Townhall Political Cartoons

Massive bill calls for $1.4 trillion in federal spending

WASHINGTON (AP) — House leaders unveiled a $1.4 trillion government-wide spending package with an unusually large load of unrelated provisions catching a ride on the last train out of Congress this year.

A House vote was slated for Tuesday on the sprawling package, some 2,313 pages long, as lawmakers wrap up reams of unfinished work — and vote on impeaching President Donald Trump.

The legislation would forestall a government shutdown this weekend and give Trump steady funding for his U.S.-Mexico border fence. The year-end package is anchored by a $1.4 trillion spending measure that caps a difficult, months-long battle over spending priorities.

The mammoth measure made public Monday takes a split-the-differences approach that’s a product of divided power in Washington, offering lawmakers of all stripes plenty to vote for — and against. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was a driving force, along with administration pragmatists such as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who negotiated the summertime budget deal that it implements.

Trump hasn’t said for sure that he’ll sign the measure. He invariably has second thoughts, but he’s not interested in another government shutdown and has always bowed to Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., when they’ve teamed up on compromise spending packages.

Retired coal miners and labor union opponents of Obama-era taxes on high-cost health plans came away with big wins in weekend negotiations by top congressional leaders and the Trump White House. The bill would also increase the age nationwide for purchasing tobacco products from 18 to 21, and offers business-friendly provisions on export financing, flood insurance and immigrant workers.

The roster of add-ons grew over the weekend to include permanent repeal of a tax on high-cost “Cadillac” health insurance benefits and finance health care and pension benefits for about 100,000 retired union coal miners threatened by the insolvency of their pension fund. A tax on medical devices and health insurance plans would also be repealed permanently.

The deficit tab for the package grew as well — almost $400 billion over 10 years to repeal the three so-called “Obamacare” taxes alone — with a companion package to extend several business-friendly tax breaks still under negotiation. The Obama-era taxes have previously been suspended on a piecemeal basis.

The legislation is laced with provisions reflecting divided power in Washington. Republicans maintained the status quo on several abortion-related battles and on funding for Trump’s border wall. Democrats controlling the House succeeded in winning a 3.1 percent raise for federal civilian employees and the first installment of funding on gun violence research after more than two decades of gun lobby opposition.

The sweeping legislation, introduced as two packages for political and tactical purposes, is part of a major final burst of legislation that’s passing Congress this week despite bitter partisan divisions and Wednesday’s likely impeachment of Trump. Thursday promises a vote on a major rewrite of the North American Free Trade Agreement, while the Senate is about to send Trump the annual defense policy bill for the 59th year in a row.

The core of the spending bill is formed by the 12 annual agency appropriations bills passed by Congress each year. It fills in the details of a bipartisan framework from July that delivered about $100 billion in agency spending increases over the coming two years instead of automatic spending cuts that would have sharply slashed the Pentagon and domestic agencies.

The increase in the tobacco purchasing age to 21 also applies to e-cigarettes and vaping devices and gained momentum after McConnell signed on.

Other add-ons include a variety of provisions sought by business and labor interests and their lobbyists in Washington.

For business, there’s a seven-year extension of the charter of the Export-Import Bank, which helps finance transactions benefiting U.S. exporters, as well as a renewal of the government’s terrorism risk insurance program. The financially troubled government flood insurance program would be extended through September, as would several visa programs for both skilled and seasonal workers.

Labor won repeal of the so-called Cadillac tax, a 40% tax on high-cost employer health plans, which was originally intended to curb rapidly growing health care spending. But it disproportionately affected high-end plans won under union contracts, and Democratic labor allies had previously succeeded in temporary repeals.

Democrats controlling the House won increased funding for early childhood education and a variety of other domestic programs. They also won higher Medicaid funding for the cash-poor government of Puerto Rico, which is struggling to recover from hurricane devastation and a resulting economic downturn.

While Republicans touted defense hikes and Democrats reeled off numerous increases for domestic programs, most of the provisions of the spending bill enjoy bipartisan support, including increases for medical research, combating the opioid epidemic, and Head Start and childcare grants to states.

Democrats also secured $425 million for states to upgrade their election systems, and they boosted the U.S. Census budget $1.4 billion above Trump’s request. They won smaller increases for the Environmental Protection Agency, renewable energy programs and affordable housing.

“We are scaling up funding for priorities that will make our country safer and stronger and help hardworking families get ahead,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.

The outcome in the latest chapter in the longstanding battle over Trump’s border wall awards Trump with $1.4 billion for new barriers — equal to last year’s appropriation — while preserving Trump’s ability to use his budget powers to tap other accounts for several times that amount. That’s a blow for liberal opponents of the wall but an acceptable trade-off for pragmatic-minded Democrats who wanted to gain $27 billion in increases for domestic programs and avert the threat of simply funding the government on autopilot.

Because dozens of Democrats might vote against the border wall, Pelosi is pairing money for the Department of Homeland Security with the almost $700 billion Pentagon budget, which is guaranteed to win GOP votes to offset Democratic defections.

The coal miners’ pension provision, opposed by House GOP conservatives like Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., had the backing of Trump and powerful Senate GOP Leader McConnell and Trump. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., was a dogged force behind the scenes and said the other leaders rolled the House GOP leader, who also lost a behind-the-scenes battle with Pelosi on parochial California issues.

“Something had to be done and we finally got Mitch McConnell to sign onto the bill,” Manchin said. “But we could not move McCarthy. Then finally we just had to move forward and they did it.”

Party-switching NJ congressman will need Trump’s help in ’20

In this file photo from Jan. 3, 2019, Rep. Jeff Van Drew, D-N.J., arrives for a classified briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Van Drew, a Democrat who plans to switch and become a Republican, has said he plans to vote this week against impeaching President Donald Trump.The freshman represents a southern New Jersey district that Trump carried in 2016 and was expected to face a difficult reelection next year. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The political fate of party-switching Rep. Jeff Van Drew may well hinge on how forcefully he is backed by President Donald Trump, whose impeachment the New Jersey lawmaker is refusing to support.

With the House set for a near party-line vote impeaching Trump this week, the longtime Democrat told his staff two days ago that he will become a Republican, a former aide said Monday. Underscoring the partisan animosity that the impeachment fight has spawned, at least six of Van Drew’s top aides promptly quit.

Now, the 66-year-old former state legislator, who’s been a political powerhouse in his southern New Jersey district, must figure out how to survive a race in which local Democrats now despise him and Republicans don’t want him elbowing them aside.

His race will also test the electoral impact of his party switch on the face of the impeachment showdown, which has sharply divided the two parties. In recent years, congressional party switchers have had mixed records extending their careers.

Trump met with Van Drew last week and has complimented him on Twitter for his “honesty.” With impeachment on the horizon, Trump praised the congressman again early Tuesday. “Congressman Jeff Van Drew is very popular in our great and very united Republican Party,” the president wrote. “It was a tribute to him that he was able to win his heavily Republican district as a Democrat. People like that are not easily replaceable!

One rival for the GOP nomination for the seat says he’s been told Trump will endorse Van Drew. While there’s been no word on whether Trump will help Van Drew win the GOP nod in next June’s primary or aid him during next November’s general election, analysts say Trump’s backing will be crucial.

“Whatever trouble in the Republican primary Jeff Van Drew might have goes away when Donald Trump throws his arm around the guy,” said Ben Dworkin, director of the nonpartisan Rowan Institute for Public Policy & Citizenship in Glassboro, New Jersey.

Van Drew’s general election prospects will depend on factors including how liberal the Democratic presidential nominee and the Democrat seeking the House seat are. His district has become increasingly conservative, with Trump carrying it narrowly in 2016 after Barack Obama won it in 2008 and 2012.

“I think Van Drew would be the early favorite, assuming Trump helps him get the nomination,” said Patrick Murray, director of the nonpartisan Monmouth University Polling Institute.

Van Drew did not return phone calls and text messages seeking comment.

Van Drew’s defection to the GOP got a thumbs-up Monday from Cheryl McCleary as she waited tables at a luncheonette in Surf City, on New Jersey’s Long Beach Island.

“I appreciate the fact that he’s staying true to his conscience,” said McCleary, an independent voter. “If you feel like you’re not in touch with your party on key issues, it’s a good thing to switch.”

Van Drew’s decision came after a poll by his campaign showed that by 2-1 margins, voters in his district preferred alternatives to him in the primary and general election. The poll was provided by a senior Democratic aide.

“This is a guy who cut and ran away from the Democratic Party to protect his own skin,” said David Richter, former CEO of a global construction firm who’s seeking the GOP nomination.

Richter said local GOP officials have told him Trump will back Van Drew, but says he thinks he can still defeat him.

“Anybody who runs on the Republican side is against the impeachment. I’m against the impeachment,” Richter said. “That’s not enough. You also have to be someone who has integrity. You also have to be someone who stood up for Republican principles their whole lives.”

Van Drew, a former dentist, was a conservative state senator before he joined Congress, bucking Democrats on issues including gun control and gay marriage.

In his first year in Congress, Van Drew was among a handful of Democrats who voted against Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., becoming speaker. He and Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson were the only two Democrats who voted in October against starting the impeachment inquiry, and both were expected to oppose impeachment this week, with perhaps a handful of others.

Overall, Van Drew has voted with Trump 7 percent of the time, according the data tracking website fivethirtyeight.com. That’s one of the higher scores among House Democrats, and far beneath the lowest loyalty score for any Republican, which was 35 percent.

New Jersey Democrats were already bidding him good riddance.

“It’s certainly not a profiles in courage award that he gets,” Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said in an interview. He said he believed Van Drew was switching because his anti-impeachment vote would have cost him the Democratic Party’s endorsement next year.

“Congressman Van Drew has long voted against core Democratic values,” Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy said in a tweet. “Betraying our party by siding with Donald Trump is the final straw.”

Montclair State University political science Professor Brigid Harrison, who declared Monday that she would seek the Democratic nomination for Van Drew’s seat, called Van Drew “a blind pawn for Donald Trump.”

After Republicans captured the House majority in 1994, five Democrats switched to the GOP, including two who lost their next elections. But Rep. Billy Tauzin of Louisiana joined the GOP leadership and became a committee chairman while Georgia Rep. Nathan Deal was elected governor.

“They were more than happy for us to leave,” former Rep. Mike Parker of Mississippi said of his former Democratic colleagues in an interview.

In 1999, five House Democrats backed impeaching President Bill Clinton. Three of them eventually switched to the GOP.

Among the most recent party switchers was Rep. Parker Griffith, D-Ala., who joined the GOP in 2009. He lost the Republican nomination for his seat the following year.

Conservative Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan left the GOP and became an independent this year after saying he was open to impeaching Trump. His prospects for reelection next year are unclear.

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Associated Press writers Michael Catalini in Trenton and Wayne Parry in Surf City, New Jersey, contributed to this report.

As final impeachment vote nears, swing-district Dems fall in line

With just hours to go until the House Rules Committee meets at 11 a.m. ET Tuesday for a marathon session to set the ground rules on this week's final impeachment vote, many of the moderate Democrats in districts President Trump won in 2016 have started to fall in line in favor of impeachment.
Other than New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who has mulled switching to the Republican Party, and Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, no other Democrat occupying one of the 31 House districts that Trump won in 2016 has announced opposition to impeachment. All Republicans in Congress and the Senate have opposed impeachment.
At the same time, New York Rep. Max Rose, whose district backed Trump by 10 points in 2016 and who has long campaigned on bipartisanship, announced Friday he would support impeaching the president.
“A president coercing a foreign government into targeting American citizens is not just another example of scorched earth politics, it serves as an invitation to the enemies of the United States to come after any citizen, so long as they disagree with the President,” Rose said in a statement.
Pennsylvania Rep. Conor Lamb, Arizona Rep. Tom O’Halleran and Nevada Rep. Susie Lee, all Democrats representing Trump-won districts, have also said they will back impeachment.
And, Texas Rep. Colin Allred, a Democrat who flipped a GOP seat in 2018, called Trump's actions an “unacceptable violation of his oath of office and constitute an impeachable abuse of power.” Allred's district went to Hillary Clinton by just 1.9 points.
Not all moderate Democrats have weighed in, with several saying the vote will be a challenging decision. The House is comprised of 431 members, meaning Democrats would need 217 yeas to impeach Trump. There currently have been 233 Democrats, so they could lose only 16 of their own and still impeach the president.
The indications from moderates strongly suggested, though, that the president will be impeached by a floor vote of the full House this week, either on Wednesday or Thursday -- setting up an all-but-certain acquittal by the GOP-controlled Senate.
Meanwhile, support for impeachment has flatlined in several battleground-state polls.  However, a Fox News poll this week showed that nationally, 50 percent wanted Trump impeached and removed from office. Only 4 percent wanted Trump impeached but not removed by the Senate, and 41 percent opposed impeaching him altogether.
On Monday, House Democrats laid out their impeachment case against Trump in a sweeping report accusing him of betraying the nation and deserving to be ousted.
What Democrats once likely hoped would be a bipartisan act, only the third time in U.S. history the House will be voting to impeach a president, is now on track to be a starkly partisan roll call Wednesday.
Before that can happen, the Rules Committee will weigh in, in a break from recent history. During the 1998 impeachment of Bill Clinton, the House did not look to the Rules Committee to set up debate. Instead, the articles of impeachment came up on the House floor through a parliamentary phenomenon known as “privilege.” The House then secured a unanimous consent agreement, meaning all 435 members agreed to continue to consider the articles of impeachment over a two-day period. Such unanimous agreement was not considered feasible in this hyper-partisan environment. (An eye-popping 283 members of the House participated in the impeachment debate on the floor in 1998.)
After the Rules Committee concludes testimony Tuesday, the panel will present a “rule” for the actual floor debate on Wednesday. After a committee debate, the panel votes on the rule and sends it to the floor. House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass., told Fox News he wasn’t sure how long the debate would be on Wednesday or if they would tie together debate on both articles of impeachment or set up separate debate on each article. McGovern doubted the debate, and thus vote on the articles of impeachment, would drift into Thursday.
The Rules Committee usually has to produce a rule for debate one day in advance. That’s why the Rules Committee is meeting Tuesday, so the actual impeachment debate will unfold on the floor Wednesday.
Tension has remained high outside Washington. A raucous town hall Monday in the Detroit suburbs, for example, put on display the nation's wrenching debate over the unconventional president and the prospect of removing him from office. Freshman Rep. Elissa Slotkin was both heckled and celebrated as the Democrat announced her support for impeachment.
“There’s certainly a lot of controversy about this,” Slotkin told the crowd of 400. “But, there just has to be a moment where you use the letter of the law for what they were intended.”
And, a California town hall meeting featuring House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., descended into chaos after jeers led to clashes among attendees. Schiff was discussing how recognition of the Armenian genocide was a significant bipartisan issue at the event hosted by the Armenian National Committee of America on Saturday when members of the crowd began shouting at him.
"You will be going to jail for treason!" one man could be heard shouting in videos from the event that were posted online. The man acknowledged the outburst was unrelated to the purpose of the event, stating, "No disrespect to you all, I'm glad you guys are getting recognized for your genocide, but this man is a f-----g liar!"
"Liar!" at least one attendee at the Glendale event yelled.
The commotion escalated from there, with a number of people present bearing signs or shirts supporting President Trump and opposing the impeachment process. Schiff is one of the leaders of the impeachment inquiry, which is expected to lead to a vote by the full House later this week.
Democrats have introduced two articles of impeachment against Trump. They said he abused the power of his office by pressuring Ukraine to investigate 2020 election rival Joe Biden and obstructed Congress by trying to block the House investigation and its oversight duties as part of the nation's system of checks and balances.
Republicans have countered that Hunter Biden was engaged in corrupt business dealings in Ukraine while his father oversaw Ukraine policy as vice president, and argued that separation-of-powers principles counseled against impeaching the president for failing to comply with congressional demands.
Under former Attorney General Eric Holder, Republicans noted, the Obama administration steadfastly refused to cooperate on various probes, including Congress' review of the "Fast and Furious" gunrunning scandal. Republicans eventually held Holder in contempt of Congress.
Fox News' Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Rudy Giuliani says he was key player in Yovanovitch ouster, has proof of Dem impeachment a 'cover-up'

Rudy Giuliani, a personal attorney for President Trump, said Monday that he played a key role in forcing ex-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch from her post earlier this year, and claimed that he has evidence the Trump impeachment inquiry is a "cover-up" of Democratic malfeasance.
Giuliani, one of Trump's most loyal defenders, told Laura Ingraham on "The Ingraham Angle" that he helped forced out Yovanovitch because she was corrupt and obstructing the investigation into Ukraine and the Bidens.
Giuliani raised eyebrows recently after an interview was published in the New Yorker where he was quoted saying that he needed her "out of the way" because she would make the investigation into the Bidens "difficult for everybody."
He told Ingraham that he needed her out of the way because she was corrupt. Giuliani said he was not the first person to go to the president with concerns about the diplomat.
Yovanovitch, 60, a career diplomat and daughter of immigrants who fled the former Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, claimed that she was ousted from her role due to a smear campaign by Trump allies. Trump's tweets about her were shown during her testimony in front of Congress and she called them "very intimidating."
Yovanovitch “clearly is somebody who’s been a public servant to the United States for decades and I don’t think the president should have done that,” said Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., at the time.
Giuliani said others voiced their concerns about the diplomat, including [former Texas Republican U.S. Congressman] Pete Sessions, and a number of congressmen.
He added that he interviewed several individuals who claimed Yovanovitch was "holding up" their U.S. visas "in order to obstruct the investigation of collusion in the Ukraine and specifically to obstruct the Biden investigation."
"It is a cover-up, a cover-up," Giuliani claimed.
The law firm representing Yovanovitch did not immediately respond to an after-hours email from Fox News for comment. Yovanovitch and others have described Giuliani as leading what one called an "irregular channel" outside the diplomatic mainstream of U.S.-Ukraine relations. Ingraham asked the former mayor why Trump didn't go to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about concerns with Yovanovitch.
"I have that testimony under oath. I gave it to the State Department. They never investigated a single witness. When they say that she is innocent, it is innocent-without-investigation," he added.
Regarding the Bidens, Giuliani has claimed that former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter should be investigated -- relating to the younger Biden's position on the board of a Ukrainian energy firm while his father was serving in the Obama administration.
Giuliani further told Ingraham that Trump was simply asking new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky -- in a July phone call -- to investigate crimes at the "highest levels" of both Kiev and Washington.
"So, he is being impeached for doing the right thing as president of the United States," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report

Democrats 2019 Debate Cartoons

Turbulence shakes Democrats going into final debate of 2019

CLINTON, Iowa (AP) — Seven Democratic presidential candidates will stand on stage this week in Los Angeles, a pool of survivors who have withstood almost a year on the campaign trail, sustained attacks from rivals in both parties, and five rounds of high-pressure debates.

And while the field has been effectively cut down from more than 20 in the span of six months, a deepening sense of volatility is settling over the Democratic primary on the eve of the sixth and final debate of 2019. The remaining candidates, those in the debate and some trying to compete from outside, are grappling with unprecedented distraction from Washington, questions about their core principles and new signs that the party’s energized factions are turning against each other.

Lest there be any doubt about the level of turbulence in the race, it’s unclear whether Thursday’s debate will happen at all given an unsettled labor union dispute that might require participants to cross a picket line. All seven candidates have said they would not do so.

The Democratic dilemma is perhaps best personified by Elizabeth Warren, whose progressive campaign surged through the late summer and fall but is suddenly struggling under the weight of nagging questions about her health care plan, her ability to compete against President Donald Trump and her very authenticity as a candidate.

Boyd Brown, a South Carolina-based Democratic strategist who recently decided to back Joe Biden only after his preferred candidate, Beto O’Rourke, was forced from the race, likened Warren’s position to that of someone falling down a mountain grasping for anything to slow her descent.

“She’s got real problems,” Brown said.

Warren has avoided conflict with her Democratic rivals for much of the year, but she has emerged as the chief antagonist of the leading candidates in the so-called moderate lane, former Vice President Joe Biden and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana. Seven weeks before Iowa’s Feb. 3 caucus, the Massachusetts senator is attacking both men with increasing frequency for being too willing to embrace Republican ideas and too cozy with wealthy donors.

Those close to Warren hope the strategy will allow her to shift the conversation away from her own health care struggles back to her signature wealth tax and focus on corruption. Yet she could not escape questions about her evolving position on Medicare for All as she campaigned in Iowa over the weekend.

When asked about health care, Warren told a crowd of roughly 180 people in the Mississippi River town of Clinton, Iowa, about a plan to expand insurance coverage without immediately moving to a universal, government-run system. She promised that those who wanted government health insurance could buy it before finally concluding, “At the end of my first term, we’ll vote on Medicare for All.”

The next question came from a man who said he was on Medicare and mostly happy about it, but had lingering issues.

“You call it Medicare for All and it’s better. Can’t you change the name?” he asked of her proposal.

“I like your suggestion,” Warren responded, in a tone suggesting she wasn’t entirely joking. “Let’s call it health care for everybody.” She later added, “Let’s call it better than Medicare for All. I’m in.”

Even entertaining a name change seemed to mark yet another shift for Warren, who first co-sponsored Medicare for All in 2017, but began pivoting away from the proposal after experts questioned the plan she released in October to pay for it without raising middle-class taxes. She subsequently released a “transition plan” promising to get Medicare for All approved by Congress by the end of her third year as president while relying on existing insurance plans, including those established by Obamacare, to expand health coverage in the interim.

Warren’s Democratic critics suggest her evolution on the issue has stalled her momentum because it goes beyond a policy dispute and raises broader questions about what may be the most important personal quality in politics: authenticity.

Indeed, Buttigieg, Biden and other rivals have seized on her shifts. Even Bernie Sanders, Warren’s progressive ally and Medicare for All’s author, seemed to pile on by promising to send a full bill to Congress implementing the measure during the first week of his administration.

Without naming any of his rivals, Biden adviser Symone Sanders said candidates would not succeed in shifting the conversation away from health care this week even if they wanted to. She said to expect another “robust exchange” on the issue, which “is not going away and for good reason, because it is an issue that in 2018 Democrats ran on and won.”

Tough questions for Warren haven’t just come from her rivals.

Since Thanksgiving, she’s shortened her typically 30-minute and more stump speech to around 10 minutes and used the extra time to take more audience questions — only to be forced further on the defensive about health care.

Barton Wright, a 69-year-old technical writer, pressed Warren on Medicare for All at a recent event in Rochester, New Hampshire, noting after the event that he wants a deeper explanation.

“It just sounds awful,” Wright said. “It sounds ‘like Hemlock for All’ for people who don’t like Medicare. And that’s a lot of people.”

Even after questioning Warren, however, Wright said he was helping her campaign and still plans to vote for her.

Meanwhile, Buttigieg, the surprise member of the top-tier, is grappling with issues of his own that expose another fissure between the moderate and progressive wings of the party.

Protesters aligned with Warren and Sanders tracked him across New York City last week banging pots and pans and calling him “Wall Street Pete” as he continued his aggressive courtship of wealthy donors. The 37-year-old seemed genuinely confused by the protests, which he was forced to acknowledge during at least one Manhattan fundraiser because the noise outside was so loud.

As he faced supporters in Seattle over the weekend, Buttigieg acknowledged that the intra-party attacks will almost certainly continue, although he tried to downplay the intensity of the infighting.

“There’s gonna have to be some fighting,” Buttigieg said, “but I’m never gonna let us get to where it feels like the fight is the point.”

The fighting is almost certain to be on display at Thursday night’s debate, especially among the four candidates in the top-tier: Biden, Buttigieg, Sanders and Warren. The three others on stage — Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, billionaire activist Tom Steyer and entrepreneur Andrew Yang — only narrowly hit the polling threshold needed to qualify and have an obvious incentive to make waves of their own as well.

Voters don’t want a public fight, even if they sense one is coming.

Steve Wehling, a 43-year-old University of Iowa employee, said he doesn’t like Democrats feuding with each other, but he won’t hold it against Warren or anyone else. He said he understands that, with the caucuses looming, “all of the campaigns are really starting to put the squeeze on.”

“Voters turn on the debates and still see 10 people on stage and I think a lot would of them would like to see the field narrowed down,” said Wehling, who plans to vote for Sanders and says Warren is his second choice. “The pressure is really on.”

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Peoples reported in New York. Associated Press writer Hunter Woodall in Rochester, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.

AP Exclusive: Thousands of Ohio absentee applications denied

FILE - In this Nov. 6, 2018, file photo, voters cast their ballots, in Gates Mills, Ohio. An Associated Press review has found that thousands of Ohio voters were held up or stymied in their efforts to get absentee ballots by mail in 2018's general election because of a missing or mismatched signature on their ballot application. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak, File)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Thousands of Ohio voters were held up or stymied in their efforts to get absentee ballots for last year’s general election because of missing or mismatched signatures on their ballot applications, an Associated Press review has found.

The signature requirement on such applications is a largely overlooked and spottily tracked step in Ohio’s voting process, which has shifted increasingly to mail-in ballots since early, no-fault absentee voting was instituted in 2005.

To supporters, the requirement is a useful form of protection against voter fraud and provides an extra layer of security necessary for absentee balloting.

To detractors, it’s a recipe for disenfranchisement — a cumbersome addition to an already stringent voter identification system.

Susan Barnard, of Dayton in Montgomery County, said her 78-year-old husband, Leslie, who has cancer, missed a chance to vote last year because of a delay related to the signature requirement.

“We had planned a cruise last fall to give him something to look forward to,” said Barnard, 73. “It fell at the time of the election, and we were going to vote the absentee ballot. We got right down to the wire and we didn’t have one for him, and so he did not vote because of that.”

She said he had hoped to vote in the election, which included races for governor, state Supreme Court and Congress. Barnard suspects her husband simply forgot to sign his ballot application.

Figures provided to the AP through public information requests to Ohio’s 88 county boards of elections show 21 counties rejected more than 6,500 absentee ballot applications because a signature was either missing or didn’t match what was on file. That requirement is not for the ballot itself, which faces a different battery of requirements, but merely for an application requesting one. Another five counties reported rejecting about 850 applications combined, for various reasons that the boards didn’t specify.

The few counties that tracked what happened to applications after they were rejected said issues were largely addressed before or on Election Day.

Twelve responding counties recorded encountering no signature issues with the absentee applications. The remaining responding counties said they didn’t track how many applications they rejected.

It’s a statistic conspicuously absent from all the official data collected by the state, making it all but impossible to compare the issue across years or multiple states.

Signatures and other verification requirements are there to safeguard Ohio’s elections, said state Rep. John Becker, a southwestern Ohio Republican. He said if a voter fails to sign the application form, “that’s on them.”

Ï’m a big believer in personal responsibility,” Becker said. “You’ve got the form in front of you. If you forget to sign it, there are consequences.”

But Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, said the AP analysis highlights a largely unexamined step in a process her organization already views as inefficient and subject to uneven enforcement.

“So a person can register to vote online, but if you go online to request an absentee ballot, a form is mailed to you that you have to mail back,” Miller said. Her organization supports allowing people to request absentee ballots online.

About 1.4 million of Ohio’s roughly 8 million registered voters cast absentee ballots last year.

Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose advocated as a state lawmaker for Ohio to allow voters to apply for absentee ballots online. A version of legislation he first proposed in 2013 is now before Ohio’s Legislature.

“While Ohio has long been a national leader in early voting, there is certainly more that can be done to prevent issues like these from occurring,” LaRose said. “Election integrity and voter access can certainly coexist, so let’s work together to modernize the process so we can improve the antiquated system currently in place.”

LaRose’s predecessor mailed absentee ballot applications to 6.6 million of Ohio’s 8 million registered voters in 2018. And state law actually says a request for an absentee ballot “need not be in any particular form” — meaning it could conceivably arrive on a cocktail napkin or the back of an envelope.

Still, the signature requirement is one of eight or nine pieces of information, depending on the type of election, that a successful request must contain.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, three states — Oregon, Washington and Colorado — conduct all-mail elections, eliminating the ballot application process by automatically mailing a ballot to every registered voter before Election Day.

Miller said Ohio has not shown the political will to move in this direction, but her organization is pushing establishment of a permanent absentee list for those voters who meet certain criteria that require help, such as illness, permanent disability or illiteracy. Seven states and the District of Columbia have just such a system.

Judiciary Committee’s minority blasts articles of impeachment report, ‘anemic case’

The House Judiciary Committee's minority blasted the committee's rush to impeach President Trump and wrote that history will not look kindly on how exculpatory evidence was ignored to meet a "self-imposed December deadline," according to the full articles of impeachment report released early Monday.
The minority, which is comprised of Republicans, blasted the Democrat-led majority for not making the case for impeachment and simply employing "holdover" arguments from other investigations to make their case. Despite the divide, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., the chairman of the committee, wrote for the majority that Trump is a threat to the Constitution and should be removed from office.
The committee released a 658-page report on the impeachment resolution that lays out the case against Trump. Democrats have raised two articles of impeachable offenses, including abuse of power by soliciting Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election and then obstructing  Congress during its investigation.
The minority wrote that both articles are supported by assumptions and hearsay. The minority, headed by Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., the ranking member of the committee, wrote that the majority decided to “pursue impeachment first and build a case second.”
The majority ignored exculpatory evidence but proclaimed the "facts are uncontested,” the minority wrote.
"The facts are contested, and, in many areas, the majority's claims are directly contradicted by the evidence," the minority wrote.  They continued that "not one of the criminal accusations leveled at the president over the past year—including bribery, extortion, collusion/conspiracy with foreign enemies, or obstruction of justice—has found a place in the articles. Some of these arguments are just holdovers from an earlier disingenuous attempt by the majority to weaponized the Russia collusion investigation for political gain."
The majority's actions were "unprecedented, unjustifiable, and will only dilute the significance of the dire recourse that is impeachment," they wrote.
The minority also claimed procedural missteps by the majority by not allowing a "minority day of hearings," despite several requests to Nadler. They called the denial “blatant” and “intentional.” They claim Nadler also refused a request to subpoena witnesses.  They wrote that there was a complete absence of “fact witnesses” and the case rested with the testimony from four academics and another with a panel of Congressional staffers.
The majority claimed that they were transparent. The majority wrote that the minority wanted to hear testimony from the whistleblower, but the majority stressed the importance of protecting the person’s identity. The minority's request to hear from Hunter Biden—the son of  Joe Biden—was "well outside the scope of the inquiry," the majority wrote.
At the heart of the first charge, is Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Democrats have relied on a whistleblower’s complaint that claimed that there was at least an implied quid pro quo during the phone conversation. Trump was also accused of using agents "within and outside" the U.S. government to compel Kiev to investigate the Bidens and their business dealings in the country. The claim is that Trump withheld $391 million in essential military funds to pressure Kiev on the investigations.
Both Trump and Zelensky deny there was ever any implied or explicit quid pro quo.
The newly released report also claims that Trump directed key players in the inquiry from participating.
Trump "interposed the powers of the Presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the House of Representatives, and assumed to himself functions and judgments necessary to the exercise of the ‘‘sole Power of Impeachment’’ vested by the Constitution in the House of Representatives,” the report said.
The report listed John “Mick” Mulvaney, Trump’s acting chief of staff, and Robert B. Blair, a senior adviser to Mulvaney, as officials who have denied subpoenas.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Sunday proposed in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., that Mulvaney be subpoenaed to testify in an impeachment trial. McConnell told Fox News last week that the chances of Trump being removed from office are zero.
Republicans say Democrats are impeaching the president because they can’t beat him in 2020. Democrats warn Americans can’t wait for the next election because they worry what Trump will try next.
The House is expected to vote on the articles next week, in the days before Christmas. That would send the impeachment effort to the Senate for a 2020 trial.
The majority claimed that the impeachment inquiry was performed in a fair manner and pointed out that the purpose of the inquiry was to determine if Trump “may have committed an impeachable offense.” Trump was offered the opportunity to participate, but he declined, the majority wrote. The president has refused to participate in the proceedings.
At about the time the impeachment report was being released, Trump was on Twitter touting his record and slamming the allegations. He wrote that despite the impeachment and "obstruction," he had one of the most successful presidencies in history.
The Associated Press and Bradford Betz contributed to this report

Nadler calls for Trump's removal in committee's 658-page report on articles of impeachment

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote that President Trump is a threat to the Constitution and should be removed from office, according to the committee's 658-page report on the articles of impeachment resolution against Trump that was submitted early Monday.
The majority wrote that President Trump abused his office by soliciting the interference of Ukraine in the 2020 election and then obstructed the impeachment inquiry into his conduct.
The report was released at 12:30 a.m. ET., and included a dissent from the committee's minority that called the case for impeachment "not only weak but dangerously lowers the bar for future impeachments."
Trump is accused, in the first article, of abusing his presidential power by asking Ukraine to investigate his 2020 rival Joe Biden while holding military aid as leverage, and, in the second, of obstructing Congress by blocking the House’s efforts to probe his actions.
The president insists he did nothing wrong and blasts the Democrats’ effort daily as a sham and harmful to America.
Nadler wrote that Trump should be removed and "disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.”
No Republicans have so far signaled that they will support the articles of impeachment, but a small handful of Democrats who represent GOP-leaning districts have said they may join Republicans in voting against them.