[music]

Brian: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. For the first time, a Trump appointee has been arrested in connection with the January 6th Capitol Riot. We'll talk about that in a minute with Politico's Congressional editor, Elana Schor. Breaking this morning and related, Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell has filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump himself in conjunction with January 6th. Also, with Elana Schor, we'll talk about two potentially historic bills that passed the House this week, but that might go to the filibustering Senate to die.

Speaking of filibusters, this wasn't technically one lasting into the middle of the night, but before they got to this morning's official debate on the Coronavirus Relief Bill in the Senate, Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin decided to make a show of his opposition to the bill by having the Senate clerks read out loud the entire 628-page thing. The New York Times notes as a point of reference that the sixth Harry Potter book clocked in at 652 pages, and many of you know how thick that was.

By the way, that was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in case you were wondering. Imagine reading the whole half-blood Prince aloud without a break. The relief bill took 10 hours and 44 minutes and about the same length, here's 44 seconds of what that was like.

Brian: Section 2705, funding for grants for healthcare providers to promote mental health among their health professional workforce. Section 2706, funding for community-based funding for local substance use disorder services. Section 2707, funding for community-based funding for local behavior health needs. Section 2708, funding for the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. Section 2709, funding for Project AWARE. Section 2710, funding for youth suicide prevention. Section 2711, funding for behavioral health workforce education and training. Section 2712, funding for Pediatric Mental Health Care Access. Section 2713, funding for expansion grant for Certified Community Behavioral Health.

Brian: And on it went. The reading ended at just after two in the morning Washington time. With me now is Elana Schor Politico's Congress editor. Thanks for coming on Elana. Welcome back to WNYC.

Elana: Thanks for having me.

Brian: Did you stay up until 2:00 AM watching the Senate clerks on C-SPAN?

Elana: [laughs] Oh, I did not. We'd all read the bill in advance. The court clerks were in a bind though.

Brian: The snippet that we played, I was listening to that list and thinking that's a good thing. That one's a good thing. Oh, that one sounds helpful. What did Senator Johnson hope to gain by having it read cover to cover?

Elana: Well, Senator Johnson just wants to be a bother and that's where a lot of the Republicans are at right now. They object to this bill. They want it to, first of all, be smaller. Second of all, have a greater share of its money going towards actual vaccines, as opposed to other indirect pandemic aid, and may decide that they're just going to make the entire process as painful for Democrats as possible, which included the Johnson gambit.

Brian: Harry Potter the Half-Blood Prince ends with Snape casting the killer curse on Dumbledore and revealing that he is the half-blood Prince, spoiler alert for a 2005 book. How does the Relief Bill end?

Elana: [laughs] The Relief Bill is likely to end in a pretty dramatic late-night cliffhanger. Right now, we're expecting [inaudible 00:03:55] the wee hours of the morning, Brian, to be passage for this bill. We are expecting it to pass, but there could be some really tough votes, specifically a vote to lower the boosted unemployment check in this bill could end up passing, which would be unfortunate for Democrats.

Brian: Tonight? The middle of the night?

Elana: Yes, we're expecting right now sometime after midnight and before sunrise.

Brian: The bill is very popular in the polls nationally. Is there any reason to believe it's unpopular in Ron Johnson State of Wisconsin, hard hit by the virus economy like everyone else's?

Elana: Yes. Indeed, the White House says it doesn't matter if this bill gets any Republican votes because it has so many support level from the actual Republican voters out there, including in Wisconsin. It's important to remember for Republican senators that they are looking at a '22 election where they see themselves back in the majority. They just have an incentive to obstruct as much as possible at this point.

Brian: Right. Listeners, we can take phone calls for Elana Schor Congress editor for Politico on any of the things that I mentioned in the intro or anything else you want to bring up. Did I see that President Biden is still having to negotiate with Democrats in the Senate on the Relief Bill and his excluding at the last minute here, a few million people making decent incomes from the direct checks?

Elana: Yes, that's accurate. He's slightly lowered the threshold at which those direct checks phase-out. It used to be 80 and now it's a little lower than that 80,000 a year in terms of the phase-out levels. That was part of the deal-making at the last minute with Joe Manchin and some other more centrist Senate Democrats whose votes the president really needed on there.

Brian: Democrats can pass the bill without Republican support in the Senate because it's a budget item, not so for some other things passed or about to be passed by the House that would be historic if enacted into law. A political article cites bills on policing, guns, and voting rights. Would you tell us what's in the Police Reform Bill that did pass the House on Wednesday?

Elana: The Police Reform Bill is pretty much the same bill that was passed last year by the Democratic House amid the nationwide protests following the killing of George Floyd. It gets at things like no-knock warrants, things like chokeholds, basically, tools that police have used and have been linked to episodes of unwarranted brutality against unarmed Black Americans.

It also addresses most significantly qualified immunity. That was a huge sticking point with some of the House's centrists at first. Now, qualified immunity is a legal doctrine that essentially provides police officers a shield from legal liability if they commit misconduct on the job. That's a huge deal in all of these episodes of brutality and the House bill would basically do away with that.

Brian: You quote Senator Cory Booker, who will be on with us here next week, expressing some optimism about advancing Policing Reform through the Senate, based on his conversations with some Republican senators. Can you do a Politico analysis on what you think a compromised bill that gets the needed 10 Republican votes might look like compared to the House bill? Or does it look more to you that there's just no path to that in the Senate?

Elana: Look, as a Congressional editor, I've learned to be as cynical as possible about what can actually pass the 50/50 Senate, not because Democrats like Senator Booker aren't trying, but they're really in a bind here because groups like the NAACP, the Urban League, groups that rightly have a huge stake in ensuring better racial justice and application of law enforcement, like the House bill and they don't see why they should have to compromise, but unfortunately, to get it through the Senate, big compromises will be necessary particularly on that qualified immunity provision I discussed.

It's really the question here is if Senator Booker can sit down with his counterpart Tim Scott on the Republican side, and get a bill that will pass the House, will the left even approve of it? Also, will they say don't force us to swallow these half measures and while nothing happens? That's really what's at stake. As far as political analysis, certainly, Senator Booker is trying and certainly, Senator Schumer has said he will bring some version of the Police Bill to a vote. The question is what does that look like?

Brian: Yes. Is the immunity provision the main sticking point? For people who don't know, that would allow police officers to be sued as individuals for alleged misconduct, but only up to $25,000 as I understand it, personal liability. The Politico article notes that the bill passed entirely along party lines in the House, which means more than 200 Republicans voted, no, even though it contains mostly key provisions that both parties rallied behind after the police killing of George Floyd. Was their rationale for voting no entirely immunity for police officers as individuals?

Elana: That was the biggest sticking point. It wasn't the only one. I think, Republicans want to be invited to the table and with Democrats in full control of Washington, there's little incentive to do that. Even though, yes, it's true, some Republicans in the House who voted against this bill liked and rallied behind specific provisions of it, the overall politics of putting it all together and passing it, we've not seen it as [unintelligible 00:09:45].

Brian: Here is Speaker Pelosi this week on HR1 For the People Act, as they call it, on voting rights which also passed the House this week.

Speaker Pelosi: We wave flags in honor of our democracy. This legislation is there to protect the right to vote, to remove obstacles of participation. HR1 for the people. For the people, the first 300 pages were written by John Lewis.

Brian: What are the key provisions of HR1 for the people and why won't 10 Senate Republicans likely vote for this?

Elana: Well, HR1 makes a lot of important changes to ballot access. It essentially expands access to the ballot and seeks to break somewhere State houses have been at in terms of rolling things back now some specific provisions, it creates money for drop boxes. It allows early voting and makes that a must have. These are all what feels like pretty standard democratic party fair, but keep in mind that Republicans as a party have been frankly behind restrictions on ballot access, and some of them have been open about the need to do so in order to ensure their survival as a party. This is an existential matter for Republicans.

Brian: Here's a list of some of the Republican objections per a Mike Pence article, as summarized on National Review today. That it would compel states to count mail and votes that arrive up to 10 days after election day. Compel States to allow ballot harvesting as they call it. Compel states to ban voter ID laws, compel states to allow bureaucrats to redraw congressional districts, compel states to allow felons to vote, even though that means felons who've served their time in prison. Are all those things factual, at least, and then it's a matter of debating right or wrong? Can you fact-check that list for us off the top of your head at all?

Elana: Well, to be clear it's an overreading of certain provisions in the bill. Certainly, there is debate over the re-districting components of this and you actually saw one pretty powerful Democrat in Mississippi [unintelligible 00:12:17] Benny Thompson vote against his own party's bill over the redistricting portion. The debate there that even alienated one major Democrat is whether states getting the opportunity to start their own commissions on redistricting, essentially empowers leaders in Southern States to restrict ballot access for people of color.

That's a big deal that you have Bennie Thompson, a senior member of the congressional black caucus still not satisfied with this. Of course, the list that you just read off Brian is an overreading not just of the redistricting provision, but some other ones as well. That said this is going to come to the Senate and we could see the exact same dynamic that we saw policing reform where people aim a compromise, but what might be able to pass looks very different.

Brian: I guess what ties all those things together is that Republicans would say elections are a state matter and the federal government shouldn't be telling every state because states do have different provisions at the moment on some of these things on allowing felons after they've served their time to vote. Some states allow it, some states don't. Voter ID laws, some states have them, some states don't. Allowing mail-in votes to be counted up to 10 days after election day if they're postmarked by election day, some states have it, some states don't and the Republicans are objecting to federalizing all those things rather than leaving them up to the states, right?

Elana: Essentially, yes, that's a pretty good summary of where the partisan demarcation lines are here. It's also important to note that the electoral landscape as I mentioned is unfriendly to Republicans seeking to expand access to the ballot. That deals with debates we have over in urban areas, maybe there's one, two drop boxes. Advocates for expanding voting rights basically say this disenfranchises minorities. In some cases, benefits Republicans. There's a real electoral politics shadow hanging over this entire discussion.

Brian: This is historic in America, but it's really come to a head after the attempt to cancel the election on January 6th and leading up to January 6th that it's not in Republican's interests for more Americans to vote. The laws certainly in the South, but really all over have been a struggle between more ballot access and less ballot access and the Republicans hang it on ballot security. I think a fair reading is that the real issue is just trying to keep your people from voting and keep more people from voting, keep it as fewer people voting and the people who are most easily locked out tend to be Democrats tend to be older, tend to be poor, tend to be black and brown.

In those conditions that make voter ID a little more difficult, make restricted voting hours a little more difficult to work around in their jobs, all those things. Elana, is it a little rich that Republicans are objecting to Democrats trying to federalize state elections when most house Republicans just voted to reject the state-certified results that Biden beat Trump?

Elana: Well, there certainly is some situational irony there I won't lie, but to be clear what we're discussing about, saying the quiet part out loud among Republicans acknowledging that expanding ballot access could their party. It's only a few of them that have dipped a toe in that direction. To your point, Republicans tend to talk about HR1 in the context of the classic state's rights anti-Federalist approach that conservatives tend to prefer. Like this is not a matter that Washington should get involved in. That's how most of us accept it as you note.

Brian: Listeners, again, we can take some phone calls. We'll get to your phone calls in a couple of minutes for Elana Schor Politico's Congressional editor, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, or you can tweet a question at Brian Lehrer. Here's a tweet, "I'd like to know who are the eight moderate Democrats who want a smaller COVID relief bill." Is that an accurate count? Are there eight Democrats in the Senate who needed that smaller relief bill and if so, do you know their names?

Elana: Yes. I'm not sure where the eight comes from. People might be counting up the names of Democrats who are attending meetings on this. We will actually see later today roll call votes on things like decreasing the size of the boost of unemployment checks that will put some of these Democrats on record. One who's been pretty open about it is Joe Manchin, Democrat from West Virginia.

He was in the lead on these discussions about trimming the phase-out as we discussed earlier for the direct checks and trimming the size of the unemployment benefits. Other Democrats who've been part of these discussions Angus King from Maine, he's an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. As for eight specific ones who don't really know yet.

Brian: I think people know the debate over the so-called stimulus checks and how big they should be. Probably fewer people know the debate over what you just described as reducing the size of the unemployment checks in the bill. What's the size in the house bill and how much of a reduction is under consideration?

Elana: Well, to be clear, this is a boost for the pandemic specifically. It's not the overall unemployment getting caught like this, but we're talking about a $400 a weekly boost approved by the house getting cut to $300.

Brian: Are these bills going to leave the Democrats to abolish the filibuster, which they might have the 51 votes to do?

Elana: That's where I'm going to have to be super cynical with you. Certainly, we at Politico have been aggressively covering this growing appetite among progressives, to kill the filibuster, but that requires 51 votes. Particularly given that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who's another one who we could probably describe as part of that eight, even though we don't know if it's eight. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin are the most centrist Democrats in the caucus and they just want to keep the filibuster. Without the votes to kill it you can't kill it.

Brian: In other words, they really don't have the 51 votes to kill the filibuster right now. You don't think?

Elana: I would say it's close to an "I know" and it's very unclear to me that anything will change Senator Sinema and Manchin's minds. My reporters ask them literally every day.

Brian: Camille in Roslyn, you're on WNYC with Elana Schor Politico's congressional editor. Hi, Camille.

Camille: Hi, good morning. First of all, I'd like to say how sick I am of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. The two questions I have is couldn't federal elections be controlled by federal laws and then the states could do what they want in terms of state elections. Then the other question is couldn't they gut the filibuster, which I heard Norm Ornstein talk about last night, where they amend it so that they need fewer votes rather than eliminate it.

Brian: Two great questions. On that first one, that's an interesting distinction to argue that federal elections, like for President and Senator, I guess, should be under federal jurisdiction and the federal government should set the rules and for state elections like governor and things like that, then the state should set the rules. That's at least an argument for federalizing the elections that apply to federal offices. Are you hearing that in DC?

Elana: I agree that it makes a certain amount of rational sense, but given that states have historically administered their own elections across all levels, and it will be difficult to carve out two separate tracks for that to happen, one with federal oversight on that level and one without. I just don't see how practically that could occur, but I agree it makes a certain level of sense. It's just not how the system is currently structured and unlikely to ever be structured that way so cleanly.

Brian: I guess this kind of thing could cut either way, depending on who's in power in Congress. Because what if the Republicans tried to do a similar thing at the federal level, that was all the opposite provisions requiring voter ID laws, banning mail-in voting or when mail and voting could be counted if it's postmarked by election day, banning at the federal level anybody who's been in prison as a felon being able to recover their right to vote after they've served their time. The Republicans, if they take the house in the Senate in the next election, they could do all the opposite things and then the Democrats would be screaming states' rights, or is that too cynical reading?

Elana: Absolutely not, Brian. I think it's a really fair reading. In fact, the same logic applies to the filibuster. I certainly understand why progressive's like our caller don't love Manchin and Sinema, but part of their point is if we do away with the filibuster now, and then we lose control, then a lot of priorities that Democrats really don't like we'll be forced on our throats on a majority vote. Do we really want that? Just because the filibuster, and to be clear for listeners, that's currently a 60 vote margin for most pieces of legislation, just because that has been used in the past for pretty insidious ends like blocking civil rights bills, doesn't mean it's always going to be used to [inaudible 00:22:26].

Brian: Is there a partial filibuster appeal as the caller suggests, taking it down from 60 votes to 55 votes or whatever that might be?

Elana: Theoretically, anything is possible, but the one thing to know about the US Senate is they can't even go to lunch without unanimous consent. Even though there might not be a roll call vote, if you work at the right way, the entire body rests tradition and 100 people consenting. You'd run into the same problems as you would with absolutely killing it, which is Manchin in Sinema don't want to.

Brian: Lorraine in Bergen County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lorraine.

Lorraine: Good morning, Brian. I just had a thought, this business is nonsense what's going on now with the clerks reading for I don't know how many hours. What if they could change the rules and the rules would be that no matter which party it is, that if you're going to do this, every senator who is a Democrat or Republican has to be present and the reading should be done by the senators themselves.

Brian: Lorraine, thank you. Let's ask our guest Elana Schor Congress editor for Politico. If this was a Ron Johnson, Republican Senator from Wisconsin, individual request, and he has the power as a lone Senator to make it happen that the whole 652 page stimulus bill was read aloud on the Senate floor before they could debate it and it took 10 hours and 44 minutes. Why was he able to designate that to the clerks and not be forced to read it himself?

Elana: Well, it's definitely an idea that some congressional [unintelligible 00:24:19] bandied about, but again, it goes back to 100 senators needing to consent to change the rules and the rules just say that that's what the clerks are for in this case. It's unfortunate for them, but this also plays into the filibuster in another sense. Bernie Sanders, who I'm sure everybody knows has not always been a huge advocate for fully killing the filibuster.

Although he's gotten there of late. He used to believe that what we ought to do is just make senators hold the floor i.e exactly what your colleague mentioned about Ron Johnson. If you want to object to simple majority passage, you should have to just stay up there and talk like Mr. Smith goes to Washington, which, of course, they don't do right now.

Brian: We're going to break. We're going to come back with a little more with Elana Schor Congress editor for Politico. We're going to ask about Politico's reporting on the first arrest of a Donald Trump appointee in connection with the January 6 Capitol riot and we'll take more of your calls. Stay tuned.

[music]

Brian Lehrer on WNYC with Elana Schor, Politico's Congress editor. Elana, let's get to these developments on the Capitol riot. A Trump appointee has been arrested in conjunction with it for the first time. I'm seeing that on Politico, who's accused of what?

Elana: Well, this is a man named Federico Klein. He was taken into custody in Virginia on Thursday, pretty late yesterday. He was a state department aid. This is the first as you mention direct Trump appointee who had been taken into custody. We don't know yet about the charges, but the client is a 2016 Trump campaign veteran before we got hired at state. He's not a bit player per se.

Brian: How high up might that go above that one person's head or is there any indication of that?

Elana: What do you mean by above that one person's head?

Brian: If there's one person in the chain of command at the state department, maybe there are other people in the chain of command at the state department, but I don't want to cast that aspersion if there's no evidence of that.

Elana: I see your point. No, no evidence of that right now. All we know is that he was a tech analyst on the 2016 Trump campaign staff and he continued to receive a small bit of money from the campaign in 2017. Clearly, this is a step closer to the president's actual network in terms of the charged individual.

Brian: How specific charge?

Elana: We don't know yet. We're waiting for court documents to pop up that give us some more clarity.

Brian: Would that happen today probably if he was arrested late yesterday?

Elana: Quite possibly. Yes.

Brian: Congressman Eric Swalwell now filing a lawsuit against Trump in conjunction with January 6th. I just saw this go by before we started the show. Do you know Swalwell claims yet?

Elana: Yes. This is pretty similar to another lawsuit that I mentioned them earlier in our interview Bennie Thompson voted against HR1, the house Democrat from Mississippi. He filed suit against The Proud Boys, The Oath Keepers. These are two extremist groups that participate in on January 6th, as well as Trump. Essentially makes the same claims in civil courts of incitement related to the riot.

Brian: Richard in Huntington, you're on WNYC. Hi, Richard.

Richard: Hi. My question is why don't the Democrats work hard to get a national day where everyone has off from work and everyone can go into vote. Why don't Democrats work hard to get everyone have a national ID? If people don't want to worry about like election fraud, and Republicans want these things, let's give them that. Let's ask for these other things. Let's work hard to make sure everyone has time to go in and vote and everyone who's a citizen has an ID to go in and vote. That's my question.

Brian: Interesting, Richard. I think Alicia in Queens has a similar point. Let's see if it's exactly the same or a different wrinkle. Alicia you're on WNYC. Hi.

Alicia: Hi. It's exactly the same point and I'm as left as you can get. I do see a value in a voter ID, give everybody at 18 years old. Every citizen at 18 years old a voter ID. When they're naturalized give them a voter ID, every 10 years, let them come back for a picture until they're maybe 70, 75 years old and they don't have to come back for a picture anymore. There's so many ways to compromise. I just don't understand why the Democrats don't just figure out a way to get what they need to get done with some of the things that the Republicans are asking for. I don't understand why they can't do that.

Brian: Alicia, thank you very much. Have you heard any Democrats talk about this or respond to this idea? To basically issue every American citizen who's over 18, have a voter ID?

Elana: No. The reason for that is just because, it becomes a huge issue for low-income folks. Folks who just don't have the wherewithal to actually participate in that process. That's really more of a conservative cause because in practical application, ID requirements tend to just limit access. Simply put people can't really keep track of that necessarily. It's a nice idea in theory, as far as expansion, but in practice it just doesn't look like that. No, that's not something Democrats really talk about that much.

Brian: Troy in Bed-Stuy. On the issue of immunity from lawsuits for police officers found to have committed misconduct that's what's expected to hang up the police reform bill in the Senate. Troy you're on WNYC. Hi.

Troy: Hi, good morning. My only issue is that the qualified immunity also protects someone who potentially may have hurt someone, but not with intent. What I know definitely for New York city, we for the most part anything that's considered wrongdoing, especially if you violate someone's civil rights, the job is not indemnifying you. You open yourself up with civil lawsuits. If you're doing something illegal, it's not necessarily that you're getting off just based on qualified immunity.

It's also those simple type of protections that protects people like in the press or maybe doctors from liability as well. I don't understand-- Again, I understand that people don't necessarily understand policing itself. They just responding to, "We want justice and equality." We want to equate police officers just like us, but then the job is inherently dangerous. Again, there's a issue of training that people don't want to address it and don't want to address the fact of the expense of policing. It's a lot of things involved I think.

Brian: In lawsuits in other walks of life, I think doctors and members of the press can be sued as individuals, but it doesn't have to be intent. There can be negligence, for example, that can still result in a cash award from a jury. It doesn't have to be intent. The bill as it's written would limit a police officer's individual liability to $25,000. Do either of those things make it more acceptable to you?

Troy: Again, fortunately, I have no issue of wrongdoing for myself and don't intend to, but when someone's trying to determine negligence and intent, sometimes it's not a just cut and dry situation. Someone may be negligent by not performing a particular task, but maybe trying to give the benefit of the doubt, and all of a sudden that turned into negligence because you didn't arrest that person and now they did something.

Again, there are, especially with the New York City police department, you have procedures that you have to follow. You filling a patrol guide procedure you're going to suffer consequences from the department and you're going to be civilly sued. Whether the job indemnifies you, that's another thing. That's another determining that more and more now, they're choosing to indemnify you once you violate patrol guide or even the civil law.

Brian: Troy, thank you very much. We appreciate your call. To wrap this up, Elana is Biden still talking unity because unity is great in theory, but then when no Republicans vote for these bills that seem to have broad public support in the polls, the only way to get them through is by the Democrats hanging together and not trying for compromises that don't seem likely to come. What's Biden saying now?

Elana: I think Joe Biden, isn't teaching his ways one bit. Just because no Republican is likely to actually come to the table and vote for that doesn't mean he's not going to try again even on the minimum wage as our white house reporters have already put up. He wants to talk with Republicans in the Senate, in particular, who are looking for an increase below 15. That's just Joe Biden style. You could say he misjudged Republicans on things like [inaudible 00:34:34] his nominee who failed, but I don't think he's misjudging them overall. I think keeping the door open is probably politically smart for him.

Brian: Elana Schor, Politico's Congress editor. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it.

Elana: Thank you.

 

Copyright © 2021 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.