by | Dec 20, 2024 | The Hill
More than 30 House Republicans voted against the government funding bill to avert a shutdown on Friday night.
The legislation
with a 366-34-1 vote, surpassing the two-thirds requirement needed as the Republican House leadership brought it up under the suspension of the rules process. Every member of the Democratic caucus, outside of Rep. Jasmine Crockett (Texas), who voted present, supported the modified funding package alongside 170 GOP lawmakers.
Here are the 34 Republican House members who voted against the continuing resolution to keep the government funded just hours before the midnight deadline:
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.)
Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.)
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.)
Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.)
Sen.-elect and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.)
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.)
Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas)
Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.)
Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.)
Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah)
Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho)
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas)
Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.)
Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas)
Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.)
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.)
Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas)
Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.)
Rep. Greg Lopez (R-Colo.)
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.)
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)
Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.)
Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.)
Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.)
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.)
Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.)
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas)
Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas)
Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.)
Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas)
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) presented the bill just a few hours before members voted on it. The package would fund the government at current levels, designate billions for disaster relief and extend the farm bill for one year. The bill did not raise the debt limit, something President-elect Trump advocated for as the legislation was negotiated.
Johnson, whose speakership gavel
in light of his handling of funding negotiations, touted the package as “America First’ legislation.”
“In January, we will make a sea change in Washington. President Trump will return to D.C. and to the White House, and we will have Republican control of the Senate and the House. Things are going to be very different around here,” Johnson
.
“This was a necessary step to bridge the gap, to put us into that, that moment where we can put our fingerprints on the final decisions on spending for 2025,” he added.
by | Dec 20, 2024 | The Hill
The Senate on Friday confirmed President Biden’s 235th judicial nominee, surpassing the record of 234 judges confirmed during President-elect Trump’s first term in office.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) marked the achievement after the Senate confirmed Serena Raquel Murillo to serve as district judge for the Central District of California.
“This Majority has now confirmed more judges under President Biden than any majority has confirmed in decades. This is historic!” Schumer announced on the Senate floor.
“We have confirmed more judges than under the Trump administration, more judges than any administration in this century, and more judges than under any administration going back decades,” he said.
Biden has
— Ketanji Brown Jackson — 45 appellate court judges, 187 district judges and two International Trade Court judges.
Two-thirds of those judges are women, two-thirds are minorities and two-fifths are minority women.
Schumer noted that one out of every four active judges on the federal bench has now been nominated by Biden and confirmed by the Senate Democratic majority.
He said the Biden nominees placed on the bench include former consumer protection lawyers, labor lawyers, voting rights experts, civil rights lawyers, federal prosecutors, public defenders and teachers.
“For a long time the norm was to prioritize judicial nominees who came from a privileged pool. Most of them were prosecutors or from large corporate law firms. Most were male, most were white. But when Senate Democrats entered the majority, we cast a wider net,” he said.
Schumer thanked Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) for keeping on top of the administration to submit the necessary paperwork to advance the nominees and churning through the list of candidates.
“The Biden administration had fewer vacancies to fill than the Trump administration did — in fact, less than half. Still, we succeeded beyond what any of us could have hoped for: 235 judges confirmed,” Durbin said on the floor.
The Senate confirmed 234 of Trump’s judicial nominees during his first four years in the White House.
The Senate confirmed 170 of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees over eight years and 204 of President George W. Bush’s 204 judicial picks over eight years.
by | Dec 20, 2024 | The Hill
The Biden administration on Friday withdrew a pending regulation governing transgender athletes, abandoning an effort to provide some protections for transgender students that the incoming Trump administration has said it opposes.
The administration also withdrew a proposal to cancel student debt for roughly 38 million Americans, which the Education Department said was due to “operational challenges.”
“With the time remaining in this administration, the Department is focused on several priorities including court-ordered settlements and helping borrowers manage the final elements of the return to repayment,” the department wrote
.
On the transgender athlete regulation — a proposal that involved amending Title IX, the landmark civil rights law preventing sex discrimination — the Education Department said it received more than 150,000 public comments during a 30-day comment period that “offered a broad spectrum of opinions.”
It also noted that there are several ongoing lawsuits related to the application of Title IX in the context of gender identity, including several challenging a companion regulation the administration finalized in April that more broadly protects gay and transgender students.
“In light of the comments received and those various pending court cases, the Department has determined not to regulate on this issue at this time,” the Education Department
.
The Biden administration
last April, saying state-level bans on transgender athletes “fail to account for differences among students across grade and education levels.”
The proposal would have prohibited policies that categorically ban transgender student-athletes from participating on sports teams that match their gender identity but would have still allowed schools to enforce some restrictions, particularly in competitive sports.
Schools would have still been able to bar trans athletes from competition in pursuit of “important educational objectives,” like fairness or preventing sports-related injuries, a senior administration official said at the time. However, “some objectives, such as the disapproval of transgender students or a desire to harm a particular student, would not qualify,” they said.
The proposed regulation left parties on both sides of the issue unhappy. Some advocates for transgender rights
for laying out a roadmap for schools to ban trans athletes legally and accused President Biden of backtracking on a promise to protect them. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)
“indefensible and embarrassing.”
Opponents of the administration’s rule said it undermined fairness in girl’s and women’s sports.
President-elect Trump has said he opposes allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports and has signaled he
banning participation once he takes office in January. A majority of Americans — 69 percent
— believe transgender student-athletes should only be permitted to participate in sports that align with their birth sex, rather than their gender identity.
Twenty-six states since 2020 have passed laws prohibiting transgender students, sometimes as young as kindergarten, from participating on school sports teams that match their gender identity,
, which tracks LGBTQ laws.
Federal judges have temporarily blocked laws from taking effect in Arizona, Utah, West Virginia and Idaho — the latter two of which have
— and a Montana judge permanently barred the state from enforcing its prohibition on trans athletes competing in college sports in 2022.
In withdrawing its regulations on Friday, the Biden administration prevents the incoming Trump administration from revising and implementing either rule with few bureaucratic hurdles. The next administration can pursue its own regulations on the same issues but will have to start from scratch in a cumbersome rulemaking process that can take up to several years.
