New York Democrats Overwhelmingly Block Kathy Hochul’s Pick for Top Judge

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has made history, after her nominee for the state’s highest court was rejected by the entire state legislature.

Last month, Hochul’s controversial nominee, Judge Hector LaSalle, was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee. And on Wednesday, the Senate held a full floor vote and again rejected LaSalle, this time by a vote of 39–20.

Hochul released a statement Wednesday afternoon finally relenting, though perhaps not fully. “This vote is an important victory for the Constitution,” she said. “But it was not a vote on the merits of Justice LaSalle.” Hochul said she will now proceed to make a new nomination.

New York Senate Democrats initially voted against LaSalle due to concerns from the entire Democratic constituency over his judicial record on labor, abortion, and criminal justice. Rather than heeding their earlier warnings, Hochul instead promised to do “everything” in her power to push her nominee onto the state’s Court of Appeals.

The drama began in December, when, just weeks after beating a Republican during a midterm election in New York by only five points, Hochul chose to nominate LaSalle, whose record was criticized by liberals, progressives, workers, and abortion voters as being antagonistic to supposed Democratic values. These various constituent groups maintained pressure on legislators, and by Wednesday’s vote, at least 25 of the 63 state senators had publicly expressed opposition to LaSalle’s nomination.

Instead of responding to the criticism and nominating someone else from her list of seven potential picks, Hochul spent much of her political capital, and then some, to impose her will and force through LaSalle’s nomination anyway.

In early January, Hochul allegedly revoked Ironworkers Vice President James Mahoney’s invitation to the State of the State address, after the prominent labor representative criticized Hochul’s pick. It felt like being put “on the menu,” Mahoney said, particularly after he and other labor organizers worked so hard to elect Hochul in the first place.

Days later, newly anointed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries went out of his way to appear alongside Hochul at a Bronx rally to enthusiastically endorse LaSalle. This was particularly striking given that Jeffries is House minority leader, and not House speaker, in no small part thanks to the Cuomo-crafted conservative majority on the state’s top court, which drew unfavorable district maps.

Her audacity never to be discounted, Hochul then appeared at two New York City churches on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to rally support for her nomination. “My household knew the story of Dr. King,” Hochul preached to the unsuspecting audience. “When he was gunned down, assassinated, my family sat there and held hands and wept. How could this be? How could this man of God who taught us about nonviolence and social justice and change, and not judging people by the color of their skin, or one or two cases out of 5,000 cases decided,” she concluded, tying the assassination of one of America’s most historic civil rights leaders to her unpopular court nominee.

Nevertheless, in mid-January, the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee voted to prevent Judge Hector LaSalle from advancing to a Senate-wide vote. Buttressed by Democratic voters across the ideological spectrum, 10 of the committee’s 19 Democrats voted against LaSalle, sinking his nomination with a final vote count of 2–10–7. (Two members voted unequivocally for him; seven voted to advance him without recommendation.)

Even then, Hochul wasn’t satisfied. She volleyed threats to take legal action against the Committee for tanking the nomination, on the grounds of the rejection being unconstitutional. She argued that such a nomination necessitated a Senate-wide vote; but New York’s Constitution only dictates that a governor must make judicial appointments with the “advice and consent of the Senate.”

Last week, Republican State Senator Anthony Palumbo filed a lawsuit against the Senate, Democratic Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and the Democrats in the judiciary committee who voted against LaSalle. The lawsuit was based on Hochul’s own arguments about constitutionality, but its legal case appears flimsy, homing in on some language while ignoring others. For instance, the lawsuit’s proponents seemed less interested in the part of the state constitution that reads, “Each house shall determine the rules of its own proceedings.”

But Wednesday’s result likely upends whatever ruling was to come from the case. By Hochul’s own wishes, Democrats gave her her statewide vote. And today, by Hochul’s own actions, she was embarrassingly rebuked once again.

This post has been updated.

Virginia’s Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin poured cold water on a bill that would have prevented law enforcement from accessing data stored on period-tracking apps.

The bill, which comes amid increasing attacks on abortion nationwide, had already passed the state Senate with broad bipartisan support. Only nine of the chamber’s 18 Republicans voted against it, while the other half sided with the Democratic majority. But it failed in the House of Delegates Monday after Youngkin’s administration expressed opposition to it.

“Currently, any health information or app information is available via search warrant,” said Virginia’s Deputy Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security Maggie Cleary, speaking on Youngkin’s behalf. “We believe that should continue to be the case.”

She warned legislators the bill would be the very first to limit what state courts can deem relevant enough to criminal cases that it merits a search warrant.

The bill’s sponsor, Democratic Senator Barbara Favola, argued that period data should be considered a unique case because “there’s very little information that is as personal and private as your menstrual data.” But the bill still failed 5–3 along party lines.

“It is exceptionally disquieting to see Governor Youngkin oppose a bill that would protect women from having their private health data weaponized against them in a court of law,” Democratic Party of Virginia press secretary Liam Watson said in a statement.

Tarina D. Keene, the executive director of the abortion rights group, REPRO Rising Virginia, told The Washington Post that Youngkin’s “opposition to this commonsense privacy protection measure shows his real intentions—to ban abortion and criminalize patients and medical providers.”

Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, many people have worried that data collected from hugely popular period-tracking apps could be weaponized as a means to find and prosecute those who get abortions.

Millions of people use such apps, which are not bound by HIPAA, the federal health privacy law. This means that the app companies are required to hand over information to law enforcement if asked. Abortion rights groups have warned the information could be used against both people who seek abortions and the medical workers who carry out the procedure.

Abortion in Virginia is currently legal up to 26 weeks of pregnancy. State law allows prosecutors to charge doctors who violate the restrictions, but not the patients. Youngkin’s office has said he will not sign legislation that “imprisons women” for getting the procedure, but he has also pledged to sign any abortion bans that reach his desk.

He backed a 15-week abortion ban after Roe was overturned, and in his proposed budget unveiled in December, he proposed setting aside $50,000 to establish that limit. The ban failed in the Senate in late January.

Youngkin’s opposition to privacy for menstrual history comes just days after the Florida High School Athletics Association decided not to require student athletes to provide their schools with detailed information about their periods.

A board panel had recommended the requirement in January, which caused such a massive outcry over privacy violations that the board called an emergency meeting over the rule. On the national level, a group of Democratic representatives also introduced a bill that would block schools that receive federal funding from requiring students to provide their menstrual data. The bill is unlikely to pass the House, which is controlled by Republicans, who have made it clear they are cracking down on all abortion-related rights.

A Kentucky Republican lawmaker has introduced legislation that would let the state prosecute a person who gets an illegal abortion for criminal homicide, making it the latest state to try and clamp down on reproductive access in direct opposition to the will of the people.

Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, abortion is banned in Kentucky except to save the life of the pregnant person, meaning any abortion due to rape, incest, or just personal choice is illegal. The current law, though, does state that someone who receives an illegal abortion cannot be subjected to “any criminal conviction and penalty.”

The new bill, introduced Tuesday by Republican State Representative Emily Callaway, strips away that protection. The legislation would amend the current law to establish that life begins at fertilization, therefore all fetuses are owed the same protections as a living human.

“Unless specifically provided otherwise, in prosecution under this chapter where the victim is an unborn child, enforcement shall be subject to the same legal principles as would apply to the homicide of a person who had been born alive,” the text says.

The bill does make exceptions for “lawful” medical procedures carried out to save the pregnant person’s life. It also protects against prosecution for a medical procedure that results in a “natural or accidental” miscarriage.

The bill comes just a few months after Kentucky residents voted in the midterms against an amendment that would have said abortion is not a protected right in the state.

Heather Gatnarek, the ACLU of Kentucky’s senior staff attorney, slammed the new legislation as “absurd and offensive and dangerous.”

“It’s just so far afield from what we know Kentuckians want and what they need,” she told The Courier Journal. “We know people still need access to abortions.”

Kentucky is now the latest state to try to overturn the will of the people. The most notable one is Kansas, where lawmakers are trying to let cities and counties ban abortion after residents overwhelmingly voted to keep abortion protections in the state constitution.

Republicans have made clear they are going full-speed ahead with attacks on abortion rights, both at the state and federal level. Democrats are trying to combat their attempts, but it is an uphill battle. President Joe Biden has promised repeatedly to veto any federal abortion ban bills, but any legislation actually enshrining the right to the procedure is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives or even the Senate, which Democrats hold by a thin majority.

As thousands of residents of East Palestine, Ohio, struggle to find safe accommodation and tend to their alarming symptoms in the aftermath of a disastrous train derailment, Republican Governor Mike DeWine assured the public on Tuesday that he is “not seeing” any problems.

DeWine said this in response to a question on whether he was satisfied with the Biden administration’s response. DeWine contrasted himself from do-nothing Senator J.D. Vance, who complained (rightly) about the lack of a federal response; the Ohio governor said while he has spoken with President Biden, who offered assistance, he felt that no further assistance was needed.

While Vance and other Republicans might rightfully question the government’s inaction, they too have seldom done anything worth calling home about. Vance complained about the country being ruled by “unserious people who are worried about fake problems instead of the real fact that our country is falling apart.” Just hours before the train derailed, Vance posted a photo on Twitter of him aiming a gun at the sky, in reference to shooting down the Chinese spy balloon floating above the United States last week.

All this to say, most of Congress and the entire Biden administration is at fault here. Only a select, largely progressive group of lawmakers stuck by rail workers last year as they vied for reasonable work conditions and warned of disasters like this one occurring; the rest of Congress, including the president, imposed an inadequate contract on rail workers nationwide.

Meanwhile, rail companies have enjoyed continuing to chase profit with no abandon. They’ve been free to practice precision scheduled railroading, or PSR, which has led to smaller crews and bigger trains, and therefore greater strain on workers and greater risk for disaster. The Trump administration overturned an Obama-era rule that would’ve brought industry-wide improvement to the braking system—something that failed in East Palestine’s derailment. The Biden administration and Pete Buttigieg’s Department of Transportation have failed to revive it.

Though DeWine may just be contrasting himself from hacks like Vance, he must understand that there are, indeed, problems. Thousands of people are paranoid and scared, as they’ve been left to guide each other through confusing and inconsistent compensatory processes led by Norfolk Southern, the same company that brought them to such calamity. People are sick, their animals are dying, and misinformation about the incident is running rampant. DeWine and other officials should embrace what we’ve come to see yet again is true: The government must do much more to protect the dignity and welfare of its people.

Dianne Feinstein, California’s longest-serving senator, is retiring. The 89-year-old congressional veteran will serve the remainder of her term.

“I am announcing today I will not run for reelection in 2024 but intend to accomplish as much for California as I can through the end of next year when my term ends,” Feinstein said in a statement on Tuesday.

Curiously, it’s not actually clear whether Feinstein was aware the statement was released, or she just forgot it was happening. Reporter Matt Laslo asked Feinstein about the retirement, and she seemed to have forgotten, or, in a generous interpretation, misspoke:

Having served in the Senate for 30 years, Feinstein was the first female Jewish senator elected to Congress and then joined Barbara Boxer, also Jewish, in being the first female senatorial duo to represent a state at the same time.

At her best, Feinstein authored the 1994 federal assault weapons ban and chaired the Senate committee tasked with investigating and releasing a report on the CIA’s tortuous interrogation practices. At her worst, she could be seen chiding young children advocating for the Green New Deal, condescendingly complaining about them asking her to deliver a livable future. “You didn’t vote for me,” she said.

While Feinstein had filed early Federal Election Commission paperwork indicating she would indeed seek reelection in 2024, any momentum seemed to stall. In the past year, lawmakers and staffers alike have expressed concerns about the oldest sitting U.S. senator’s mental capacities and whether she could continue serving.

Amid the speculation surrounding the California senator’s future plans, other younger and well-known Democrats were raring to show their eagerness to vie for Feinstein’s seat. Representatives Adam Schiff and Katie Porter have already announced their candidacies; Representative Barbara Lee has said she will be running for Senate as well. Representative Ro Khanna has also indicated an interest in the seat, though he has said he would take Lee’s intentions into account.

This post has been updated.