Congress Is Waking Up to the Devastating War in Sudan

For more than a year, Sudan has been riven by a brutal civil war. The scale of misery is shocking: Nearly 18 million people face “high levels of acute food insecurity,” according to a global hunger monitor in March, and nearly five million were close to famine. Roughly three million children have fled Sudan, resulting in the world’s largest child displacement crisis.

The conflict broke out last year between rival camps in Sudan’s military government, the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces—both of whom have conducted egregious human rights violations, according to the United Nations.

“While two armed factions launched this conflict, this is less a civil war between two sides than a war which two generals and their affiliates are waging against the Sudanese people and their aspirations to a free and democratic future,” the U.S. special envoy to Sudan, Tom Perriello, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this month.

The national security bill approved by Congress last month included broad humanitarian funding, and the Biden administration recently promised an additional $100 million in aid to respond to the conflict. The U.S. Treasury Department has also imposed sanctions on leaders and organizations involved in the conflict, although some in Congress believe the administration could go further: The chairs and ranking members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent a letter to President Joe Biden this month asking him to determine whether the RSF and its leader were subject to sanctions for human rights violations under the Global Magnitsky Act.

However, within Congress as a whole, the issue has largely been placed on the legislative back burner amid other international emergencies, namely the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. It was already a monthslong saga to approve the national security funding, and it’s unclear whether an aid package specific to Sudan could pass in Congress.

This past week, Representative Sara Jacobs, the Democratic ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Africa, introduced legislation that would prohibit U.S. arms sales to the United Arab Emirates until the Biden administration certifies that the UAE is no longer providing material support to the RSF. Jacobs, who visited the border between Sudan and Chad in March, said she had been shocked by the fallout from the conflict.

“Before Congress, I worked in international conflict resolution, so I’ve been to many refugee camps, but I had never seen children so clearly traumatized as the Sudanese refugee children I met at the Sudan-Chad border in March. The longer this war goes, the greater the suffering and the higher the possibility of the conflict spilling over,” Jacobs said in a statement. She added that, along with withholding arms sales to the UAE, the United States “must also continue surging humanitarian assistance to the region and hold the RSF, SAF, and other enabling actors accountable.”

Although Jacobs has solicited Republican support for this measure, it is not yet sponsored by any GOP members. Representative John James, the chair of the House Subcommittee on Africa, said that he believed Jacobs’s legislation was “on the right track.”

“We want to make sure that we are being very specific and very measured,” James told me. “We also have to maintain the fact that America is a reliable partner, but at the same time, you cannot commit human rights violations, commit atrocities, with any semblance of U.S. support.”

James also believes the situation in Sudan should be called a “genocide.” This is not an isolated opinion in Congress; several senators introduced a bipartisan resolution in February to recognize “the actions of the Rapid Support Forces and allied militia in the Darfur region of Sudan against non-Arab ethnic communities as acts of genocide.”

“Hundreds of thousands of Black Africans are being murdered and displaced each and every single day, and it’s not rising to the level of public consciousness that it needs to be,” James said, adding that it was necessary to place “increased pressure on those who are not just complicit but funding the belligerencies.” James said that he was hoping to schedule a conversation with the UAE ambassador: “We should talk quickly, or else consequences are coming.”

Senator Chris Murphy, a Democratic member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said that “the diplomatic effort is likely going to have to be led by African partners.” Indeed, in a joint statement with Kenyan President William Ruto released during Ruto’s visit to Washington last week, Biden said that he “appreciates Kenya for engaging in multiple efforts to de-escalate conflicts” in the region, including in Sudan and South Sudan.

However, Murphy continued, the U.S. will likely continue to play a role in diplomatic efforts, citing the “important role” of Perriello and the humanitarian aid passed by Congress last month. “We need to do more,” he said.

What I’m reading

How pig welfare became a states’ rights issue, by Grace Segers in The New Republic
The untold story of the network that took down Roe v. Wade, by Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer in The New York Times
The obscure federal intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right, by Dylan Matthews in Vox
‘Just brutal’: Why America’s hottest city is seeing a surge in deaths, by Ariel Wittenberg in Politico
The hidden legacy of Indian boarding schools in the United States, by Dana Hedgpeth and Sari Horwitz in The Washington Post
The real “deep state,” by Franklin Foer in The Atlantic
Inside Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s growing alliance, by Emily Glazer, Robbie Whelan, Alex Leary, Cara Lombardo, and Dana Mattioli in The Wall Street Journal

Pet of the week

Want to have your pet included at the bottom of the next newsletter? Email me: gsegers@tnr.com.

This week’s featured pet is Killer Patches, a tortie with an attitude, submitted by Antonia. Killer Patches loves begging for food, peanut butter, and opened doors. She’s very persistent and doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “no.”

Ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, races for state Supreme Courts have garnered increased attention and money, becoming the new battleground for abortion rights and access. This year will be no different, as 33 states will hold elections for seats on their high courts.

“Dobbs was a watershed moment in state judicial politics,” said Michael Milov-Cordoba, counsel in the Brennan Center’s Judiciary Program, referring to the decision that overturned Roe. “As it became clear to advocates and to the public that abortion access in their state would be determined by decisions made by state Supreme Courts, there became increased attention from both the public and national interest groups to win races.”

Although many state Supreme Court races are technically nonpartisan, the courts themselves tend to have ideological wings, much like federal courts where nominees are chosen by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Party apparatuses and outside organizations also get involved, pouring money into the races. The Brennan Center found that 2021 and 2022 were record-breaking years in this regard: More than $100 million was spent in judicial races in 17 states. The high-profile Wisconsin race in 2023, won by Judge Janet Protasiewicz, saw upward of $50 million in spending.

But 2024 may set a new record. This Monday, two liberal organizations announced that they have linked up to invest $5 million in high court races in key states. The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which is dedicated to ensuring congressional and legislative maps are competitive for Democrats, and Planned Parenthood Votes, the political arm of the organization, will fund digital and canvassing operations to get out the vote for candidates in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas.

Jenny Lawson, executive director at Planned Parenthood Votes, said that they are specifically targeting “places where Republicans have tried to stack the court with radical antidemocratic justices.” The joint campaign plans to partner with community advocacy groups to tailor their strategies to local needs. “What’s important to voters is that it is clear to voters the biases and hyperpartisanship of judges that we need to reject,” she said. “Our job will be to inform the voters of the choices in front of them.”

Three of those states—North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas—have explicitly partisan elections. North Carolina and Ohio have moved from nonpartisan to partisan elections in the past 10 years, with significant ramifications. Since North Carolina Republicans gained control of the state Supreme Court in 2022, the justices have reversed course on major issues such as gerrymandering and racial discrimination. (Other states have seen their legislatures attempt to limit the power of the high court, including Montana, where Republicans have been frustrated by the court’s protection of abortion rights and blocking restrictive voting laws.)

Michigan and Ohio also have a particularly narrow ideological divide on their state Supreme Courts, meaning that the upcoming elections could flip the courts’ partisan majorities. Abortion “looms large” in the Ohio race, Milov-Cordoba said, because the court will be evaluating the right to an abortion recently enshrined in the state Constitution by voters last year. Meanwhile, Democrats are defending their majority in Michigan.

For Ohio, Planned Parenthood Votes will emphasize to voters how the governor and state legislature attempted to stymie a ballot initiative to protect abortion and how the state Supreme Court permitted deliberately complicated wording for the measure on the ballot. “They’re watching their voices and votes being taken away,” Lawson said, adding that PPV’s campaign will argue that shifting the ideological leaning of the court would protect those “voices and votes.” In Michigan, however, the focus will be on how a “favorable” court has protected abortion access.

Even in states where justices are chosen by the governor or a judicial committee, voters have the chance to weigh in on those choices with “retention” elections. In Arizona, two of the justices who joined in the controversial decision to reinstate a nineteenth-century law banning nearly all abortions are now facing retention. Although Arizonans have never booted anyone from their high court, the two justices’ future may hinge on how important abortion is to voters on Election Day.

For Arizona and the other states, the goal is to ensure voters “know that these races are critical to these freedoms, and that they are making informed choices based on the positions of these justices,” Lawson said. “Our goal here isn’t partisanship, it’s about fundamental fairness.”

Vibe check: Immigration redux

Each week, I provide an update on the vibes surrounding a particular policy or political development. This week: Senate Democrats press forward with a doomed immigration bill … again.

Eons ago, in February, a bipartisan bill that would have overhauled immigration, asylum, and border policy failed on the Senate floor. Although it was the fruit of months of negotiation by GOP Senator James Lankford, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, and independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema, congressional Republicans turned their backs on the bill amid opposition from former President Donald Trump.

Immigration has long been a topic that favors Republicans, and in a hotly contested election year with control of the White House and Congress up for grabs, it may be more useful to GOP candidates, especially Trump, to have the topic as a political cudgel. (House Republicans passed their own hard-line legislation, which they insist is the correct and only path to their stated goal of securing the border.)

Nevertheless, Democrats are trying to flip the switch on Republicans, hammering them for opposing the bipartisan legislation. On Thursday, the Senate will vote once more to proceed on the bill—even though it will not garner sufficient GOP support to succeed. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell scoffed on Tuesday that the upcoming vote was “just a gimmick, a way to try to convince the American people that they’re concerned about this.”

It will also be opposed by Lankford, who has condemned the exercise as opportunistic. “This is not trying to accomplish anything, this is about messaging. This is trying to hurt Republicans,” Lankford told reporters this week, complaining about the lack of outreach from Democrats on trying to find a new consensus bill. “There’s been no legwork. There’s been no attempt to try to bring people back together again to try to figure out how we resolve this.”

But politically speaking, it doesn’t matter if Lankford votes for it, or any other Republican, or even most Democrats. Really, it just needs to make a small subsection of Democrats look like they’re “tough on the border”: those incumbents who face difficult reelection battles in red and swing states. Take Senator Jon Tester, who’s up for reelection in Montana. When I was in the state last month, I saw a TV ad by Tester’s campaign hailing his support for shutting down the southern border and his willingness to work with Republicans on legislation to expel certain migrants. Other vulnerable Democrats include Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, and Jacky Rosen of Nevada.

There is a question of timeliness; Lankford wondered why Democrats were putting the bill to a vote the week before Memorial Day, when Americans aren’t likely to be paying attention to what the Senate is doing. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer insisted there was no political calculation behind the vote now.

“Everything the Republicans do has no chance of passing. So who’s more serious about fixing the border? We are. And I think the public will understand that,” Schumer said.

Murphy, who helped negotiate the bill, echoed that argument. “I don’t know if there’s magic to voting this week, but if you think something’s important, you don’t give up on it just because you fail once,” Murphy said. “I think it would be insincere for us to say we care about passing the bipartisan border bill and not try to bring it up a second time.”

A second time, a third, a fourth—there’s no real political downside to continuing to vote on the measure between now and November. All the more chances to counter the narrative that Democrats are soft on immigration. If immigration is an important issue this year—and polling points to that being the case—those vulnerable Democrats will want to tout their voting for a bipartisan bill that Republicans rejected as often as they can.

But Tester rejected the implication that there would be electoral benefits to his voting on the immigration measure this week, telling Punchbowl News that was “bullshit.”

What I’m reading

The lynching that sent my family north, by Ko Bragg in The Atlantic
Is ‘Love Is Blind’ a toxic workplace? by Emily Nussbaum in The New Yorker
How free school meals went mainstream, by Susan Shain in The New York Times
He came to L.A. 3 months ago with his young family. A ride on a Metro bus led to his death, by Rachel Uranga in the Los Angeles Times
Inside Georgia’s crusade to make bail unpayable, by Nia T. Evans in Mother Jones
How a Southern Baptist minister came to lead an LGBTQ-affirming church, by Monica Hesse in The Washington Post
She wanted an abortion. Her only option was driving to Mexico, by Shefali Luthra in The 19th. (Side note: This is an excerpt from Shefali’s new book, Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America, out this week! Shefali is a great abortion reporter, and this is a nuanced and deeply reported book.)

Pet of the week

Want to have your pet included at the bottom of the next newsletter? Email me: gsegers@tnr.com

This week’s featured pet is Ziggy, a 4-year-old, six and a half pound Yorkshire terrier submitted by Iris Lopez. As evident in this photo, Ziggy hurt his foot while playing “monkey in the middle,” his favorite game (aside from playing fetch in the snow). Iris assures us that his foot is fine now.

Louisiana has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. The procedure is banned with very few exceptions, which do not include rape or incest. And yet, legislators there are hard at work trying to further restrict the procedure. This week, they added a provision to an abortion-related bill that would reclassify mifepristone and misoprostol as “controlled dangerous substances.” This would criminalize possession of the two abortion medications without a prescription. Although pregnant women are exempt from the law, anyone who helps them obtain the medication could be criminally charged. Doctors naturally are worried about the move, not least because the drugs are also commonly used in miscarriage management.

But this bill, like the anti-abortion laws that precede it, may not fully represent the wishes of the state’s residents: A recent survey found that most Louisianans believe the state should allow access to abortion in the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. 

This disparity—which exists across the country, including in conservative states—is the Republicans’ dilemma in a nutshell. GOP-controlled legislatures continue to introduce and enact measures restricting abortion even further, despite the fact that their voters have made clear they want more moderate restrictions. 

In the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the country has become functionally divided along the lines of abortion access. Fourteen states, most of them in the South, have enacted a total ban on the procedure; seven additional states prohibit abortion at or before 18 weeks of pregnancy, which would have been illegal before the Dobbs decision. Many of the states that have banned abortion continue to attempt to layer further restrictions, such as with measures targeting medication abortion, making it more difficult for minors to obtain contraceptives or abortion care, and funding “crisis pregnancy centers,” which are established by anti-abortion groups to persuade pregnant patients not to obtain an abortion. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion access, this year six laws have been enacted in four states to fund crisis pregnancy centers, and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed a bill to allow the state Health Department to provide pregnancy services through crisis pregnancy centers.

Kimya Forouzan, the principal policy associate for state issues at Guttmacher, also noted that state bills to limit access to abortion for people under 18 are becoming increasingly common. She pointed to a law Idaho enacted in 2023 to penalize nonparent adults who help a minor obtain an abortion, which was blocked by a federal judge. However, four states introduced nearly identical measures this year, with a measure in Tennessee passing in the state legislature. Another law recently upheld in Texas blocked clinics that receive federal funding from providing contraception to minors. 

“We know that often there are restrictions that are very targeted toward youth, either as a test to see if the restrictions that they’re placing on youth can also be expanded to everyone, or as a way to prevent abortion for young people in a way that can’t be done for adults,” said Forouzan. Thirty-six states require parental consent or notification for minors to obtain an abortion, which she called a “normalization” of restrictions that “raises alarm bells” for abortion advocates. 

Anti-abortion copycat bills have become common, so the new legislation introduced this week in Louisiana may give abortion rights supporters cause for alarm. “It’s really meant to add an additional layer of restriction, and to add an additional layer of stigma and fear, around abortion in general but medication abortion specifically,” said Forouzan about the Louisiana bill. 

As Republicans continue to introduce abortion restrictions, Americans have become more supportive of abortion access: A poll by Pew Research Center released this week found that 63 percent of U.S. adults believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared to 36 percent who believe that it should be illegal in all or most circumstances. Even though conservative Republicans and Republican-leaning voters oppose access to abortion, according to the survey, the majority of moderate and liberal Republicans and Republican-leaning voters believe it should be legal in all or most cases.

The relative popularity of abortion access accounts for the success of recent ballot initiatives to protect it in state constitutions nationwide. This year, abortion-related initiatives are likely to be on the ballot in several red and swing states, such as Arizona, Montana, Florida, South Dakota, and Missouri. The future of abortion access in many states may come down to who has the final say: the state legislature or the voters themselves.

Vibe check: Preelection pitfalls 

Each week, I provide an update on the vibes surrounding a particular policy or political development. This week: Can Congress get anything done before the election?

With six months left before the election, it’s unclear whether Congress will accomplish anything significant beyond approving must-pass legislation. This is partially a function of timing: Thanks to the summer recess and the vagaries of campaigning, lawmakers will leave Washington for almost the entirety of the months of August and October. But in a deeply divided Congress, where Democrats hold a narrow majority in the Senate and Republicans have tenuous control in the House—not to mention the additional politics of the presidential election—any nonmandatory bipartisan bills may have to wait until the lame-duck session after the election.

Now that the Federal Aviation Administration has been reauthorized, there are few big-ticket items remaining. Aside from funding the government and approving the National Defense Authorization Act—the only real sure things in Congress—most of the serious legislation left to consider is more nice-to-have than need-to-pass. In theory, there is a deadline to approve the farm bill by the end of the year, but disagreements between the upper and lower chambers over its contents are complicating negotiations (stay tuned for my story on the negotiations). 

Which is why we’re now seeing a preponderance of “messaging” bills that are less about policy than political gamesmanship. Last week, the House passed the Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act. This week, which is “Police Week,” Republicans are trying to put moderate Democrats’ feet to the fire with a resolution condemning the “defund the police” movement.

“I think a reasonable accomplishment is to keep the government open, with this crowd. I don’t see a lot of significant legislative action,” said Democratic Representative Dan Kildee. 

However, GOP Representative Dusty Johnson argued that government funding and the NDAA were the tip of the iceberg for legislation that might be considered this year, pointing to the farm bill and legislation on digital assets set to be considered in the House.

“A lot of members have lapsed into this sense that the big stuff is done, and I think it’s a real error in judgment,” Johnson said. “I don’t observe any benefit to our country in having people be pessimistic or fatalistic about our ability to get things done.”  

There could also be an upside to considering fewer pieces of legislation. Democratic Senator Tim Kaine argued that “in the absence of other big-ticket items,” Congress could take up the NDAA over the summer and consider multiple amendments.

Of course, even if the campaign eats away at the chance for major accomplishments, there’s always the lame-duck session. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and a bipartisan group of senators proposed a road map for government spending on artificial intelligence this week, and several bills related to A.I. and elections were advanced in a Senate committee. Kaine said that the farm bill and a tax bill that passed in the House but has stalled in the Senate might be ripe for consideration in the lame duck. 

Still, the effectiveness of a lame-duck session may depend on the outcome of the elections. If Republicans take control of Congress and the White House, they may want to wait until next year to take up some of their priorities.  

What I’m reading

Bishop vanished. His species can still be saved, by Harry Stevens and Dino Grandoni in The Washington Post
The other side of the river, by Rania Abouzeid in The New Yorker
Montana’s tribal voters could determine the makeup of the Senate, by Natalie Fertig in Politico
The most endangered Democrat in America, by Ross Barkan in New York
Artificial turf is tearing towns apart, by Liza Featherstone in The New Republic
What Alice Munro has left us, by Lorrie Moore in The Atlantic
Why school segregation is getting worse, by Fabiola Cineas in Vox 

Pet of the week

Want to have your pet included at the bottom of the next newsletter? Email me: gsegers@tnr.com.

This week’s featured pet is KitKat, six pounds of fierce Chihuahua submitted by Mark Roberts. KitKat’s hobbies include exploring the woods and sitting on the sofa to watch for visitors. When she plays with Mark, she will switch toys multiple times to maintain his interest.

One could be forgiven for thinking of Montana as a fully red state. Republicans have won every presidential election there since 1996, with Donald Trump carrying it by 16 percentage points in 2020. The state legislature is ruled by a GOP supermajority, and the only statewide elected Democrat is Senator Jon Tester, who faces a challenging reelection bid this year.

Nonetheless, Democrat Monica Tranel is hoping she can flip Montana’s 1st congressional district, a purplish seat currently held by Republican Representative Ryan Zinke. The district is relatively new, established after the 2020 census due to Montana’s population growth (the new district increased the state’s congressional seats to a whopping two). Tranel came within throwing distance of defeating Zinke in their first matchup in 2022, when she lost by roughly three percentage points.

Given this overperformance in a district that supported Trump by more than six percentage points in 2020, the rematch has garnered national party support. In January, Tranel was added to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “red to blue” list of priority candidates who could flip Republican-held seats.

Outside observers nonetheless categorize it as a probable win for Zinke. Inside Elections and Sabato’s Crystal Ball rate it as “lean Republican,” while the Cook Political Report designates the seat as “likely Republican.” One of the biggest challenges in reaching voters outside of the district’s more progressive enclaves, such as Missoula, is countering the increased polarization in politics.

Tranel told me that Zinke’s strategy was to “nationalize the race and make me into something I’m not, and then run against that person.” She recalled a recent meeting with members of a local union—once reliable Democratic voters—who were skeptical of her and her party. They echoed talking points that Tranel recognized from national right-wing media outlets, saying that Democrats and President Joe Biden “only ever lie.”

“I said, ‘Look, I’m not running for president. I’m running to represent you in Congress, in this seat. That’s what I’m looking to do,’” Tranel said when we met in a Missoula coffee shop last week.

Indeed, Tranel’s race may be affected by other candidates and issues on the ballot: This year, Biden and Trump will be at the top of the ticket, as will Tester. A state initiative to enshrine the right to an abortion up to around 24 weeks of pregnancy is also likely to make it onto the ballot in November. It’s still unclear how these other lines on the ballot will affect the turnout and outcome on Election Day.

Zinke is outpacing Tranel in fundraising; as of the end of March, he had $2.3 million in his campaign coffers, compared to Tranel’s $1.3 million in cash on hand. Al Olszewski, the chair of the Flathead County Republicans, who ran against Zinke in the 2022 GOP primary, said that Tranel would perhaps have an even more challenging race this year. In 2022, this was an open seat, but now Zinke is an incumbent with a seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

“If you’re going up against a giant, how are you going to kill the giant?” asked Olszewski.

Tranel believes she needs to capture a segment of the electorate—rural voters—who, like those skeptical union members she met, have begun to turn away from Democrats in recent years. Nationally, Republicans have a significant advantage over Democrats with rural voters: According to Pew Research, 61 percent of registered voters in rural counties are Republicans. Still, in 2022, Tranel improved upon Biden’s 2020 performance in a few of the 1st congressional district’s more sparsely populated counties.

“Democrats have abandoned rural America to our own detriment and said, ‘We can’t win there; why bother showing up?’ But that’s my home,” Tranel said. “We have a lot of work to do. It’s not going to happen in one visit. It’s not going to happen in two. I’ve been doing it over and over again for four years, and it’s because I’m invested in the home that I live in.”

This article first appeared in Inside Washington, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by staff writer Grace Segers. Sign up here.

Vibe check: Big trouble in little DCA

Each week, I provide an update on the vibes surrounding a particular policy or political development. This week: An update on plans to increase flights to and from D.C.’s most convenient airport.

Now that Congress has funded the government, it’s time to turn our attention to what really matters: a niche yet intense battle over whether to increase the number of flights at Ronald Reagan National Airport (a.k.a. DCA).

This week, congressional negotiators released text of legislation to reauthorize funding the Federal Aviation Administration ahead of a May 10 deadline. The bill includes a controversial provision to add five new round-trip flights to Reagan National—10 flights in total—beyond the airport’s 1,250-mile perimeter. This provision quickly incurred the wrath of the four Democratic senators from Virginia and Maryland, who insinuated in a letter that it was included for the personal convenience of far-flung members of Congress.

“We understand the desire of senators to shorten their commutes home, but this proposal would benefit few while impacting many, first and foremost in safety but also in delays and in reducing the economic competitiveness of smaller destinations within the perimeter,” said Virginia Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner and Maryland Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, citing a recent near collision at the airport, as well as a 2023 memo by the FAA warning of increased delays if round-trip flights were added.

The so-called “DCA perimeter rule” bars nonstop flights to destinations more than 1,250 miles away, with exceptions for 10 major cities, in part to reduce congestion and ensure that Dulles International Airport remains the long-haul hub of the region. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told lawmakers this week that Reagan National had “the hardest-working runway in the national airspace.”

“We would be concerned about the pressure that that could put on the system. Of course, we stand ready to make good on whatever Congress provides,” Buttigieg said.

The issue of additional slots helped stall negotiations over the FAA reauthorization bill last year, amid intense lobbying from airlines. In 2023, United Airlines, which opposes the expansion, spent more than $9 million in federal lobbying efforts; Delta Air Lines, which supports adding more long-distance flights, spent around $5 million in federal lobbying.

Support for more DCA flights falls less along party lines than regional ones. Perhaps unsurprisingly, some of the measure’s biggest proponents hail from Western states, while lawmakers who live closer to Washington are more likely to be opposed. One exception is Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock, a supporter of DCA expansion who already has an abundance of daily direct flights home to choose from—but his state is also home to Delta’s headquarters.

Van Hollen told me on Wednesday that opponents of the expansion were pushing for an amendment process to strip that provision out of the bill. “You cannot present this bill as a safety measure when you’re compromising safety at National Airport,” Van Hollen said after a meeting with the Senate Democratic caucus. He added that he had raised the issue in the meeting. “I just asked all my colleagues how they would feel if Congress was dictating how many slots all their local airports had,” he said.

What I’m reading

Challengers is a brutal game of desire, by Annie Berke in The New Republic
Interpreting Shōgun was more than just translation, by Bethy Squires in Vulture
America is nowhere near peak stuff, by Amanda Mull in The Atlantic
Beating cancer used to be bipartisan. What happened? by Erin Schumaker in Politico
Nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain could roil Nevada U.S. Senate race, by Seema Mehta in the Los Angeles Times
How far Trump would go, by Eric Cortellessa in Time
Tears and despair at Florida abortion clinic in final hours before ban, by Caroline Kitchener in The Washington Post

Pet of the week

Want to have your pet included at the bottom of the next newsletter? Email me: gsegers@tnr.com.

This week’s featured pet is Minnie the Moo, a houndlet submitted by King Williams. As evidenced by her chic apparel, Minnie was prepared for cold winter walkies in Tennessee this year. (One can only imagine her summer looks!)

Another week, another blockbuster Supreme Court case that could have lasting consequences for American politics: On Tuesday, the nation’s high court heard arguments in a case challenging whether federal prosecutors could charge rioters in the January 6, 2021, siege of the Capitol using a law that criminalizes what is known as “obstructing an official proceeding.” The Justice Department has argued that defendants violated this law, enacted in the wake of the Enron scandal more than two decades ago, by attempting to prevent the certification of President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory in 2020.

More than 350 people have been charged, and more than 100 have pleaded guilty or been convicted, under the statute, which has a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Perhaps the most prominent person charged under the federal obstruction statute: former President Donald Trump.

But the justices seemed to be divided on the issue in arguments on Tuesday. Some conservative justices, who comprise the majority of the court, worried that the statute grants federal prosecutors overly expansive authority to target protesters. “Would a heckler in today’s audience qualify, or at the State of the Union address? Would pulling a fire alarm before a vote qualify for 20 years in federal prison?” Justice Neil Gorsuch asked.

Justice Clarence Thomas—whom Democrats hoped would recuse from the case, due to the efforts by his wife, Ginni Thomas, to overturn the 2020 election—questioned whether the law had been used in relation to other violent protests. (Although the case will not be decided for months, federal judges in lower courts have allowed several of the defendants who were imprisoned because of the law to be released from custody.)

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 includes a provision that applies to anyone who “alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding,” or “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.” The Biden administration’s arguments rest on the word “otherwise,” maintaining that it is a catchall that refers to obstruction that goes beyond the shredding of documents. But Chief Justice John Roberts argued that “the general phrase is controlled and defined by reference to the terms that precede it”—in this case, “alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals.” (This would not be the first time the executive branch has been stymied by the judiciary in using Sarbanes-Oxley: In 2014, the Supreme Court limited the interpretation of the law outside of corporate fraud cases.)

Perspectives on the case from Capitol Hill, somewhat predictably, were divided along party lines. GOP Senator Josh Hawley argued that the federal application of Sarbanes-Oxley in this case ran “far, far afield” of the original intent of the law. “You want to charge rioters, go right ahead. Charge them with trespass, charge them with assault, charge them with whatever,” Hawley said. “They have applied that so broadly, and they’ve completely lifted it out of the records context, and that could be applied to just about any situation to any government proceeding.”

If the Supreme Court were to limit the use of the law, it’s unclear what effect this would have on prosecutions relating to the January 6 riot; many defendants, including the former police officer who brought this case before the court, were charged with multiple other crimes. Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the federal case against Trump, has argued that a narrower reading of the law would not prevent the former president from being prosecuted under the statute. The two obstruction counts against Trump involve him conspiring to create false slates of electors, which Smith says would apply even under a stricter interpretation of the statute.

“I’m curious to see what the Supreme Court will say, but nothing in that particular legal adjudication affects in any way our sense of the criminal character of the violent and fraudulent assault on the 2020 election,” said Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, who was a member of the House select committee that investigated the riot in 2022. “I don’t think there’s any cause for a narrowing construction of that statute. But I think that if it did happen, again, it doesn’t change the essential character of the events we’re talking about.”

This article first appeared in Inside Washington, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by staff writer Grace Segers. Sign up here.

Vibe check: The future of the Affordable Connectivity Plan

I’ve previously written in this newsletter about the Affordable Connectivity Program, which helps connect millions of low-income Americans to the internet—and which will end in May if Congress does not approve additional funding. The program grew from a pandemic-era benefit, and has been used by around 23 million households. Despite bipartisan and bicameral support for the Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act, which would boost funding for the program by $7 billion, the future of the bill is uncertain. Congress is preoccupied with a host of other priorities, including approving a supplemental package of aid to Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific.

Despite these complications, a group of Democratic representatives is pressuring Johnson to take up the legislation. I spoke with Representative Annie Kuster of New Hampshire, the chair of the New Democrat Coalition, about how her caucus of centrist Democrats is pushing to keep the Affordable Connectivity Act a priority. This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

The ACP is set to end in May. Do you believe Congress can approve legislation to extend the program before that deadline?

I certainly hope so. I mean, that’s our goal. We’ve waited too long, obviously. This was a bipartisan bill when it passed; the extension has two dozen Republican co-sponsors. And we were hoping that they would help us to get it to the floor quickly. Now we’re really running up against the deadline. And so we want to make sure that we keep the pressure on the House Republican leadership.

These enrollees are all across the country, in red and blue districts, so we’ve got to put aside partisan politics and work together. It’s a lifeline for American families, for students doing homework, or people applying for jobs. We have very low unemployment, and our companies are looking for people to do jobs, to cover their job openings. And if you don’t have the internet from home, you can’t apply for the job. You can’t look up the bus schedule to get to the job. You can’t be in touch with your employer to send or receive messages.

The way America works and lives, and the way our communities function—for schools, for hospitals—everyone has the expectation that people will be available via the internet. And 23 million Americans have had this access to affordable internet. We’ve been closing this digital divide. This is true for low-income communities, but it’s also true for rural communities like my district to provide access to affordable broadband. We did this during Covid because it became immediately apparent how important it was for telework, for telehealth, for education online. And then now it’s being stripped away—just in my own state, we’re talking about 40,000 households. So that is a significant number of people who will no longer be able to participate in the normal course with our community and with our economy.

What do you believe is the best pathway for approving the Affordable Connectivity Program extension?

Well, the best pathway would be to just attach it to a bill that’s going to be considered, and get it to the president for his signature as quickly as possible. If the Republican leadership is unwilling to do that, then we would have to consider alternative pathways.

What kind of bill would you want to see it attached to?

Whatever passes the relevancy test. It’s such a popular bipartisan program. It shouldn’t be difficult to identify it—you know, a path to get this done. This should be a priority, really, with the deadline bearing down on us?

Well, that does bring me to my next question. There is a lot happening in Congress right now.

Yes, yes. Maybe we could attach it to Ukraine aid. [Laughs]

How do you convince Speaker Johnson that this is a priority?

I think it’s so popular that we should be able to do it on suspension, and now we’ve got a few extra days here. Let’s do it on Friday under suspension. That might be the way to go.

[Author’s note: Approving a bill under suspension of the rules requires a two-thirds majority to pass.]

The bill does, as you mentioned before, have significant GOP support. But there are a few Republicans who say that the ACP is redundant or that it has not truly connected a meaningful number of Americans. How do you respond to those criticisms?

Twenty-three million Americans is a meaningful number to me, and certainly 40,000 households in New Hampshire. We’re a state that has, I think we’re at 2.3 percent unemployment.… We can’t afford to have 40,000 people isolated, not connected to our economy and our society to the extent that they can’t fill out a job application, they can’t apply for a new position, they can’t go online to get new skills. Health care is a great example. So much of health care is working your way up from an entry level [licensed nursing assistant] to getting your credentials, working your way up to nurse practitioner. The way these things happen is that people take classes online, over the weekend, at night. And you’re just, like, squashing all of that talent. I wish I had a sophisticated word. I’m just thinking of just pushing people down. You’re not giving people the opportunity to thrive, and it will impact our economy.

I have one health care provider with 750 openings, they need to be able to communicate with everybody. And if you take 40,000 people out of the pool of potential applicants, just simply because they don’t have access to know about the position, to look online for a job, to fill out the application, to pull down their transcript from their school—everything happens online. Put yourself in the position of trying to apply for a job and not being able to go on a computer. It’s ludicrous in this day and age. And so to me the ACP is the equivalent of basic infrastructure. It’s like having public roads and high winds and phones and everything that we need to function. This is the modern version. The twenty-first-century infrastructure includes access to affordable internet.

I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you a question related to the news of the week. So, specifically, consideration of the package of national security bills and what that could mean for Johnson if the House is able to pass this new legislation. Do you think Democrats would be prepared to vote to keep Johnson in office if there is a motion to vacate against him?

So what I have said publicly is that, first and foremost, we’re focused on the substance. So we are taking today to ensure and reassure ourselves that all the parts of the set package are included. So, aid to Ukraine, aid to Israel, humanitarian aid to Gaza; there’s a fourth piece that has to do with Taiwan. We need to absolutely confirm that all of the pieces [are there]. But if I accept your proposition that all of the pieces will be passed, I have said publicly that if he’s a man of his word, and he told me directly, personally, that that’s what would happen, then I would personally have no reason to remove him from the chair.

That seems like a very conditional statement.

Entirely. Entirely conditional. And frankly, I wouldn’t even make that decision until that decision had been made by my leadership. You will see Democratic unity on this issue. We will negotiate together. This will be in conjunction with a decision that’s made by our leadership, Leader Hakeem Jeffries and our whip, Katherine Clark. I would never get out in front of them.

What I’m reading

‘I’m gonna O.J. you’: How the Simpson case changed perceptions—and the law—on domestic violence, by Sonja Sharp in the Los Angeles Times

The coiled ferocity of Zendaya, by Matt Zoller Seitz in Vulture

The truth about organic milk, by Annie Lowrey in The Atlantic

How climate change turned camels into the new cows, by Chico Harlan, Rael Ombuor, and Malin Fezehai in The Washington Post

Into the Tubi-verse, by John Wilmes in The Ringer

How the dream of a financial aid upgrade became a nightmare, by Grace Segers in The New Republic. (It was recently pointed out to me by my mother, of all people, that I often include my own stories in the “What I’m reading” segment. To which I respond: How else will I get people to read what I write?)

Pet of the week