U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, flanked by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, left, and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, speaks during a news conference to support a border security bill on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. The bill failed on a procedural vote Thursday. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate failed Thursday to advance a border security bill as both parties seek to hone their messages on immigration policy in the runup to November’s elections.

The Senate bill failed to advance on a 43-50 procedural vote. The chamber already rejected the measure as part of a broader foreign aid package earlier this year. The bill, negotiated with the White House and a bipartisan trio of senators in the hopes of winning broad appeal, would have overhauled immigration law for the first time in more than 30 years.

Two of the border deal’s chief Senate negotiators, Oklahoma Republican James Lankford and Arizona independent Kyrsten Sinema, voted against advancing the measure Thursday, protesting what they said was an unserious process focused on political optics. The bill’s third major sponsor, Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy, voted in favor.

The procedural vote to advance to debate on the bill came as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer aimed to contrast Democrats’ approach to immigration policy with Republicans’ ahead of the November elections. The issue continues to rise as a top concern for voters and remains a core campaign theme for the GOP and its presumptive presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump.

Both chambers are readying other votes seemingly aimed at highlighting election themes.

The Democratic-led Senate is teeing up votes as early as next month on access to contraceptives, and protections for in vitro fertilization, or IVF, as Democrats have continued to campaign on the issue of reproductive rights.

The Republican-controlled House is moving forward with immigration related legislation, such as barring noncitizens from voting in federal elections, something that is rare and already illegal, as the GOP continues to highlight its disagreements with the White House over immigration policy.

Shortly after the Senate vote, President Joe Biden in a statement said Senate Republicans “put partisan politics ahead of our country’s national security.”

“Congressional Republicans do not care about securing the border or fixing America’s broken immigration system,” he said. “If they did, they would have voted for the toughest border enforcement in history.”

Losing support

The border security bill, S.4361, received fewer votes Thursday as a standalone bill than it had as part of the larger foreign aid package in February, when it failed on a 49-50 procedural vote. Sixty votes are needed to advance bills in the Senate.

The bill did not get all Democrats on board, which Schumer acknowledged earlier this week was a possibility.

“We do not expect every Democrat or every Republican to come out in favor of this bill,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “The only way to pass this bill – or any border bill – is with broad bipartisan support.”

But the bill failed to attract that broad support, losing backing even from Democrats who’d voted for the foreign aid package.

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said in a Wednesday statement that while he voted for the larger package in early February – mostly because it included critical aid to Ukraine – he would not do so this time around because the bill was too restrictive.

“I will not vote for the bill coming to the Senate floor this week because it includes several provisions that will violate Americans’ shared values,” Booker said. “The proposed bill would exclude people fleeing violence and persecution from seeking asylum and instead doubles down on failed anti-immigrant policies that encourage irregular immigration.”

‘Another cynical, political game’

Democratic senators who voted against moving the bill forward included Alex Padilla and Laphonza Butler of California, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Booker. Independents Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sinema also voted against.

Sinema said she voted against advancing her own bill because she felt Democrats were using her bill to “point the finger back at the other party.”

“Yet another cynical, political game,” she said.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the only Republican to vote to advance the bill after Lankford voted against the bill he helped write.

Lankford said Thursday’s vote was “a prop.”

“Everyone sees this for what it is,” he said. “It is not an actual effort to make law, it is an effort to do political messaging.”

Padilla, who voted against the larger package, said on the Senate floor Thursday that he was disappointed Democrats were voting on the bill again because it did not address the root causes of migration or create lawful pathways to citizenship for children brought into the U.S. without authorization known as Dreamers, farmworkers, and noncitizens who have been in the country for decades.

He urged other Democrats to vote no.

“The proposal before us was initially supposed to be a concession, a ransom to be paid to Republicans to pass urgent and critical aid to Ukraine,” Padilla said. “What’s this concession for now? It’s hard to swallow.”

Senate Republicans accused Democrats of bringing the bill as a political stunt.

“One thing the American people don’t have to wonder about is why Washington Democrats are suddenly champing at the bit to convince their constituents that they care about border security,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on the Senate floor Thursday. “(Americans) know the solution is not cynical Senate theater.”

Biden called McConnell and House Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday night to ask them to vote for the bill, but both Republican leaders rejected that appeal.

First vote

Lankford, Sinema and Murphy introduced the bill earlier this year, optimistic that months of bipartisan negotiations could lead to the first immigration policy overhaul in decades.

But Trump opposed the measure, and after those senators released the legislative text, House Republicans said they would fall in line with the former president. Senate Republicans then walked away from the deal they had said would be needed in order for passage of a supplemental foreign aid package to Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific region.

The sweeping border security bill would have raised the bar for migrants claiming asylum, clarified the White House’s parole authority, ended the practice of allowing migrants to live in U.S. communities as they await their asylum hearings, and given Biden the executive authority to close the southern border when asylum claims reached high levels, among other things. 

Dueling messages

The day leading up to Thursday’s vote, Senate Democrats and Republicans held dueling press conferences on the bill.

Democrats, including Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, argued that the bill negotiated earlier in the year would address the fentanyl crisis by providing new scanning technology at ports of entry and increasing staffing for custom agents.

Stabenow said she’s tired of Senate Republicans saying that “‘somebody should do something about the border,’” and that Thursday’s vote would give them an opportunity to address the southern border.

She was joined by Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, who talked about how many people in their states had died from fentanyl overdoses.

Republicans in their press conference argued that Democrats were holding a second vote to protect vulnerable incumbents in competitive races in Montana, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

“It is an election-year political stunt designed to give our Democratic colleagues the appearance of doing something about this problem without doing anything,” Tennessee GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn said Wednesday.

She was joined by Republican Sens. Roger Marshall of Kansas, Rick Scott of Florida, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, John Coryn of Texas, J.D. Vance of Ohio and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

House opposition

Even if the border security bill passed the Senate, it would have no chance in the House, where Johnson has vowed it will be dead on arrival.

The Louisiana Republican in a Wednesday press conference called the measure a messaging bill and said Schumer was “trying to give his vulnerable members cover.”

And not all House Democrats were on board with the bill negotiated out of the Senate.

The chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state and the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Nanette Barragán of California, slammed Senate Democrats for putting forth the legislation and urged them to abandon the effort.

“We are disappointed that the Senate will once again vote on an already-failed border bill in a move that only splits the Democratic Caucus over extreme and unworkable enforcement-only policies,” they wrote in a statement.

“This framework, which was constructed under Republican hostage-taking, does nothing to address the longstanding updates needed to modernize our outdated immigration system, create more legal pathways, and recognize the enormous contributions of immigrants to communities and our economy.”

Latino Democrats also voiced opposition to the bill when it was first released because it contained many hard-line policies that were reminiscent of the Trump administration.

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The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, conducted an analysis of election conduct from 2003 to 2023 and found 29 instances of noncitizens voting nationwide over that 20 year period. (Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

WASHINGTON — Republicans on the U.S. House Administration Committee argued at a Thursday hearing that there is a need for legislative action to bar noncitizens from voting in federal elections — even though voting by noncitizens in federal elections is extremely rare and already illegal.

“American elections are for American citizens and we intend to keep it that way,” the chair of the committee, Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, said in his opening remarks.

House Democrats said Republicans were laying the groundwork to instill mistrust in voting ahead of the November elections, drawing parallels to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol when then-President Donald Trump encouraged supporters to block certification of the 2020 presidential election results.

“MAGA extremists are laying the groundwork to overturn the 2024 presidential election,” the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, said in his opening remarks, using an acronym that is shorthand for Trump supporters.

Noncitizens are barred from voting in federal elections but they can vote in local elections if a local law is passed allowing them to do so. Certain municipalities in California, Maryland and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia, allow noncitizens to participate in local elections.

As the November elections approach, Republicans have taken aim at noncitizen voting, and have made immigration policy a campaign issue. Trump, who is the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, has also made the issue a central campaign theme.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana helped unveil legislation last week to bar noncitizens from voting in federal elections, something that is already illegal.

Steil said that municipalities allowing noncitizens to vote “reduces confidence in our elections.” He specifically called out Washington, D.C., for allowing noncitizens to partake in its elections.

“Washington, D.C., is setting a new standard that could soon be applied across the country,” Steil said.

“This causes a host of problems for a state to maintain (a) clean voter registration list,” Steil argued.

Researchers and studies have often disproved that noncitizens cast ballots in federal elections. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, conducted an analysis of election conduct from 2003 to 2023 and found 29 instances of noncitizens voting.

Republicans on the committee advocated for the election-related bill, H.R. 8281, that Johnson promoted on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. The bill, sponsored by Texas GOP Rep. Chip Roy, would require states to verify proof of citizenship to prevent noncitizens from voting in federal elections, which is already a felony.

Oklahoma GOP Rep. Stephanie Bice argued that jurisdictions that allow noncitizens to vote should have a separate voter roll. She asked one of the witnesses, Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, if there should be a federal law to require states to separate voter rolls. Von Spakovsky agreed with the idea.

Bice said that the biggest issue she has with localities allowing noncitizens to vote is that “the voter rolls are not being cleaned up.”

The Roy bill would require states to remove voters from rolls who do not prove their citizenship.

Georgia GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk argued that Americans care about elections. When noncitizens are allowed to vote, “we undermine and undercut the value of each and every vote,” he said.

Washington state Democratic Rep. Derek Kilmer said that bill would impact eligible voters, including members of the 12 tribes in his district. He said when tribal members vote, they use tribal enrollment cards, which “don’t necessarily contain information about citizenship.”

Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama said the legislation would also make it harder for eligible voters — especially voters of color — to cast their ballots. She asked the witness tapped by Democrats, Michael Waldman, the president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, about Republican claims of “widespread voter fraud” when it comes to noncitizens voting.

“Overwhelmingly, our (election) system is secure,” Waldman said.

Waldman said that it’s “an urban myth,” that there is a high number of noncitizens voting in federal elections and warned that “this year, the big lie is being pre-deployed.”

He said that those who tried to overturn the 2020 presidential elections are now more organized and trying to “set the stage for challenging the legitimacy of elections.”

He added the rhetoric about many noncitizens voting was also used in 2020 by Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, who lost his D.C. and New York law license over false claims that there were tens of thousands of noncitizens in Arizona who voted in the presidential election.

“Lies, I should note, that were repeated by President Trump on the Ellipse as he sent the crowd up to the Capitol,” Waldman said. “This was not the central argument then, but it is now.”

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Donald Trump, then president, answers a question as Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, listens during the second and final presidential debate at Belmont University on Oct. 22, 2020 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Morry Gash-Pool/Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

WASHINGTON — CNN announced on Wednesday morning that it will host a debate between President Joe Biden and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at the network’s Atlanta studios on June 27.

CNN said there would be no audience present for the debate and moderators will be announced later.

A second debate will be hosted by ABC News on Sept. 10 in which both candidates have agreed to partake, according to ABC News. 

Biden earlier Wednesday had called for two debates to be held before early voting for the November election begins — and Trump responded that he would do it.

On X, formerly Twitter, Biden wrote that he had accepted an invitation from CNN for a debate on June 27.

“Over to you, Donald,” Biden wrote. “As you said: anywhere, any time, any place.”

Trump has also accepted to participate in the June debate, according to CNN.

Biden started Wednesday’s exchanges over debates when he wrote to the Commission on Presidential Debates saying he would not agree to a three-debate schedule laid out earlier by the nonpartisan organization, which has been organizing presidential debates since the 1980s. The first would have been Sept. 16.

“President Joe Biden believes the interests of the American people are best served by presidential debates that offer timely and relevant information to help inform voters before they make their choices — and that allow a head-to-head comparison of the two candidates with a chance of winning the election,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, the chair for the Biden campaign, wrote in a letter to the commission.

Trump then accepted Biden’s proposed debates, one in June and another in September, on his social media site, Truth Social. “I am Ready and Willing to Debate Crooked Joe at the two proposed times in June and September,” Trump wrote.

“Crooked Joe Biden is the WORST debater I have ever faced – He can’t put two sentences together!,” he also wrote.

Trump added that he wants to debate with Biden on immigration policy, electric vehicles, inflation, taxes and foreign policy. He also called for more than two debates.

In a response to the Biden campaign, the Trump campaign is also proposing additional debates in June, July, August and September.

“Additional dates will allow voters to have maximum exposure to the records and future visions of each candidate,” the Trump campaign wrote.

Breaking with precedent

By notifying the Commission on Presidential Debates that the president would not partake in its debates, the Biden campaign broke precedent and instead said that news organizations should host the debates.

The Biden campaign proposed that the hosting broadcast news organizations be any that held a Republican primary debate in 2016 that Trump participated in and any news organization that hosted a Democratic primary debate in which Biden participated in 2020.

That is so that “neither campaign can assert that the sponsoring organization is obviously unacceptable,” according to the letter.

The campaign proposed that the first debate be held in late June, “after Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial is likely to be over and after President Biden returns from meeting with world leaders at the G7 Summit.”

The second debate should be at the start of early September, the campaign argued, so that it is “early enough to influence early voting, but not so late as to require the candidates to leave the campaign trail in the critical late September and October period.”

The Biden campaign is also proposing that a vice presidential debate be held in late July, after the GOP nominee and running mate are selected at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

One unknown is whether an independent candidate such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. might also qualify for debates.

CNN said in a press release that to qualify for participation in its debate, ”a candidate’s name must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidency prior to the eligibility deadline; agree to accept the rules and format of the debate; and receive at least 15% in four separate national polls of registered or likely voters that meet CNN’s standards for reporting.”

The statement added that acceptable polls will include those sponsored by: CNN, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, Marquette University Law School, Monmouth University, NBC News, the New York Times/Siena College, NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist College, Quinnipiac University, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.

“The polling window to determine eligibility for the debate opened March 13, 2024, and closes seven days before the date of the debate,” the statement said.

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Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas participates in a fireside chat with Mike L. Sena during the National Fusion Center Association 11th Annual Training Event on March 28, 2024, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. (DHS photo by Tia Dufour)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced Thursday it’s proposing changes to the asylum system that would allow immigration officials to reject asylum seekers who have a criminal record that poses a threat to national security or public safety and quickly remove them.

Those changes will occur during the initial screening stages, a senior U.S. Department of Homeland Security official said on background during a call with reporters.

The proposed rule would allow asylum officers to issue a denial within days if there is evidence that a migrant is ineligible to claim asylum due to ties to terrorism, a threat to national security or a criminal background.

“This really only applies to individuals who have a serious criminal history or who are linked to terrorist activity and that is inherently a small fraction of the individuals that we encounter or interview on a given day,” the senior DHS official said. “We don’t think that the rule will apply to large numbers of people but it will apply to the people that we are most concerned about.”

Currently, when a migrant claims asylum, they undergo a “credible fear” screening even if they have criminal charges levied against them, and depending on the severity of the charges, they can continue to seek asylum or be disqualified.

“The proposed rule we have published today is yet another step in our ongoing efforts to ensure the safety of the American public by more quickly identifying and removing those individuals who present a security risk and have no legal basis to remain here,” DHS Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

DHS is also issuing revised guidance to asylum officers to consider whether an asylum seeker can relocate to another part of their country where they fear persecution, known as internal relocation. This was implemented under the Trump administration by Ken Cuccinelli and the Biden administration rolled that policy back.

The new guidance “will ensure early identification and removal of individuals who would ultimately be found ineligible for protection because of their ability to remain safe by relocating elsewhere in the country from which they fled,” according to a DHS press release.

The Biden administration is dealing with the largest number of migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in 20 years, and has faced continued intense criticism about its immigration policies from Republicans and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Congressional Republicans have passed legislation to reinstate hard-line Trump-era immigration policies, walked back a bipartisan border security deal and recently impeached Mayorkas.

The public comment period on the notice for the proposed rule will be from May 13 to June 12. The senior DHS official said the agency anticipates the proposed rule to be finalized this year and quickly implemented.

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., speak to reporters in Statuary Hall after meeting with U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., in the U.S. Capitol Building on May 06, 2024, in Washington, D.C. Last week, Greene threatened to move forward with a ‘motion to vacate’ over her dissatisfaction with the Speaker’s handling of the government funding legislation. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene plan to meet privately Tuesday amid her calls for him to resign or face a floor vote that could, but likely won’t, remove the Louisiana Republican from leadership.

Greene announced the meeting Monday evening after she and Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie met privately with Johnson for two hours over disagreements about how he’s been running the House with a narrow GOP majority.

Greene, speaking briefly to reporters outside the speaker’s office after the meeting wrapped up, didn’t divulge details of what she, Massie and Johnson discussed.

“Let me tell you, I have been patient. I have been diligent. I have been steady. And I’ve been focused on the facts,” Greene said. “And none of that has changed. So I just had a long discussion with the speaker in his office about ways to move forward for a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.”

Greene, standing next to Massie, then said they would be meeting again on Tuesday.

Greene repeatedly has expressed her anger that Johnson has brought successful pieces of legislation to the House floor with bipartisan backing. Some of those recent bipartisan measures include government funding packages in March and military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan in April.

Johnson last week issued a statement that Greene’s motion to vacate was wrong.

“This motion is wrong for the Republican Conference, wrong for the institution, and wrong for the country,” he wrote.

House Democratic leaders last week issued a statement vowing to back Johnson if far-right Republicans try to remove him as speaker, which makes it unlikely the motion to vacate will succeed.

In late March, Greene filed a resolution to remove Johnson, following a bipartisan vote to approve the last remaining appropriations bill of fiscal year 2024. Since then, she has gained support from Massie and Arizona’s Paul Gosar.

Johnson was unanimously elected to the post about seven months ago following three weeks of chaos in October, in which Republicans were unable to agree on a lawmaker to take the speaker’s gavel after a small group of GOP lawmakers ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California.

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“Amazon may be at the front of the pack with an injury rate double the national average, but the rest of the big warehousing companies are close behind,” said Sen. Ed Markey. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

WASHINGTON  — Two Democratic U.S. senators announced Thursday they plan to introduce a piece of legislation that would require large companies to disclose quota practices to workers and prevent those quotas from interfering with a worker’s health.

“The Warehouse Worker Protection Act would put an end to the most dangerous quotas that plague warehouses,” Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, a sponsor of the bill, said.

There is no published bill text yet.

Markey said the bill would require companies to notify workers of the quotas they need to meet and ban quotas that rely on 24/7 surveillance or are likely to lead to violations of health and safety laws. He added that companies that don’t comply would be investigated by the Department of Labor and could face fines and penalties.

Injuries at Amazon

Markey was joined outside the U.S. Capitol by workers who shared their stories of being injured on the job at Amazon warehouses, along with Democratic Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith and Sean O’Brien, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Smith said that big companies like Amazon care about “efficiency and cost savings and maximizing their profits.”

“They’re experiencing record profits at the same time that the people whose labor they are earning profits on the backs (of), are experiencing completely unacceptable levels of injuries,” she said.

The speakers singled out Amazon for quota practices that endanger workers, though Markey said the Seattle-based e-retail giant is not the only company that engages in a quota system that harms workers.

“Amazon may be at the front of the pack with an injury rate double the national average, but the rest of the big warehousing companies are close behind,” he said.

Some of Amazon’s quota practices include constant monitoring to measure how many items a worker scans, with automatic flags for workers below a certain percentile, and monitoring how long employees take on  bathroom breaks and other “time off task,” according to a Thursday report by the National Employment Law Project.

The Amazon warehouse injury rate is “twice that of the private-sector average for all industries and tens of thousands of warehouse workers each year experience serious injuries requiring medical treatment,” according to the report.

O’Brien said that Amazon’s business model “pushes workers to the brink and creates a culture of fear.”

“Warehouses can be very dangerous places to work if safety isn’t made a priority,” he said.

Wendy Taylor, an Amazon worker in Missouri who is organizing for a union, was injured at work in March.

“I was injured at work because of Amazon’s inhumane work rates, because of the exhausting pace in the physical work me and my coworkers do,” she said.

Taylor said she fell and hurt her knee, but when she went to the company medical center, she said “they (refused) to let me see a doctor when I asked, sending me back to work.”

She eventually went to her own doctor, who diagnosed her with a torn meniscus in her knee.

“This experience (shows) how hard it is to get timely, adequate medical treatment from a company that breaks down my body and speeds up my aging for shareholder profits,” she said.

Spokespeople for Amazon did not immediately return a message seeking comment Thursday.

Brian Wild, a spokesperson for the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, said in a statement that the industry group does not support the bill, arguing that it could lead to delays and price hikes.

“The bill includes provisions that inappropriately tip the scales to union bosses at the expense of employees and employers by inviting labor organizations to participate in investigations, essentially granting union leaders access to potentially coerce or harass worksites under the guise of ‘worker safety,’” Wild said.

Seeking bipartisan support

Markey said there is bipartisan support in the Senate for the bill, as well as the House.

“We just want to build this out,” Markey said. “It should not be a Democrat or Republican thing, it’s a worker safety bill.”

A warehouse protection law went into effect in Minnesota last year, but advocates have raised concerns that Amazon is not complying with the law.

Several other states, including California, New York, Oregon and Washington, have passed legislation similar to what Markey and Smith are proposing.

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A Department of Labor final rule means millions of salaried workers who are employed in the executive, administrative or professional industries will become eligible for overtime pay. (Getty stock photo)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor Tuesday announced a final rule that means millions of salaried workers who are employed in the executive, administrative or professional industries will become eligible for overtime pay.

The rule will affect roughly 4 million workers in the first year of implementation and will be broken into two checkpoints. The first will be on July 1, with an impact on 1 million workers, and another on Jan. 1, 2025, affecting 3 million workers, Wage and Hour Division Administrator Jessica Looman said on a call with reporters previewing the regulation.

On July 1, the agency will update standard salary levels using an existing methodology developed under the Trump administration, Looman said. The salary level at which salaried employees are exempt from overtime will rise at that point from $684 per week to $844 per week, which is the equivalent of $43,888 per year.

On Jan. 1, the agency will move to a new methodology that will set the standard salary level to the 35th percentile of “full-time salaried workers in the lowest-wage census region, which is the South,” Looman said.

That will result in an exempt salary level of $1,128 per week, or the equivalent of $58,656 per year.

“The strength of these protections continues to decline over time, and sometimes workers are working excessive hours with no additional pay,” Looman said, adding that some workers are exempt from protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

President Joe Biden, in a video, said, “We’re putting more money in the pockets of millions of American workers. Because you earned it.”

The Department of Labor has typically updated the salary requirement levels every five to nine years since 1938, but after 1975, those updates have been more unpredictable. Salary levels have not been updated in at least four years.

Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda said on the call with reporters that DOL has tried to “strike the right balance between the salary level and the duties,” and that “striking the wrong balance means that lower-paid salary workers don’t get the overtime protections that they should under the act.”

Future updates to the salary level will occur every three years, and will apply “up-to-date wage data to the salary and compensation methodologies in the regulation at the time of the update,” Looman said.

The next update will take place on July 1, 2027.

The Labor Department included exemptions to the new standards, including in U.S. territories.

“The final rule does not finalize proposals to raise the salary threshold for workers in the four U.S. territories that are currently subjected to the federal minimum wage, which are Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands,” Looman said. “The rule also doesn’t finalize updates to the special salary levels for American Samoa and the motion picture industry in relation to the new standard salary level.”

DOL will address those updates in a future final rule, she said.

“The final rule announced today restores and extends overtime protections to lower paid salary workers and prevents a future erosion of overtime protections while ensuring greater predictability,” Looman said.

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Homeless rights activists hold a rally outside of the U.S. Supreme Court on April 22, 2024 in Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, a dispute over the constitutionality of ordinances that bar people who are homeless from camping on city streets. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

WASHINGTON — A majority of U.S Supreme Court justices Monday seemed inclined to side with an Oregon town’s law that bans homeless people from sleeping outdoors, in a case that could have broad implications for local ordinances related to homelessness across the country.

During oral arguments in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, conservative justices said that policies and ordinances dealing with homelessness are complex, and indicated it’s a policy question that should be left up to local elected representatives rather than the courts.

“Why do you think these nine people are the best people to judge and weigh those policy judgments?” Chief Justice John Roberts asked, referring to the Supreme Court.

Taking a much different tack, the three liberal justices said that Grants Pass officials went too far and targeted those experiencing homelessness with fines for the basic human need to sleep when they camped outside.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor grilled the lawyer for Grants Pass on how the city law essentially criminalized homelessness.

“You don’t arrest babies who have blankets over them, you don’t arrest people who are sleeping on the beach, as I tend to do if I’ve been there a while. You only arrest people who don’t have a second home, is that correct?” Sotomayor said.

The case originated in Grants Pass, a city in northwest Oregon that argues its ordinance is a solution to the city’s homelessness crisis.

An attorney representing a group of homeless people argued that they are involuntarily without housing because there are limited shelter beds for the number of homeless people in the area. The lawyer also said the ordinances criminalize homelessness through fines and potential jail time for camping or sleeping in outdoor spaces.

The town of nearly 40,000 has about 600 people who are homeless and the only nonprofit that can provide shelter can house only up to 100 beds, according to a brief submitted by the nonprofit, Grants Pass Gospel Rescue Mission.

‘Cruel and unusual punishment’

The justices are being asked to decide whether the enforcement of that local ordinance on regulating camping on public property violated the “cruel and unusual punishment” clause of the Eighth Amendment.

Theane Evangelis, the attorney representing the city, argued that the city is going after the conduct of unhoused people, rather than the status of homelessness.

“We can look at the law and it has a conduct element — the conduct is establishing a campsite,” she said.

The attorney representing the plaintiffs, Kelsi B. Corkran, argued that the ordinance is a violation of the Eighth Amendment by inflicting punishment for the status of being homeless.

“Although the city describes its ordinances as punishing camping on public property, it defines campsite as any place a homeless person is while covered with a blanket,” she said. “The city interprets and applies the ordinances to permit non-homeless people to rest on blankets and public parks, while a homeless person who does the same thing breaks the law.”

Corkran is representing Gloria Johnson and John Logan, who are both homeless.

Effects across the United States

The case could not only have implications for the city in Oregon where the case originated, but for cities across the U.S., particularly in the West, including Las Vegas and Henderson in Nevada, that have similar ordinances and are grappling with an increasing homelessness crisis.

There are nearly 327,000 people who are homeless in the country, according to most recent U.S. Census data. States with the highest population of homeless people per 10,000 people include California, Oregon, Washington and Montana, according to five-year estimates in the American Community Survey.

Outside the court, advocates gathered to show their support of the injunction that bars the city ordinance from taking place.

“Homelessness is a result of systemic issues such as a lack of affordable housing, exorbitant rents, and a shortage of well-paying jobs,” Sarae Lewis, a spokesperson for Community Solutions, said in a statement. “Arresting and fining people for sleeping on the streets is ineffective, keeps people homeless for longer, and distracts from real solutions like those we see working in communities across the country.”

Community Solutions, a nonprofit that works to end homelessness, was joined by other organizations that advocate for people without homes such as the National Homelessness Law Center and the National Coalition for the Homeless.

History of the case

The city is appealing to the Supreme Court after lower courts ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, Johnson and Logan, who are homeless residents of Grants Pass.

A federal judge blocked the city’s ordinance that prohibited people from camping and sleeping in parks and on public property. Grants Pass also barred people who are homeless from using blankets, pillows or other material to protect themselves from the weather while sleeping outside.

If that ordinance was violated, it carried a $295 fine that, if not paid, increased to more than $530. Repeat offenders could also be jailed for up to 30 days.

A three-panel judge on the 9th Circuit determined in 2022 that the city has such strict restrictions on anyone sleeping outdoors that it led to a ban on being homeless. 

That decision relied on a 2018 case, Martin v. City of Boise. The case involved homeless plaintiffs who sued the city of Boise, Idaho after it fined them under a camping ordinance.

The 9th Circuit found that the city’s ordinance violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment because it imposes criminal penalties for homeless people sleeping outside or on public property when they do not have access to a shelter.

On Monday, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted that the state of Oregon enacted a statute that codified the Martin case, saying city regulations “of this nature have to be objectively reasonable as to time, place and manner, with regards to people experiencing homelessness.”

“It seems like the state has already precluded Grants Pass from doing the sort of thing it’s doing here,” Jackson said to Evangelis.

Evangelis said that the new law was not similar to the Martin case and that the city ordinance also takes into consideration the safety of the community.

“They protect the health and safety of everyone and it is not safe to live in encampments,” she said. “It’s unsanitary. There are the harms of the encampments themselves on those in them and outside.”

City’s argument

Evangelis argued that the court of appeals was wrong in its interpretation, as well as the plaintiffs, who cite a 1962 Supreme Court decision in Robinson v. California.

In that case, the Supreme Court deemed that a state cannot criminalize someone for their status of being addicted to drugs because it violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment.”

That case barred the criminalization of narcotics addiction, but not the conduct of the crime that someone who is addicted to drugs might participate in, such as using, buying, selling or possessing drugs.

Evangelis argued that the Grants Pass law is “so far removed from what was at issue in Robinson that it just isn’t implicated here.” She said that the city’s ordinance does not criminalize the status of homelessness.

Justice Samuel Alito said that the Robinson case “presents a very difficult conceptual question.”

“The point is that the connection between drug addiction and drug usage is more tenuous than the connection between absolute homelessness and sleeping outside,” he said.

Evangelis said that the case the plaintiffs are making is that camping or sleeping outside and being homeless are “two sides of the same coin.”

“It’s collapsing the status that they claim into the conduct,” she said. “So we think the conduct here is very clear, because it applies generally to everyone. The law does not say on its face, ‘It is a crime to be homeless,’ I just want to make that clear.”

Justice Elena Kagan asked if under Robinson, the status of homelessness could be criminalized.

“I don’t think that homelessness is a status like drug addiction,” Evangelis said.

Kagan said that homelessness is a status, because “it’s the status of not having a home.”

Evangelis said she disagreed with that because being homeless is a fluid experience that could change from day to day.

Jackson said that the city’s ordinance seemed to punish the basic need for sleep.

“What’s happening is you’re only punishing certain people who can’t afford to do it privately,” she said.

Corkran argued that if someone is violating the city ordinance, and is told to leave but they have no place to go, that means that person is homeless.

“So again, homelessness is not something you can do, it’s just something that you are,” she said.

Department of Justice neutral 

The Biden administration took the middle ground, issuing a brief that is neither in support of nor against either party.

The brief agreed with the 9th Circuit decision in the Idaho case, but argued that cities should be allowed to enforce restrictions for the health and safety of their residents.

“Although the United States continues to believe that the fundamental principle recognized in Martin is sound, it shares amici’s concerns about the broad and burdensome injunctions entered by some district courts in the Ninth Circuit, which may limit cities’ ability to respond appropriately and humanely to encampments and other legitimate public health and safety concerns,” U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote.

U.S. Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler offered partial support in a brief statement and also answered questions posed by the justices.

“It’s the municipality’s determination, certainly in the first instance with a great deal of flexibility, how to address the question of homelessness,” he said.

A constitutional issue?

Justice Brett Kavanaugh seemed skeptical that the city’s ordinance was a constitutional issue and instead is a policy one, such as how there are not enough beds.

“Do you think the constitutional role should be different when the number of beds available in the jurisdiction exceeds the number of homeless people versus the number of homeless people exceeds the number of beds available in shelters?” he asked Evangelis.

She said that it was unworkable.

“There is no way to count what beds are available and who is perhaps willing to take one and who would consider it adequate, then the question becomes, are those beds adequate?” she said.

Kavanaugh said that “it’s a difficult policy question.”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked Evangelis if the city laws are enforced, “is there a way for everyone to be cared for?”

“That ultimate question is for the legislature and policymakers to figure out what the right solution (is), what the right mix of policies is, but the wrong answer is to do what the 9th Circuit did here,” Evangelis said.

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Official Photo of the Swearing In of Senators for the Alejandro Mayorkas impeachment trial in the Senate Chamber, in Washington, DC on April 17, 2024. (Official U.S. Senate photo by Daniel Rios)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Wednesday dismissed two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The Democrat-controlled chamber voted, 51-49 along party lines, to adjourn the impeachment trial after finding that the impeachment articles accusing Mayorkas of not complying with federal immigration law and breaching the public trust did not rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors and were therefore unconstitutional.

“The charges brought against Secretary Mayorkas fail to meet the high standard of high crimes and misdemeanors,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor before a series of votes. “To validate this gross abuse by the House would be a grave mistake and could set a dangerous precedent for the future.”

The adjournment vote followed successful votes to drop the two House-passed articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, as well as a series of Republican motions to adjourn the court of impeachment or enter closed session, which all failed.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the only senator to break party ranks during an afternoon vote series. She voted “present” on a motion to drop the first article of impeachment.

Senators were sworn in Wednesday as jurors after House Republican impeachment managers delivered the two articles of impeachment the day before, starting the proceedings. House Republicans voted to impeach Mayorkas, on their second try, in February.

Republicans have demanded a trial, while Senate Democrats indicated they planned to either dismiss the articles or table the trial because they argued the charges against Mayorkas did not reach the constitutional threshold required of impeachment, which is “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

“To validate this gross abuse by the House would be a grave mistake and could set a dangerous precedent for the future,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said.

Republicans blast process

Following the vote, Republicans slammed Democrats, arguing the move to avoid a trial set a precedent.

“They created a new precedent saying you don’t even have to vote on the articles (of impeachment),” Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri told reporters off the Senate floor.

Missouri Republican Eric Schmitt warned that voters would remember the Senate’s decision in the November elections.

“They see what a disaster the border’s been,” he said to reporters.

Congressional Democrats and the White House have criticized Republicans’ efforts to impeach Mayorkas as political and campaign fodder for the November elections. Congressional Republicans and the Biden administration have clashed over immigration policy for years.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell argued Wednesday it was senators’ constitutional duty to hold a trial.

“It is the job of this body to consider the articles of impeachment brought before us and to render judgment,” the Kentucky Republican said on the Senate floor.

Even if a trial had been held, it’s unlikely that the two-thirds majority in the Senate required to remove Mayorkas could have been reached.

In an email, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said House Republicans have not provided the necessary evidence to warrant an impeachment effort.

“Secretary Mayorkas spent months helping a bipartisan group of Senators craft a tough but fair bill that would give DHS the tools necessary to meet today’s border security challenges, but the same House Republicans playing political games with this impeachment chose to block that bipartisan compromise,” the spokesperson said.

“Congressional Republicans should stop wasting time with unfounded attacks, and instead do their job by passing bipartisan legislation to properly fund the Department’s vital national security missions and finally fix our broken immigration system.”

Amid the impeachment proceedings in the Senate, Mayorkas has been making his rounds on Capitol Hill to defend the president’s fiscal year 2025 budget for the Department of Homeland Security.

White House Spokesperson for Oversight and Investigations Ian Sams praised the Senate’s decision in a statement.

“Once and for all, the Senate has rightly voted down this baseless impeachment that even conservative legal scholars said was unconstitutional,” he said.

Several votes

Washington state Democrat Sen. Patty Murray presided over the impeachment proceedings, which included several votes Wednesday afternoon.

Schumer tried to approve by unanimous consent a structure for the trial, including debate time and the number of points of order senators could make, but Schmitt objected.

“I will not assist Sen. Schumer in setting our Constitution ablaze,” he said.

Schumer then raised a point of order declaring that the first article of impeachment did not rise to high crimes under the constitution, leading to a series of Republican senators demanding votes on proposals to delay a vote on Schumer’s motion

Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, moved to go to closed session and debate the articles of impeachment but Schumer objected. GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah made the same motion. Senators voted on both motions and rejected them 49-51.

Sen. John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, made a motion to adjourn the court of impeachment and begin impeachment proceedings on April 30 at noon.

Kennedy’s motion failed 49-51.

GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida made the same motion to adjourn, which also failed 49-51.

They went back to the point of order Schumer made that declared the first article of impeachment was unconstitutional. The Senate voted, 51-48, to reject the first article of impeachment on the grounds that it did not rise to the constitutional standard for impeachment, with Murkowski voting present.

Schumer made an identical point of order on the second article of impeachment.

Kennedy again filed a motion to adjourn to May 1, 2004 for impeachment proceedings. He corrected his request to 2024. It again failed 49-51.

GOP Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas then made a motion to adjourn until Nov. 6 until after the election and “before this body disrespects the Constitution.”  It failed 49-51.

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, moved to table Schumer’s second point of order that the second article of impeachment is unconstitutional. It failed 49-51.

Senators then approved Schumer’s second motion, 51-49.

House action

Georgia’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been at the forefront of impeachment efforts against Mayorkas, first introducing the measure in September.

Greene is also a House impeachment manager, along with GOP Reps. Mark Green of Tennessee, Michael McCaul of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ben Cline of Virginia, Andrew Garbarino of New York, Michael Guest of Mississippi, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Laurel Lee of Florida and August Pfluger of Texas.

Two of the impeachment managers, Biggs and Higgins, came to the Senate Wednesday to watch that chamber’s proceedings.

The two articles of impeachment charged Mayorkas with not complying with federal immigration law and breaching the public trust.

The first article of impeachment accused Mayorkas of contributing to myriad problems, including rising profits for smuggling operations, a high backlog of asylum cases in immigration courts, fentanyl-related deaths and migrant children found working in dangerous jobs. Republican state legislatures have moved to roll back child labor laws in industries from the food industry to roofing.

Republicans argued that the first article of impeachment would hold Mayorkas accountable for the large number of migrants that have traveled to the southern border to claim asylum. The Biden administration is dealing with the largest number of migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in 20 years.

The second article of impeachment charged Mayorkas with breaching public trust by making several statements in congressional testimony that Republicans argue are false, such as Mayorkas telling lawmakers that the southern border is “secure.”

The second article also charged Mayorkas with not fulfilling his statutory duty by rolling back Trump-era policies such as terminating contracts that would have continued construction of the border wall and ending the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy that was ended after it went up to the Supreme Court.

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U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas holds a press conference at a U.S. Border Patrol station in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Jan. 8, 2024. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

WASHINGTON — More than 40 U.S. Senate Republicans lobbied Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday to hold a full impeachment trial for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Schumer and other Democrats have indicated they’d be open to immediately voting to dismiss the House-passed articles of impeachment rather than holding a trial in the Senate. The Republicans who signed the letter urged Schumer not to pursue that option, saying Mayorkas should be held accountable.

“In the face of the disaster that mounts daily at our southern border, and in communities across America, the House of Representatives has formally accused Alejandro Mayorkas of demeaning his office,” according to the letter signed by 43 Senate Republicans. “The American people deserve to hear the evidence through a Senate trial in the Court of Impeachment.”

Six Senate Republicans did not sign the letter: Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mitt Romney of Utah and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.

A simple majority of senators would be needed to approve a pretrial motion to dismiss. Democrats and independents who typically vote with them hold a 51-49 advantage in the chamber.

House Republicans failed to impeach Mayorkas on their first try and needed a second vote to approve the articles of impeachment against the Homeland Security chief. No Democrats voted in favor.

The two articles of impeachment accuse Mayorkas of a “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law,” and a breach of public trust. Democrats say the charges are based on policy disputes rather than the “high crimes and misdemeanors” threshold of an impeachable offense.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and 11 House Republican impeachment managers had planned to ceremoniously walk over the two articles of impeachment to the Senate on Wednesday, which would have forced Schumer to begin the impeachment process the following day. But at the request of Senate Republicans concerned with catching flights back home the same day proceedings would start, Johnson delayed the delivery.

In a Tuesday statement announcing the delay, a Johnson spokesperson also said the Senate should not dismiss the charges without a trial.

“To ensure the Senate has adequate time to perform its constitutional duty, the House will transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate next week,” the Johnson spokesperson wrote in a statement. “There is no reason whatsoever for the Senate to abdicate its responsibility to hold an impeachment trial.”

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