Politics

By Jeff Mason and Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden said the Supreme Court decision overturning the right to an abortion was an exercise in “raw political power” and signed an executive order on Friday to ease access to services to terminate pregnancies.

Biden, a Democrat, has been under pressure from his own party to take action after the landmark decision last month to overturn Roe v Wade, which upended roughly 50 years of protections for women’s reproductive rights.

The order directs the government’s health department to expand access to “medication abortion” – pills prescribed to end pregnancies – and ensure women have access to emergency medical care, family planning services and contraception. It also mentions protecting doctors, women who travel for abortions and mobile abortion clinics at state borders.

But it offered few specifics and promises to have limited impact in practice, since U.S. states can make laws restricting abortion and access to medication.

“What we’re witnessing wasn’t a constitutional judgment, it was an exercise in raw political power,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “We cannot allow an out of control Supreme Court, working in conjunction with extremist elements of the Republican party, to take away freedoms and our personal autonomy.”

The White House is not publicly entertaining the idea of reforming the court itself or expanding the nine-member panel.

Instead, Biden laid out how abortion rights could be codified into law by voters if they elected “two additional pro-choice senators, and a pro-choice House” and urged women to turn out in record numbers to vote. He said he would veto any law passed by Republicans to ban abortion rights nationwide.

Jen Klein, director of the president’s Gender Policy Council at the White House, did not name any specifics when asked what the order would change for women.

“You can’t solve by executive action what the Supreme Court has done,” she said.

‘FIRST STEPS’

Still, progressive lawmakers and abortion rights groups welcomed the directive. Senator Elizabeth Warren called it “important first steps,” and asked the administration to explore every available option to protect abortion rights.

The issue may help drive Democrats to the polls in the November midterm elections, when Republicans have a chance of taking control of Congress.

Protecting abortion rights is a top issue for women Democrats, Reuters polling shows, and more than 70% of Americans think the issue should be left to a woman and her doctor.

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said “Democrats are out of touch with the American people” after Biden’s remarks.

In June, Biden proposed that U.S. senators remove a legislative roadblock by temporarily lifting the Senate “filibuster” to restore abortion rights, but the suggestion was shot down by aides to key Democratic senators.

Earlier in June, sources told Reuters the White House was unlikely to take the bold steps on abortion access that Democratic lawmakers have called for, such as court reform or offering reproductive services on federal lands.

The Supreme Court’s ruling restored states’ ability to ban abortion. As a result, women with unwanted pregnancies face the choice of traveling to another state where the procedure remains legal and available, buying abortion pills online, or having a potentially dangerous illegal abortion.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Edwina Gibbs, Heather Timmons and Deepa Babington)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Concerns about inflation and personal finances have surged while COVID has evaporated as a top issue for Americans, a new poll shows, marking an upheaval in priorities just months before critical midterm elections.

Forty percent of U.S. adults specifically name inflation in an open-ended question as one of up to five priorities for the government to work on in the next year, according to a June poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That’s a sharp rise from 14% in December and less than 1% the year prior. Seventy-seven percent mention the economy in any way, up from 68% in December.

Now, too, Americans increasingly call their personal finances a major issue: 44% mention it, up from 24% in December and 12% the year before. That includes more mentioning gas or energy prices (33% now vs. 10% in December) and food costs (9% vs. less than 1%).

Those shifts may be advantageous to Republicans as they campaign to win control of Congress in this year’s midterms; the economy has increasingly been a sore subject for President Joe Biden. Still, the economy isn’t the only issue getting more attention this year. Many also prioritize other issues that are core to Biden and Democrats’ agenda, including abortion, women’s rights and gun policy, which could help Democrats as they try to pad — or at least protect — their razor-thin majority.

In a troubling sign for both parties, the poll finds many Americans say they think neither side of the aisle is better at focusing on the issues important to them or getting things done.

Sara Rodriguez said she’s concerned about the impact of rising prices of goods, gas and oil on her household’s finances, especially because her income isn’t keeping up.

“We’ve had a savings built up and we’re noticing that it’s definitely going down fast because we don’t make enough money to cover how much the cost of everything has risen,” the 43-year-old quality control coordinator in Bristol, Connecticut, said.

Rodriguez and her husband and son have had to get to their workplaces and run errands using one car over the last couple of months because of her husband’s broken-down truck.

“We just haven’t had the money to get it back on the road,” she said.

The rise in concerns about the economy is paired with a steep decline in the percentage naming COVID-19 as a top issue, even as new variants continue to emerge: Now just 4% mention it, down from 37% in December 2021 and 53% in December 2020.

Republicans remain more likely than Democrats to mention the economy and inflation or personal finances and gas prices as top issues, but the sharp changes since December are bipartisan.

Daniel Collier, a 39-year-old construction worker in Waynesville, Missouri, thinks lowering gas prices should be a priority.

“It’s hurt me financially,” he said. “I worry about being able to pay the rent, pay utilities.”

He blames Biden for inflation and “poor” economic conditions, saying he thinks the president is “incompetent.”

The poll shows 69% of Americans disapprove of how Biden is handling the economy, including 93% of Republicans and 43% of Democrats. In May, facing an inflation rate at a 40-year high, most Americans said in an AP-NORC poll that they worried about the impact of higher than usual prices on their finances.

For 22-year-old Jakyra Green, rising prices have been prohibitive.

“It’s become very hard to even pay for anything, like rent, gas, and none of our wages are going up,” the college student in Goshen, Indiana, said. “I just spend less or try to not go out the house anymore.”

But Green identified other issues that concern her more. Abortion has long been on her mind as a priority, and it “feels real now” that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. She also identified racism in the U.S. as an important problem.

Mentions of abortion or women’s rights increased sharply to 22% from just 8% in December following the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade. The poll shows 12% of U.S. adults mention racial issues, similar to December 2021, but a notable decline from 2020, when 24% called out racism as a chief priority.

“I have these two compounding identities being Black and a woman,” Green said, adding that it’s very concerning that Black women experience higher maternal mortality rates than white women. “It’s just so overwhelming right now in America.”

Mentions of gun issues also ticked up to 30% from 24% in December 2021 — both significantly higher compared with 5% in December 2020. The December 2021 poll was conducted just after a deadly shooting at a Michigan high school, which likely explains the sharp increase from 2020.

Charles Hagemeyer sees “so many different issues” facing the country. The economy affects him the most personally, but he called out the mass shooting in Highland Park on July 4 as evidence of a guns problem in the U.S. The poll was conducted before that attack, but after tragedies in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas.

“Gun violence is another big issue that’s on my mind constantly,” the 68-year-old Jacksonville, Florida, resident said. “You’re afraid to go out anymore.”

Hagemeyer thinks the country is past the point where gun control legislation could even be effective; still, he doesn’t see lawmakers coming together to solve any problem. Both sides have an “us versus them” mentality, he said.

The poll shows a majority of Americans — 57% — don’t think one party is better than the other at getting things done. Thirty-seven percent don’t think either is better at focusing on their priorities; the remainder split about evenly between the two parties. Politics is mentioned in some way as a top problem facing the country by 29% of Americans.

“It just doesn’t seem like anybody in government wants to work with each other and try to solve some of the issues that the American people face,” Hagemeyer said.

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The poll of 1,053 adults was conducted June 23-27 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Hours after a gunman killed seven people at a July 4th parade in suburban Chicago, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker tapped into the frustration of many fellow Democrats at the seeming inability of the U.S. to curb gun violence.

“If you’re angry today, I’m here to tell you: Be angry. I’m furious,” Pritzker said.

But at the White House, President Joe Biden was more focused on reassurance than anger.

“I know it can be exhausting and unsettling,” he said, adding that “we’re going to get through all of this.”

In a summer marked by anger among Democrats over a string of mass shootings and the Supreme Court’s decision to strip women of the constitutional right to an abortion, several governors, including Pritzker, are emerging as the party’s leading voices of outrage. Their willingness to speak — and act — in aggressive terms stands in contrast to Biden, who is coming under growing criticism from some Democrats for lacking a sufficiently robust response to what some in his party see as existential threats.

Some Democrats warn that the lack of a strong response will be a problem if the party hopes to turn out enough voters to maintain their narrow grip on Congress in the fall midterm elections.

“The people that you’re telling to vote aren’t going to listen until we prove that we are handling this moment with urgency,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said in an interview, referring to the party generally. “We have a lot of tools at our disposal, I think we have a lot of assets at our disposal, and we have to use them.”

In this moment, governors may have tools that are more conducive to swift action than the president. Well positioned heading into the fall campaign and presiding over statehouses where Democrats are in control, Pritzker and Govs. Kathy Hochul of New York and Gavin Newsom of California have wide latitude.

In New York, for instance, Hochul was undeterred by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a state law and allowed most people to carry a handgun for personal protection. She called a special session last week in which lawmakers passed new measures limiting where those licensed to have guns can carry them and toughening rules for obtaining the permits. The regulations include a novel requirement to screen applicants’ social media accounts for threats.

“They may think they can change our lives with the stroke of a pen, but we have pens too,” Hochul said defiantly of the Supreme Court’s gun ruling.

In Illinois, Pritzker has said he would convene a special legislative session in coming weeks, with support of Democratic legislative leaders, to “more firmly protect” abortion rights and address some of the challenges the state faces as one of the few places in the Midwest where abortion remains legal.

Abortion rights will be on the California ballot in November, after legislators with Newsom’s blessing agreed last month to place a proposal before voters that would guarantee a right to an abortion in the state constitution. The constitutional amendment is certain to drive turnout on both sides of the debate.

Newsom has been especially vocal in rallying against the repeal of abortion rights even before the Supreme Court ruled. When a draft Supreme Court opinion surfaced in May suggesting the conservative majority was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, he delivered a withering critique of the national party, suggesting it was suffering from collective lethargy.

“Where is the Democratic Party?” he asked at the time, without naming anyone specifically but appearing to exclude Biden from criticism. “Why aren’t we standing up more firmly? More resolutely? Why aren’t we calling this out?”

With just a tenuous grip on Congress, however, Biden can’t move legislation quickly. And even criticizing Republicans could be politically dangerous if he needs their support on key votes.

“Forcefully calling out the other side isn’t a luxury he has if he wants to get anything done the rest of the year on anything,” said Democratic strategist Joe Trippi. “If you’re Gavin Newsom, whose votes are you going to lose in the state senate or California assembly?”

The White House insists Biden isn’t backing away from a fight. In a passionate prime-time speech last month, he lamented that gun violence had turned schools, supermarkets and other everyday places into “killing fields” and asked, “How much more carnage are we willing to accept?”

Shortly after the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling, Biden called the decision the “realization of an extreme ideology and a tragic error.” He’s expected to deliver remarks on Friday about “protecting access to reproductive health care services,” according to the White House.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that “you will hear more from him” on issues including abortion as she underscored the administration’s central message that winning the midterms is the best path forward.

“The president has been very clear that he’s going to do everything he can, that he has the legal authority to do, from here in the executive side,” she said. “But we believe and he believes that the way that Roe goes into law or gets codified is if Congress acts. … And so we have to continue to use our political capital, if you will, to fight as hard as we can. And to make sure we do the work that we need to have pro-choice congressional members.”

Under increasing pressure, Biden will take executive action Friday to protect access to abortion, three people familiar with the situation said. They spoke anonymously to discuss his plans before they were announced.

Still, Biden is turning to governors. He convened a virtual roundtable last Friday with Pritzker, Hochul and seven other Democratic governors to discuss what steps were being taken in their states to protect abortion rights.

Biden reiterated that his administration will protect the rights of women to travel to other states for abortion services and ensure that abortion medication is available as widely as possible. But he acknowledged he didn’t have votes in the U.S. Senate for more sweeping actions and laid out the stakes for November’s elections and the need to increase Democrats’ majorities.

“In the meantime, I want to hear what the governors are doing,” he said.

With their reelections essentially secure, the aggressive action from some of the governors is sparking speculation about potential future presidential campaigns.

Pritzker, a billionaire businessman seeking his second term, raised chatter about a possible presidential bid when he spoke last month at the state Democratic party convention in New Hampshire, one of the early presidential nominating states. He has said he is focused on his job as governor and his reelection bid.

Newsom drew even more attention by running a television ad on Independence Day in Florida that was critical of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential 2024 presidential candidate. In the ad, which features images of DeSantis and former President Donald Trump, Newsom warns viewers that “freedom is under attack in your state.”

“I urge all of you living in Florida to join the fight. Or join us in California, where we still believe in freedom — freedom of speech, freedom to choose, freedom from hate and the freedom to love,” Newsom said.

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Associated Press writers Sara Burnett in Chicago and Michael R. Blood in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has scheduled an all-senators classified briefing on the global innovation and technology race and a proposed bill to boost U.S. semiconductor manufacturing, his office said on Thursday.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell threatened last week to try to block the bill that would provide $52 billion to subsidize U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and boost U.S. competitiveness with China if Democrats move forward with a social spending and climate bill.

The briefing planned for Wednesday from the Biden administration will focus “on the global innovation and technology race and the bipartisan innovation bill which is vital for America’s long-term national security.”

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday the Biden administration wants Congress to move quickly, noting Intel Corp announced it will invest $20 billion to open semiconductor factories in Ohio “and that could expand to as much as $100 billion” if Congress passes chips subsidies.

The Senate legislation, passed in June 2021, included $52 billion for chips subsidies and authorized another $200 billion to boost U.S. scientific and technological innovation to compete with China.

The House version, passed in February, is similar but nearly 3,000 pages long and includes a number of trade proposals not in the Senate bill. Many House provisions are expected to be dropped.

Some fear Congress will not be able to reach a deal before the November congressional elections if it does not come to an agreement in the coming weeks.

A persistent shortage of chips has disrupted the automotive and electronics industries, forcing some companies to scale back production. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who has been making calls in recent days to try to advance the bill, and many companies think the shortage will last at least until late 2023 if not longer.

Lawmakers warn some major investments in new U.S. chip production could be jeopardized without action from Congress.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Sandra Maler and Kim Coghill)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A political shift is beginning to take hold across the U.S. as tens of thousands of suburban voters who helped fuel the Democratic Party’s gains in recent years are becoming Republicans.

Across 31 states, about two-thirds of voters who have switched their official party registrations in the past year have switched to the Republican Party, according to voter registration data analyzed by The Associated Press. The phenomenon is playing out in virtually every region of the country — Democratic and Republican states along with cities and small towns — in the period since President Joe Biden replaced former President Donald Trump.

Nowhere is the shift more pronounced — and dangerous for Democrats — than in the suburbs. Over the last year, far more people are switching to the GOP across suburban counties from Denver to Pittsburgh. Republicans also gained ground in counties around medium-size cities such as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Des Moines, Iowa.

Ben Smith, who lives in suburban Larimer County, Colorado, north of Denver, said he reluctantly registered as a Republican earlier in the year after becoming increasingly concerned about the Democrats’ support in some localities for mandatory COVID-19 vaccines, the party’s inability to quell violent crime and its frequent focus on racial justice.

“It’s more so a rejection of the left than embracing the right,” said Smith, a 37-year-old professional counselor whose transition away from the Democratic Party began five or six years ago when he registered as a libertarian.

The AP examined data from the 31 states in which voters explicitly register by political party and which make that information available to the public. Across those states, nearly 680,000 voters changed their registrations in the past year, according to L2, a political data firm.

While party switching is not uncommon, the data shows a definite reversal from the period while Trump was in office, when Democrats enjoyed a slight edge in the number of party switchers nationwide.

But over the last year, about 430,000 voters in those states shifted to the Republican Party, compared with about 240,000 who became Democrats. In another 12 states — including the electoral battlegrounds of Texas, Ohio and Virginia — L2 estimates each voter’s party affiliation using records of voting in primary elections or statistical modeling. Those estimates, based on information such as demographics, local voting patterns and registered voter surveys, suggest that the same pattern is playing out in these states, too, with roughly two-thirds of voters whose affiliations changed in the past year moving toward the Republican Party.

The migration of hundreds of thousands of voters, a small portion of the overall U.S. electorate, does not ensure widespread Republican success in the November midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress and dozens of governorships. Democrats are hoping the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this summer to overrule Roe v. Wade will energize supporters, particularly in the suburbs, ahead of the midterms.

Still, the details about party switchers present a warning for Democrats who were already concerned about the macro effects shaping the political landscape this fall.

Roughly four months before Election Day, Democrats have no clear strategy to address Biden’s weak popularity and voters’ overwhelming fear that the country is headed in the wrong direction with their party in charge. And while Republicans have offered few policy solutions of their own, the GOP has been working effectively to capitalize on the Democrats’ shortcomings.

Republicans benefited last year as suburban parents grew increasingly frustrated by prolonged pandemic-related school closures. And as inflation intensified more recently, the Republican National Committee has been hosting voter registration events at gas stations in suburban areas across swing states like Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania to link the Biden administration to record-high gas prices. The GOP has also linked the Democratic president to an ongoing baby formula shortage.

“Biden and Democrats are woefully out of touch with the American people, and that’s why voters are flocking to the Republican Party in droves,” RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel told the AP. She predicted that “American suburbs will trend red for cycles to come” because of “Biden’s gas hike, the open border crisis, baby formula shortage and rising crime.”

The Democratic National Committee declined to comment when asked about the recent surge in voters switching to the GOP.

And while Republican officials are quick to take credit for the shift, the phenomenon gained momentum shortly after Trump left the White House. Still, the specific reason or reasons for the shift remain unclear.

At least some of the newly registered Republicans are actually Democrats who crossed over to vote against Trump-backed candidates in GOP primaries. Such voters are likely to vote Democratic again this November.

But the scope and breadth of the party switching suggests something bigger at play.

Over the last year, nearly every state where voter registration records are available — even those without high-profile Republican primaries — moved in the same direction as voters by the thousands became Republicans.

In Iowa, Democrats used to hold the advantage in party changers by a 2-to-1 margin. That’s flipped over the last year, with Republicans ahead by a similar amount.

In Florida, Republicans captured 58 percent of party switchers during those last years of the Trump era. Now, over the last year, they command 71 percent. And in Pennsylvania, the Republicans went from 58% to 63% of party changers.

The current advantage for Republicans among party changers is playing out with particular ferocity in the nation’s suburbs.

The AP found that the Republican advantage was larger in suburban “fringe” counties, based on classifications from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared to smaller towns and counties. Republicans boosted their share of party changers in 91 of 133 suburban counties AP examined — 68% — over the last year, compared with the last years of the Trump era.

Republicans also gained ground in further-out suburban counties, which the CDC lumps in with medium-size cities and calls “medium metro” — more than 60% of such counties, 115 in all, saw Republican growth. They range from the suburban counties north of Denver, like Larimer, to Los Angeles-area ones like Ventura and Santa Barbara in California.

Some conservative leaders worry that the GOP’s suburban gains will be limited if Republicans don’t do a better job explaining to suburban voters what they stand for — instead of what they stand against.

Emily Seidel, who leads the Koch-backed grassroots organization Americans for Prosperity, said her network is seeing first-hand that suburban voters are distancing themselves from Democrats who represent “extreme policy positions.”

“But that doesn’t mean that they’re ready to vote against those lawmakers either. Frankly, they’re skeptical of both options that they have,” Seidel said. “The lesson here: Candidates have to make their case, they have to give voters something to be for, not just something to be against.”

Back in Larimer County, Colorado, 39-year-old homemaker Jessica Kroells says she can no longer vote for Democrats, despite being a reliable Democratic voter up until 2016.

There was not a single “aha moment” that convinced her to switch, but by 2020, she said the Democratic Party had “left me behind.”

“The party itself is no longer Democrat, it’s progressive socialism,” she said, specifically condemning Biden’s plan to eliminate billions of dollars in student debt.

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Peoples reported from New York.

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This story was first published on June 27, 2022. It was updated on July 7, 2022, to correct the number of voters who have switched from the Democratic Party to the GOP based on voter registration data. The initial story erroneously said voter registration data analyzed by the AP showed that more than 1 million voters across 43 states had switched to the Republican Party in the past 12 months. That figure was based on information about voters from the political data firm L2, and combined voter registration records with modeled information about the partisanship of voters in states without registration by party. The story should have been more clear about the distinction between the two types of information about voters.

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BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Election officials preparing for the upcoming midterms face a myriad of threats, both foreign and domestic, as they look to protect voting systems and run a smooth election while fighting a wave of misinformation that has been undermining public confidence in U.S. elections.

The nation’s top state election officials gathered Thursday for the start of their annual summer conference, with a long list of challenges that begins with securing their voting systems.

While a top concern heading into the 2020 presidential election was Russia or another hostile nation waging a disruptive cyberattack, the landscape has expanded to include ransomware, politically motivated hackers and insider threats. Over the last year, a small number of security breaches have been reported at local election offices in which authorities are investigating whether office staff improperly accessed or provided improper access to sensitive voting technology.

Jen Easterly, who leads the nation’s cybersecurity agency, said Russia, China and North Korea remain “very dynamic and complex cyber threats” and that criminal gangs pushing ransomware were also a concern. But she noted election security officials could not afford to prioritize one over the other.

“We can’t just worry about one thing because if we focus too intently on one set of threats, we’re very likely to miss them coming from another direction,” Easterly told reporters, after a series of private meetings with state election officials.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has been conducting physical assessments for state and local election officials, which includes site visits and reviews of security procedures such as video surveillance and access controls. The agency has also issued guidance on how to mitigate insider threats, which emphasizes the importance of chain of custody rules. The guidance also suggests the use of bipartisan teams when accessing sensitive equipment.

State election officials have also been focused on boosting cybersecurity defenses at the local level, where staffing and resources are often limited.

In Ohio, Secretary of State Frank LaRose recently announced a third wave of security requirements for the state’s county election boards, which includes increased video surveillance for voting equipment and more comprehensive security reviews of county systems.

“It’s constant vigilance,” LaRose said Thursday. “The threat is constantly emerging. The threat is constantly changing. And so we’re evolving with it and making sure that our guard is up.”

Election security became a national focus after the 2016 presidential election, when Russia probed state voter registration systems across the country looking for vulnerabilities.

In response, the Obama administration designated election systems as “critical infrastructure” — on par with the nation’s banks, dams and nuclear power plants. This freed up resources and funds for election officials, and a concerted effort was made to improve communications and intelligence sharing between the federal government and the states.

But the 2020 presidential election brought an unprecedented wave of false claims and conspiracy theories surrounding voting equipment and election procedures as former President Donald Trump sought to explain his loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Supporters and allies of Trump have been traveling across the country for more than a year claiming the election was stolen and spreading misinformation that has further increased distrust in U.S. elections.

Federal and state election officials and Trump’s own attorney general have said there is no credible evidence the election was tainted. The former president’s allegations of fraud were also roundly rejected by courts, including by judges Trump appointed.

But the false claims have persisted and have led to suspected security breaches at local election offices a handful of states.

Earlier this year, the clerk in Mesa County, Colorado, was indicted for a security breach at her election office. Authorities say Clerk Tina Peters allowed unauthorized people access to voting equipment and an unauthorized copy was made of the county’s voting system that was later posted online. Peters has denied any wrongdoing.

In Colorado, Secretary of State Jena Griswold pushed for legislative changes this year to tighten security measures surrounding voting systems and increase penalties for those attempting to access them.

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By Rose Horowitch and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Senate Democrats are finalizing a plan to close a tax loophole used by many companies, and they want to use those revenues to shore up the government-run Medicare healthcare program for the elderly and disabled, sources familiar with the discussions said on Thursday.

Democrats expect to submit legislative text to the Senate parliamentarian in coming days, said one source, who asked not to be identified in order to discuss the private negotiations.

The tax change is aimed at the majority of businesses in the United States that are known as “pass-through” firms that are not subject to the corporate income tax and instead have their income reported to the government on individual tax returns, subjecting them to the lower tax rates.

Under the proposed changes, individuals who make more than $400,000 annually and couples who make more than $500,000 would have to pay a 3.8% tax on earnings from their pass-through business income.

The measure is intended to move through the Senate under special budgetary rules that require approval by the parliamentarian and would allow for passage without any Republican support in the deeply divided chamber.

The Medicare funding initiative is the latest effort by Democrats to pass some aspects of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda after conservative Democratic Senator Joe Manchin quashed the sprawling “Build Back Better” bill last year.

Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have been negotiating the details of a scaled-back package amid solid Republican opposition.

Another source familiar with those negotiations said substantial work still had to be done before an agreement can be reached on the two most difficult portions of the legislative package: a provision on tackling climate change and a tax initiative that is broader than the pass-through tax idea.

The fund that finances Medicare is currently set to be depleted by 2028. Democrats expect their pass-through tax proposal will amass $200 billion and would help make the trust fund solvent until 2031.

This would be one piece of a multi-pronged bill Democrats are hoping to pass this year that also would deal with rising prescription drug prices for seniors, tackling climate change and making other changes to the tax code aimed at high earners.

Senate Democrats on Wednesday advanced a deal that would allow the Medicare health plan to negotiate lower prescription drug prices.

According to the source, high-earning businesses, such as law firms, have found a way to claim only a small portion of their earnings and thus avoided most of the taxes they otherwise would pay.

(Reporting by Rose Horowitch and Richard Cowan; editing by Andy Sullivan and Aurora Ellis)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Pat Cipollone, White House counsel to former President Donald Trump, has agreed to testify on Friday in a transcribed interview before the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, news media said.

Cipollone’s actions during the deadly attack were described by witnesses at previous hearings before the House select committee. The committee subpoenaed him last week with a deadline to give sworn testimony before the panel.

Cipollone is appearing under subpoena and will not be in public, according to a New York Times report, confirmed by CNN. The committee did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The subpoena seeking a deposition from Cipollone followed dramatic public testimony from a former White House aide who said Cipollone had warned her at the time that they could face “every crime imaginable” if Trump went to the Capitol on Jan. 6 after delivering a fiery rally speech to his supporters.

Trump supporters, armed with weapons including AR-15-style rifles, marched from the Ellipse outside the White House to Capitol Hill in a failed effort to prevent lawmakers from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the November 2020 presidential election.

“The Select Committee’s investigation has revealed evidence that Mr. Cipollone repeatedly raised legal and other concerns about President Trump’s activities on January 6th and in the days that preceded,” the panel said in a statement last week.

“Any concerns Mr. Cipollone has about the institutional prerogatives of the office he previously held are clearly outweighed by the need for his testimony,” the committee said.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Howard Goller)

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YUMA, Ariz. (AP) — Two women are scheduled to be sentenced Thursday in southern Arizona for their conviction for illegally collecting four early ballots during the 2020 primary election.

Authorities say Guillermina Fuentes and Alma Juarez participated in “ballot harvesting.” That’s a practice once used by both political parties to boost turnout but was made illegal by a 2016 state law that barred anyone but a family member or caregiver from returning early ballots for another person. It’s the only case filed so far by the state attorney general under the law.

Authorities say Fuentes ran a sophisticated operation using her status as a well-known Democratic operative in the Arizona border city of San Luis to persuade voters to let her gather and, in some cases, fill out their ballots. But the crime she admitted in court last month does not involve filling out ballots or any broader efforts.

Fuentes and Juarez each pleaded guilty to a charge of ballot abuse, acknowledging they collected early ballots for people who weren’t family members, didn’t live with them or weren’t receiving care from them.

Fuentes’ conviction was a felony, and she could be sentenced to probation or up to two years in prison, while Juarez’s was a misdemeanor. Under Juarez’s plea agreement, if she has cooperated as promised she will be sentenced to probation and prosecutors will not seek jail time.

Three other felony charges against Fuentes were dismissed. Those charges had alleged that Fuentes filled out one voter’s ballot and forged signatures on some of the four ballots she illegally returned for people who weren’t family members.

Republicans who have rallied around the possibility of widespread voting fraud in the 2020 election where former President Donald Trump was defeated have pointed to the charges against Fuentes as part of a broader pattern in battleground states. But there’s no sign her illegal ballot collection went beyond the small-town politics Fuentes was involved in.

Records from an investigation by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office show that fewer than a dozen ballots could be linked to Fuentes, not enough to make a difference in all but the tightest local races.

Investigators have said it appeared Fuentes used her position as a powerful figure in the heavily Mexican American community to get people to give her or others their ballots to return to the polls.

Fuentes and Juarez were seen with several mail-in envelopes outside a cultural center in San Luis on the day of the 2020 primary election, according to reports from investigators. The ballots were taken inside and dropped in a ballot box.

Fuentes was recorded on video by a write-in candidate who called the Yuma County sheriff.

An investigation was launched that day, and about 50 ballots checked for fingerprints, which were inconclusive. The investigation was taken over by the attorney general’s office within days, with investigators collaborating with sheriff’s deputies to interview voters, Fuentes and others.

Although Fuentes was charged only with actions that appear on the videotape and involve just a handful of ballots, investigators believe the effort went much farther.

An investigator for the Attorney General’s Office said there was some evidence suggesting Fuentes actively canvassed San Luis neighborhoods and collected ballots, in some cases paying for them.

Collecting ballots in that manner was a common get-out-the-vote tactic used by both political parties before Arizona passed the 2016 law, though Democrats used the practice more aggressively. Paying for ballots has never been legal.

The state’s ban on ballot harvesting was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court last year.

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By Jason Lange and Alexandra Ulmer

(Reuters) – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a rising Republican star, has been careful not to nurture growing speculation that he will make a presidential bid in 2024. He has brushed off questions about his political ambitions, while the party’s presumptive front-runner, Donald Trump, repeatedly hints he will run again.

But there are signs that DeSantis could be preparing for a White House run even as he campaigns for another term as governor in November’s midterm elections.

A Reuters analysis of DeSantis’ social media ads shows he has dramatically expanded his out-of-state ads in recent months, an indicator, say some political analysts, that he may be laying the groundwork for a national campaign.

In the first three months of this year, political ads sent through DeSantis’ Facebook and Instagram pages were overwhelmingly concentrated in Florida, as one would expect from a man running for office in the state.

But by the April-June period, they were spread roughly evenly between Florida and the rest of the country, according to a Reuters analysis of regional spending data for social media ads compiled by New York University’s Cybersecurity for Democracy project.

DeSantis’ increase in out-of-state ads suggests a move toward building a nationwide network of supporters, said three Republican strategists, including Ron Bonjean, who was an adviser to former president Trump’s 2016 presidential transition team.

“It’s an important part of the campaign playbook and can help him build support quickly should he eventually throw his hat in the ring,” Bonjean said, adding that the timing matters as Trump could declare his candidacy “at any moment” and potentially dent DeSantis’ momentum.

DeSantis may, however, simply be using his national profile to seek a broader donor base for his re-election campaign, said Travis Ridout, an expert on campaign ads at Washington State University, although the Republican is a fund-raising giant who has already built a $100 million plus warchest.

Dave Abrams, a senior adviser on DeSantis’ re-election campaign, did not comment on the ads, but said the governor was fully focused on “winning big” in Florida this November.

“We’ll let the self-described ‘experts’ do what they do best: pontificate endlessly,” he told Reuters.

Two sources close to DeSantis confirmed to Reuters he is building a national database of voter contact information.

Political campaigns in the United States use such data, collected from many sources, to create detailed profiles https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-ELECTION/DATA-VISUAL/yxmvjjgojvr of voters to inform their strategies and tactics. Gathering data via social media was a key tool for Trump’s own 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. Any challenger would have to compete against his formidable database of small donors.

Social media ads often prompt supporters for their names, email addresses and other information that campaigns can use for future fundraising appeals and invitations to rallies.

SWING STATES

Should DeSantis launch a White House bid, he would be retracing the steps of past presidential candidates including U.S. Senator Corey Booker, a Democrat who boosted out-of-state social media ads ahead of the 2018 midterm elections before running for president in 2020, Ridout said.

Many of DeSantis’ recent ads were concentrated in swing states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina, with ad viewers asked to fill out surveys with questions like: “Are YOU feeling pain at the pump thanks to Joe Biden?”

Other ads ask for support to fight “the dishonest corporate media,” “woke corporations” and the left’s “socialist agenda.”

After clicking on an ad, users are directed to a DeSantis web page that asks for their opinion on the issue and contact information.

Compared to television, ads on social media are cheap for political campaigns. DeSantis spent only around $300,000 on Facebook and Instagram ads in the first half of 2022, according to the NYU data.

“Small-dollar donors are worth more than the money involved,” said Ohio-based Republican strategist Mark Weaver. “They can be volunteers and force multipliers of your message far outside of the borders of Florida.”

In contrast, the governors of the other biggest states – Republican Greg Abbott and Democrats Gavin Newsom of California and Kathy Hochul of New York – have overwhelmingly focused on their home states in social media ads this year.

To be sure, there are many bigger steps that American presidential hopefuls need to take before launching any White House campaign. Making a pilgrimage to early voting states in the nomination process, such as Iowa, is one of them. Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, has already made the trip. DeSantis has not.

(Reporting by Jason Lange in Washington and Alexandra Ulmer in San Francisco. Additional reporting by Katie Paul in San Francisco. Editing by Ross Colvin and Alistair Bell)

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