Here are this week’s SWAJ Research Links, compiled by SWAJ Team Member Mark Kurth.
National Inquiries
Marjorie Taylor Greene files motion to remove Speaker Mike Johnson
Why it matters: Greene isn't yet forcing the vote to remove Johnson as speaker — but the move lays the groundwork for another historic showdown on the House floor.
Johnson's predecessor, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), became the first House speaker to be ousted after hardline Republicans triggered a motion to vacate against him last year.
Greene said she would bring the vote to remove Johnson if he attempts to pass Ukraine aid, which she and other hardline Republicans fervently oppose.
How The Far Right Engineered An Assault On Abortion Access, Even In Blue States
On Tuesday, the justices will hear arguments in a case specially designed to give them another opportunity to erode abortion access across the country: FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine.
Since the court ruled on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overturned Roe v. Wade, Americans have come to rely even more on an “abortion pill,” mifepristone, a method of ending a pregnancy that can fit through the mail and be taken from the comfort of home. The drug was already the most common drug used in medication abortions before the court’s bombshell decision, and data shows that its use has ticked up as abortion clinics shuttered across conservative-led states.
RNC weighs limiting NBC’s access at this summer’s convention
Such a move would mark a dramatic escalation in the growing rift between Donald Trump-allies and the TV network — a rift that has stemmed from NBC’s decision to part ways with McDaniel amid a revolt among top on-air talent.
“We are taking a hard look at what this means for NBC’s participation at the convention,” said Danielle Alvarez, a spokesperson for the RNC and the Trump campaign. “Our priority is making sure this is a world class event that allows President Trump to feature his message and vision in a fair way.”
RNC staffers and new hires asked whether they believe the 2020 election was stolen
A key focus for the Trump campaign, and newly-elected leadership at the RNC, ahead of the 2024 election is election fraud. Much of that focus stems from former President Donald Trump’s dissatisfaction with how the RNC handled claims of election fraud around the 2020 election, multiple sources familiar with the matter said. There is no evidence of widespread election fraud in the last presidential contest.
“Candidates who worked on the front line in battleground states or are currently in states where fraud allegations have been prevalent were asked about their work experience. We want experienced staff with meaningful views on how elections are won and lost and real experience-based opinions about what happens in the trenches,” RNC spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez told CNN.
Former RNC chair McDaniel calls January 6 Capitol attack ‘unacceptable’ after years of deflection
McDaniel, who is joining NBC News as a political analyst after exiting the RNC earlier this month, told the outlet that the Capitol riot “doesn’t represent our country. It certainly does not represent my party.”
“We should not be attacking the Capitol; we should not be having violence,” she added. Asked why she didn’t offer such condemnation as RNC chairwoman, McDaniel responded, “When you’re the RNC chair, you kind of take one for the whole team. Right now, I get to be a little bit more myself.”
Forget Kennedy Democrats. Here Comes the 2024 Kennedy Voter.
For decades, the Kennedy name was synonymous with a mainstream strain of civic optimism that preached public service and a beneficent government. It enthralled aspiring Democratic politicians like California Governor and avowed Kennedy admirer Gavin Newsom. But that was a different era, when a different kind of Kennedy could be seen running for the highest office in the land — and when more Americans had faith in their government. Today, RFK Jr.’s supporters tend to place a corrupt government at the root of America’s ills. They ask not what their government can do for them but what it has done to them.
Judge tosses Elon Musk’s case against hate speech watchdog in excoriating rebuke
In a blistering 52-page order, the judge blasted X’s case as plainly punitive rather than about protecting the platform’s security and legal rights.
“Sometimes it is unclear what is driving a litigation,” wrote District Judge Charles Breyer, of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, in the order’s opening lines. “Other times, a complaint is so unabashedly and vociferously about one thing that there can be no mistaking that purpose.”
Jeff Yass just bought Trump. Here’s what he stands to gain.
Yass’ name recently started popping up in news reports after Trump denounced legislation in Congress that could ban TikTok unless the social media outlet is sold from its China-based parent company. This was a major reversal of Trump’s previous opposition to TikTok and came after Yass met with Trump in Florida, with the backdrop of the former president’s mounting legal fees only adding to suspicion that Yass essentially could be purchasing a presidential candidate.
Judge recommends ex-Trump election lawyer John Eastman be disbarred
Judge Yvette Roland’s opinion comes after a lengthy trial about Eastman’s actions as he led some of the efforts for Donald Trump to challenge his 2020 election loss. The opinion serves as a recommendation to the California Supreme Court, which will ultimately decide whether to endorse or reject the punishment. Eastman will have the opportunity to appeal Roland’s ruling.
Ronna McDaniel said the quiet part out loud on NBC
Freed from former President Donald Trump’s gravitational pull, McDaniel, the former Republican National Committee chair, could now express beliefs that included such bromides as “people who violently attacked Capitol Hill police officers and — and attacked the Capitol” should be held accountable and that in the 2020 presidential election, President Joe Biden won “fair and square.”
NBC News ousts Ronna McDaniel after network’s anchors launch unprecedented on-air rebellion
Ahead of the network’s decision, McDaniel spent the day Tuesday interviewing attorneys in preparation for a potential legal battle with NBC, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. Creative Artists Agency, the talent agency that brokered McDaniel’s deal with NBC, also parted ways with her, the person said.
The reversal comes after journalists and anchors at both NBC and its cable news sibling MSNBC publicly denounced the decision to hire McDaniel as a paid analyst in a stunning and unprecedented on-air rebuke of network brass that has embarrassed the Peacock Network.
NBC’s McDaniel mess threatens to explode
The decision to hire McDaniel, which was unanimously supported by top network executives, has already divided and destabilized one of America’s most storied news organizations, with internal dismay flaring on text chains and Slack channels since the deal was announced late last week.
A Supreme Court Justice Sounds a Warning
The conflict between the left and right on the court is virtually impossible to bridge. Conservative justices broadly favor a theory of constitutional interpretation known as “originalism,” which purports to interpret the Constitution in accordance with the public meaning of the text when enacted, and a theory of statutory interpretation known as “textualism,” which prioritizes the text over considerations like congressional purpose and practical consequences when interpreting laws passed by Congress. Liberal justices like Breyer had long embraced theories that were flexible in nature — that allowed judges to account for a variety of inputs when answering hard legal questions.
The Group Behind Dobbs Does Not Want to Talk About What Comes Next
Kristen Waggoner, ADF’s CEO, president and general counsel, has become the face of the group’s anti-abortion campaign, building a reputation within conservative legal circles as a formidable litigator and happy warrior for the anti-abortion cause. (Waggoner’s opponents, meanwhile, have compared her to the “cheerful authoritarian bureaucrat” Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter series.)
She was candid about the fact that the ADF’s current lawsuit is part of a much broader legal strategy to restrict access to abortion, and she defended her belief that the 14th Amendment guarantees equal protection to all embryos from the moment of conception — a position that, if endorsed by the courts, would likely amount to a constitutional ban on all abortions. In a less cheerful tone, she chaffed at the suggestion that ADF’s positions could lead to restrictions on access to contraception — but defended ADF’s claim that emergency birth control methods like Ella are abortion-causing drugs.
Why Chuck Todd’s Scorcher Against NBC Matters
The hottest criticism took place on NBC News’ own Sunday edition of Meet the Press after McDaniel made her first appearance, when Chuck Todd, Meet the Press’ former host, laid down a barrage of verbal spitfire. NBC News bosses owed the current host, Kristen Welker, an apology for foisting McDaniel on the show, Todd said. “I have no idea whether any answer she gave to you was because she didn’t want to mess up her contract,” Todd said.
It was a remarkable 2 minutes 21 seconds of television. First, because the first law of journalism was violated by allowing the program itself to become the story. And second, because it put a glaring spotlight on one of the fundamental flaws embedded in the modern news ecosystem, and cable news in particular: the toxic revolving door between political operatives and mainstream media.
A Capitol Rioter Has Become a Right-Wing Media Darling. She Just Got Arrested.
In the three years since the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, more than 1,300 participants have been charged with crimes. But outside a few of the flashiest and most memorable characters from the day, most individual prosecutions have passed with little public note. Last Monday, however, the news of one arrest was met with more outrage: that of Isabella Maria DeLuca, a 24-year-old conservative influencer.
According to prosecutors, on Jan. 6, 2021, DeLuca—who was arrested on Friday—entered a set of conference rooms inside the Capitol building by climbing through a broken window. She then climbed back out and was one of several people who passed a table from a Senate terrace room to rioters outside the building. The FBI testified that rioters later used the table to attack Capitol Police.
Trump ramps up attacks on judge in hush money case after gag order
On his social media platform, Trump called Judge Juan Merchan “biased and conflicted” while also taking aim at the judge’s daughter for a social media post that a court spokesperson said was wrongly attributed to her.
In a ruling Tuesday, Merchan noted the impending April 15 trial date and said Trump must "refrain" from “making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation” in the case, as well as about individual prosecutors and court staff and their family members.
The order did not mention the judge and his family members — a loophole Trump exploited Wednesday.
Book of Donald: Trump hawks special ‘God Bless the USA’ Bibles for $60
In a post to his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, the current presumptive Republican nominee and 88-times charged criminal defendant said: “Happy Holy Week! Let’s Make America Pray Again. As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless the USA Bible.”
In an accompanying video message, Trump said: “I’m proud to be partnering with my very good friend Lee Greenwood – who doesn’t love his song God Bless the USA? – in connection with promoting the God Bless the USA Bible.”
Prayer, Bible lessons and a big red bus: How an Ohio group is bringing God to public school
LifeWise Academy is permitted under a pair of little-known, decades-old U.S. Supreme Court rulings that allow for off-campus religious instruction during school hours.
When LifeWise launched in 2018, the initial goal was to serve 25 schools by 2025, but it surpassed that long ago. By the start of this year, LifeWise had set up chapters in more than 300 schools in a dozen states, teaching 35,000 public school students weekly Bible lessons that are usually scheduled to coincide with lunch or noncore courses such as library, art or gym class.
LifeWise has won support from conservatives on the front lines of the new culture wars over LGBTQ inclusion, sexually explicit library books and the role of racism in American history. But it also has a growing foothold in some progressive suburbs and cities, including deep-blue Columbus, Ohio.
States Fights
Georgia Republican official and outspoken election denier caught voting illegally 9 times
Administrative Law Judge Lisa Boggs wrote in her Wednesday decision that Pritchard, the Georgia GOP’s first vice chairman, violated state election laws by voting while on probation for forgery and other felonies, and that his explanations were neither "credible or convincing."
Pritchard must pay a $5,000 fine and $375.14 in investigative costs incurred by the court. Boggs also ordered that Pritchard “be publicly reprimanded for his conduct” by the State Election Board, which sought the sanctions against him.
The State Superintendent at the Forefront of the GOP’s Education Crusade
Walters became superintendent, a role that oversees all public education in the state, a year ago after winning a commanding margin during 2022’s midterm elections, and he’s quickly catapulted himself to the forefront of social conservatives’ influence over education just as the 2024 presidential election promises enormous consequences for American schooling. Wielding a doctrine of brimstone-salted classroom policy, he is the incarnation of a post-pandemic GOP school takeover attempt that has boiled over from local boards to higher-profile jobs like state superintendent and beyond.
Life Insurance To Be Given to Embryos Under New Bill
A new bill in South Carolina is seeking to extend life insurance coverage to embryos.
House bill 5725 was introduced in the state's House of Representatives on March 19. The bill text stipulates that any insurer that offers individual or group life insurance policies to extend the policy to unborn embryos. While still in the legislative process, if enacted the bill would give unborn embryos the same individual rights as born children who are no longer in the womb or other state prior to birth.
Abortion proves winning strategy for Alabama Democrat
Marilyn Lands won a state House seat in a rare competitive race to represent a district that includes parts of Huntsville. Lands, a mental health professional, centered her bid on reproductive rights and criticized the state’s near-total abortion ban along with a recent state Supreme Court ruling that temporarily banned in vitro fertilization.
“Today, Alabama women and families sent a clear message that will be heard in Montgomery and across the nation,” Lands said in a statement. “Our legislature must repeal Alabama’s no-exceptions abortion ban, fully restore access to IVF, and protect the right to contraception.”
Thank you so much for including the story about Lifewise!