Biden confronts diverging political realities: The Note
The TAKE with Rick Klein
There’s a segment of the country for whom there is no more pressing priority than the policing and racial-justice issues getting fresh attention with the anniversary of George Floyd’s death on Tuesday.
There’s a segment of the country for whom there is no more pressing priority than the debate over election integrity getting fresh attention with county “audits,” state legislative scrambles and efforts to create a commission on the attempted insurrection at the Capitol.
Amid those diverging realities — if not directly in the middle of them — President Joe Biden is pursuing bipartisanship for his agenda. Deadlines will come and go this week, with nothing major likely to happen on the timeline he favored.
Whether measured in trillions of dollars in proposed spending or overall propensity to accept basic facts about the last election, it’s hard to argue that Democrats and Republicans are any closer together now than they were at the start of Biden’s presidency.
Republicans are balking at even the lowered infrastructure price tag. The key sticking point on police reform hasn’t changed after months of talks.
This week, it’s possible or even likely that GOP senators use a filibuster to block the Jan. 6 commission passed by the House last week. And Democrats’ answer to GOP changes to voting laws in the states is similarly on track to be blocked in Congress.
Biden has been able to navigate a changed Washington in part by choosing what he wants to prioritize and tuning out extraneous data points. But pressure is building inside both parties to force some uncomfortable issues to the surface, and not necessarily on the president’s terms.
The RUNDOWN with Averi Harper
The anniversary of Floyd’s death marks another goal unmet for the Biden administration as it relates to police reform.
In April, Biden called for the Senate to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Despite the deadline imposed by the commander-in-chief and the movement ignited from coast to coast after Floyd’s death, reform on the federal level still feels beyond reach.
Earlier this year, the administration abandoned its campaign promise of forming a police oversight commission within the first 100 days of the Biden presidency. The reason — to focus on passing the still unpassed George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
The legislation has languished in the Senate since March, with Republican opposition blocking a path forward while seemingly endless bipartisan negotiations continue without resolution.
The Floyd family will trek to the White House to meet privately with the president and lawmakers on Capitol Hill, according to ABC News congressional correspondent Rachel Scott, but there are no plans for Biden to address the nation or even reporters on the topic.
On infrastructure, Biden has repeatedly said “doing nothing is not an option.” Activists are waiting for Biden to take that same hard line on police reform.
The TIP with Alisa Wiersema
In the waning days of the Texas legislative session, the fates of several major Republican-backed bills that echo parts of the national political discourse are in their final stages.
A bill that ends the requirement for Texans who are not banned by law from gun ownership to have to get a permit to carry handguns is now headed to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. Democrats opposed the bill, citing mass shootings in El Paso and Odessa, but Abbott is expected to enact the legislation after having voiced support for a “constitutional carry” proposal last month.
The debate over transgender kids’ participation in school sports is slated to continue in the House on Tuesday. Trans advocates said the legislation would enshrine discrimination by codifying that students cannot participate in athletic activities “designated for the biological sex opposite to the student’s biological sex as determined at the student’s birth and correctly stated on the student’s official birth certificate.”
Meanwhile, the debate over voting rights continues behind closed doors as a bipartisan conference committee hashes out the differences over a contentious piece of legislation passed in the House earlier this month. The House replaced the Senate’s original language of the bill with their version of voting legislation earlier this month and the committee has until Sunday to reach consensus.
THE PLAYLIST
ABC News’ “Start Here” Podcast. Tuesday morning’s episode features a conversation with activist Aqeela Sherills, who has been working with the police department in Newark, New Jersey, to enact changes in the year since George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis. ABC News’ Anne Flaherty explains why the nation’s largest school district is removing a remote learning option for the next school year. And ABC News Chief Global Affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz has the latest reaction to the arrest of a Belarusian dissident via the forced landing of a commercial airliner. http://apple.co/2HPocUL
FiveThirtyEight’s Politics Podcast. Tuesday marks one year since then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, history professor Yohuru Williams speaks with Galen Druke about how the protest movement sparked by Floyd’s death compares with past social justice movements. Micah Cohen and Kaleigh Rogers also join to discuss why Republicans are not backing a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. https://apple.co/23r5y7w
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