significant and substantial progress has been made, as I have noted, and I believe that there are only a few outstanding issues. We will, of course, negotiate for as long as it takes to reach agreements and will not engage in personal attacks or misinformation."
Union leaders said they were negotiating for contracts that included not just higher wages but guarantees such as equal pay for equal work for adjunct faculty, affordable housing and forgiveness for students’ overdue fees and fines. Although the two sides made some progress the last few days, they were “far apart on many core issues,” Givan said.
The vote to strike comes amid a national wave of college labor action. A combination of factors — such as declining enrollment, rising costs and the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic — have propelled a labor movement that reached campuses around the country, including pro-union, Democratic states like New Jersey. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, a strong supporter of unions, had largely stayed out of the public discourse on Rutgers contract disputes but advocated for the two sides to reach an agreement. He took a more direct approach Sunday night.
“Rutgers University is one of the nation’s premier institutions of higher learning. I am calling the University and union bargaining committees to meet in my office tomorrow to have a productive dialogue,” he said on Twitter.
The strike is historic in another way: It would be the first to involve tenured and tenure-track faculty at a Big Ten university, according to the unions.
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Sen. Richard Blumenthal injured during basketball parade
Sen. Richard Blumenthal was to undergo surgery after suffering a broken leg during the University of Connecticut’s victory parade for its NCAA men’s basketball champions.
“What can I say, I love a parade!” the Connecticut Democrat wrote on Twitter late Saturday.
“I did indeed fracture my femur after a fellow parade goer tripped & fell on me during the parade,” he said, adding that he was to have “routine surgery just to make sure everything heals properly.”
The 77-year-old senator said he expected to make “a full recovery,” though it was not clear whether he’d miss any time from work. Members of Blumenthal’s staff did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Because Democrats have a bare 50-49-1 Senate majority, the health and well-being of the Senate’s Democrats has attracted a lot of attention this year, with Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.) among those who have missed sessions. Prominent Republicans have also been absent at times, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. All the absences have hindered the Senate’s ability to get work done.
Blumenthal was in Hartford on Saturday to celebrate the championship that the Connecticut Huskies won last Monday by defeating San Diego State in Houston for their fifth national title. “Once again, the Huskies have inspired our state,” he and other members of the state’s delegation said in a celebratory statement Friday. “Five national championships don’t happen by accident.”
Fellow Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said that nothing was going to stop Blumenthal from celebrating the team.
“FYI after he broke his femur he got back up, dusted himself off, and FINISHED THE PARADE. Most Dick Blumenthal thing ever,” Murphy tweeted late Saturday.
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DoD’s highest-ranking trans official: ‘Ostracizing anybody’ will hurt military readiness
Shawn Skelly was a Navy commander working to help fend off roadside bomb attacks when she came to a realization about herself — one that meant her career in the military was over.
It was 2006, and “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which permitted gay and lesbian Americans to serve in the military as long as they kept their sexual identity under wraps, was still in effect. Skelly had identified as a man up until that point and — now that she felt she could no longer do so — decided to retire from military service as soon as possible.
Skelly, then stationed at a Marine Corps base in Virginia, told her commanding general she was out.
“I had fear at that time,” Skelly said in an interview. “I determined quickly that I needed to get out, get out safely, because I understood what I needed to do to be the best, healthiest version of myself.” It took two years for her to make the leap, and she left in 2008.
Now she’s back at the Pentagon, this time as a civilian. As assistant secretary of defense for readiness, Skelly oversees military preparedness for warfighting, including training programs, equipment safety and munitions supplies.
And Skelly has a message for Republicans accusing the Department of Defense of promoting diversity and inclusion in the armed forces at the expense of military readiness: their campaign is what’s hurting the military’s warfighting capabilities.
“If you want to be ready, then you have to ensure that everybody that is in your force can be their best selves and contribute as a member of a team and be seen as valuable,” said Skelly, speaking at the Pentagon in her first in-depth interview since taking the job in 2021.
She is the DoD’s highest-ranking openly transgender official, and the second to hold an office that requires Senate confirmation. The first was Rachel Levine, who serves as assistant secretary of health.
Skelly’s appointment was welcomed as a powerful signal of support by transgender troops now serving openly since President Joe Biden overturned a Trump-era ban on trans service members.
But Republicans in Congress are looking to roll back those changes through proposed legislation to ban transgender people from serving in the military.
It’s part of a larger push by some Republican lawmakers who argue that personnel policies like diversity trainings, racial justice education and events like a recent drag show on a military base alienate some potential recruits and distract from the forces’ main mission: fighting wars and protecting the homefront.
“When I talk to people and say, 'Well, why aren't you looking to join the military?' A lot of them say, 'Well, the military has been over-politicized. Well, the military has gone woke,’ said Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) during a March 9 hearing with the military’s senior enlisted leadership. “We're saying that this new focus, this new shift, this new kind of woke ideology is not impacting recruitment and not impacting our readiness and lethality? I have a hard time believing that.”
Skelly — who attended the 1991 Tailhook convention, the annual gathering of naval aviators at which dozens of officers were alleged to have assaulted 83 women and seven men — argues that rolling back these programs will hurt not only Americans who identify as LGBTQ, but the military’s ability to do its job.
Republican lawmakers who say DoD’s diversity push is hurting readiness have got it backward, Skelly said. When a team is in crisis, the trust between team members is what makes or breaks the mission.
“It's all about small unit cohesion,” she said, arguing that “ostracizing anybody” makes that more difficult.
Leaving the military behind
Skelly says her realization about her gender identity came “out of nowhere” in 2006 — when she was 40 years old. By that point, she said she had struggled for years with depression and feelings of anger and confusion about her identity. She had experimented with cross-dressing, but never put the pieces together until that point.
It was like “a blinding flash,” she said. “I’ve never felt such a moment of clarity before.”
Skelly’s commanding general asked her to delay for six months so she could fill in as his director of operations. At the time, hundreds of U.S. troops were dying in Iraq from roadside bomb attacks and Skelly, a former naval aviator whose dad served as a Marine, felt she couldn’t say no.
“I thought OK, that’s six more months of what I thought was jeopardy, being very alone, very afraid,’” she said. But, “It's country and service before self, even under those circumstances.”
Skelly sought help, hiring a counselor who helped her get through those months and a number more before she felt she could finally leave.
The night before her final day in the military, she came out to her spouse. She said she will never forget the first thing her spouse said: “I’m so proud of you.” The two are still together and have a 20-year-old son.
After working through thoughts of self harm with her counselor, Skelly transitioned in 2010.
Transgender individuals in the military today can serve openly. Since DoD does not officially track the number of transgender troops, it’s unclear how large of a group they are. However, SPARTA, a nonprofit group of transgender service members and veterans, estimates the population at several thousand.
In overturning the Trump-era ban, the Biden administration cited a 2016 DoD study that found that enabling transgender Americans to serve openly would have a minimal impact on readiness and healthcare costs. Further, “open transgender service has had no significant impact on operational effectiveness or unit cohesion in foreign militaries,” according to the study. Advocates also argue that, with the military facing its worst recruiting crisis in decades, it shouldn’t exclude a growing population of potential recruits.
But opponents say continuing the policy puts a group of people with elevated risk for mental health problems in a stressful environment, and signals to America’s adversaries that it is “more concerned with political correctness” than warfighting, according to Thomas Spoehr, director of the Center for National Defense at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
And those against transgender troops say Skelly is part of the problem.
“I am not aware of any issues with ASD Skelly’s performance,” Spoehr said in an email, adding that her civilian status puts her in a different category than the troops with which he’s most concerned. But, he added, “it is ironic ASD Skelly is responsible for readiness for the entire DoD.”
Some opponents say the acceptance of transgender troops also risks alienating people from more conservative areas such as the South. Even so, a recent Army survey found only 5 percent of young people listed “wokeness” as an issue they’d consider when deciding whether to join.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who are part of the small but vocal contingent of conservatives who believe DoD’s diversity initiatives are hurting the military, introduced the legislation to ban transgender Americans from serving.
And if President Donald Trump is reelected in 2024, he’s widely expected to reinstate his 2017 ban. He has already promised to roll out policies that would cut federal funding for any school pushing what he called “transgender insanity” and put limits on the type of medical care transgender youth can receive.
Skelly called the Trump administration a dark time in her life. She was trying to find a new full-time job outside of the administration when Trump announced his ban. Skelly said that’s the moment she saw herself, for the first time, as part of a targeted segment of the American population.
“That we, the royal we, the United States, would make a determination for a specific, very discrete slice of America, one of the smallest breakdowns of America you can make, and say ‘you are unworthy and incapable of serving your country,’ made me more emotional than any public policy initiative ever had,” she said. “I’ve never felt something so personally in American history.”
More to be done
After Skelly left the military, she began working for defense contractor ITT Exelis, which she said was supportive when she transitioned. She joined the Obama administration in 2013, serving in multiple roles, including as special assistant to the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. After Biden won the 2020 election, Skelly joined the DoD transition team.
On occasion, she would run into former colleagues from her Navy days. During one meeting at the Pentagon, an old squadron-mate, then a one-star admiral, walked into the room.
“It wasn’t until mid-meeting that he did the math,” she said. “He saw my name on something, went ‘oh,’ and he quickly dropped his poker face right back down to the topic at hand.” A few days later, in a different meeting, the person made a point of walking over and asking how she was doing.
While “99.9 percent” of such interactions have been positive, Skelly said, there’ve been awkward moments. After she first transitioned, former colleagues would sometimes stare at her at events.
But once they finally came over and spoke to her, “all their tension would drop,” she said.
“As a human being, I was still the same person. ‘Yes, we did almost get ourselves killed that night, right?’” she said. “I am still that person. I'm just a little bit better. In some cases, a lot better.”
Skelly’s appointment demonstrates that “even as DoD moves towards fully integrated transgender military service, that the community has representation and equity within DoD,” said Luke Schleusener, CEO of Out in National Security, which describes itself as a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to “empowering queer national security professionals.”
Skelly applauded Biden for scrapping Trump’s restrictions in 2021, as well as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s efforts to increase diversity in the force. But there is much more to be done, she said. Diversity training didn’t start in the Biden administration, she argued; the military began addressing the issue when racial tension was high in the 1960s and early 1970s, a period that coincided with the rise of the all-volunteer force.
Skelly said she regularly speaks with members of “Gen Z” who express reservations about serving in the military because they fear they or their friends won’t be treated with respect.
“I don’t know what ‘wokeism’ is, it’s not a defined term,” she said. But “If people understand that they're not going to get a fair shake, because they come from a specific ethnic origin, or based on their identity, or based on who they love, we are going to be worse off because not enough Americans are going to want to be a part of the U.S. military.”
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Newsom says DeSantis ‘scared to death’
California Gov. Gavin Newsom slammed his Florida counterpart Gov. Ron DeSantis for signing a bill allowing permitless carry into law last week, just days after the country’s latest school shooting in Nashville.
“They don’t care about our kids,” Newsom said in an interview that aired Sunday on MSNBC’s “Inside With Jen Psaki.” "Cause if they did, they’d ban these damn weapons of war. They would have background checks that require some common damn sense.”
DeSantis signed the bill in the week after the March 27 mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, which led to the deaths of three children and three adults. Since the shootings, protests at the Tennessee Capitol have roiled the state legislature. And Vice President Kamala Harris joined the clarion call, speaking to activists and students Friday at Nashville’s Fisk University.
"Constitutional Carry is in the books," DeSantis said in a press release after signing the measure.
Newsom sat down with Psaki in Alabama, while on a tour of Republican-led states including Arkansas and Mississippi. Newsom recently announced the launch of a new political action committee called Campaign for Democracy, aimed at calling out red state policies and “authoritarian leaders.”
With Psaki, he lit into DeSantis, a frequent target of his ire who is expected to announce a run for the Republican presidential nomination at the close of Florida’s legislative calendar.
"[He's] scared to death, scared of the people, scared of the public,” Newsom said. “I think the majority of NRA members probably oppose that position.”
Florida’s new concealed carry law has broad opposition, even from the state’s Republicans, according to a University of North Florida poll from early March: Sixty-two percent of them said they opposed the bill “strongly or somewhat,” to go along with 93% of Democrats and 77% of Independents. Just 21% of respondents indicated support.
“And then they claim to care about life when the No. 1 cause of death for our children is guns? It’s shameful,” Newsom said of DeSantis and his allies. “They’re shameful. And it should shock our souls but it’s becoming so normalized it’s a matter of hours now, not even days.”
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