California Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy failed to secure the 218 votes necessary to become speaker of the House in three rounds of voting. The House cannot conduct any business, including swearing in new members, until a speaker is chosen.

This is the first time in 100 years that the speaker election went to multiple rounds of balloting.

The longest vote in U.S. history took place in 1855, lasting 133 rounds over two months, from December 1855 to February 1856.

McCarthy faces a Republican bloc of critics who want changes to the way the House operates. Although he’s given in to many of their demands, he remains short of the votes needed.

House members are expected to resume voting on a speaker today.

The new Senate also gaveled into session Tuesday. Democrat Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are back in their respective positions. Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington was elected as the new president pro tem.

The final vote was 65 to 33 with 15 Republicans joining Democrats in support of the measure, marking a significant bipartisan breakthrough on one of the most contentious policy issues in the country. The bill will next go to the House for a vote before it can be sent to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.

The bipartisan gun deal includes millions of dollars for mental health, school safety, crisis intervention programs and incentives for states to include juvenile records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

It also makes significant changes to the process when someone ages 18 to 21 goes to buy a firearm and closes the so-called boyfriend loophole, a victory for Democrats, who have long fought for that.

The package amounts to the most significant new federal legislation to address gun violence since the expired 10-year assault weapons ban of 1994 — though it fails to ban any weapons and falls far short of what Democrats and what polls show most Americans want to see.

The bill includes $750 million to help states implement and run crisis intervention programs. The money can be used to implement and manage red flag programs — which can temporarily prevent individuals in crisis from accessing firearms through a court order — and for other crisis intervention programs like mental health courts, drug courts and veterans courts.

This bill closes a years-old loophole in domestic violence law that barred individuals who were convicted of domestic violence crimes against married partners, or partners with whom they shared children or partners with whom they co-habitated, from having guns. Old statutes didn’t include intimate partners who may not live together, be married or share children. Now, the law will bar from having a gun anyone who is convicted of a domestic violence crime against someone they have a “continuing serious relationship of a romantic or intimate nature.”

The law isn’t retroactive. It will, however, allow those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes to restore their gun rights after five years if they haven’t committed other crimes.

The bill encourages states to include juvenile records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System with grants as well as implements a new protocol for checking those records.

The bill goes after individuals who sell guns as primary sources of income but have previously evaded registering as federally licensed firearms dealers. It also increases funding for mental health programs and school security.

A split has emerged among some prominent members of House and Senate GOP leadership.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell supported the bipartisan gun deal. But top House Republican leaders have been lining up in opposition to the bill and are urging their members to vote “no.”

But even with House GOP leaders opposing the bill, there are already some House Republicans who have indicated they plan to vote for it, and the Democrat-controlled chamber is expected to be able to pass the legislation.

Tom Reed

Bipartisan talks to overhaul the Electoral Count Act are underway in Congress.

The Washington Post reports the efforts began after former president Donald Trump issued a statement saying vice president Mike Pence could have “overturned” the 2020 presidential election.

Congressman Tom Reed said reform of the law is necessary, “It is a law that was adopted 140 years plus, I believe, ago, that is full of ambiguity. It has not been updated given the new election cycles or processes that we utilize in America. And then obviously you saw the confusion that January 6th highlighted.”

The Electoral Count Act governs the congressional certification for the election of the president and vice president.

Reed said the act needs to be brought into the 21st Century, “And make it very clear as to what is the role of Congress in regards to the electoral count, and follow the Constitution, and make that sure our statutory language in Congress reflects that of the 21st Century. And makes it clear as to exactly who makes the decision of who’s going to be the next President of the United States.”

Trump’s claim that a vice president is empowered under the law to summarily reject states’ electoral votes is heavily disputed by legal scholars and officials from both parties.

Top Republicans said they remained open to the discussions. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters the law is “clearly flawed and needs to be updated,” while Minority Whip John Thune suggested Trump’s comments could actually help forge a deal.

Chuck Schumer (left) and Kirsten Gillibrand

WASHINGTON – New York’s two U.S. Senators are joining their Democratic colleagues in condemning President Donald Trump’s threat to use military force to combat demonstrations and protests that had grown into riots in some areas of the country.

While the demonstrations have remained large but mostly without the violence both Tuesday and Wednesday, that wasn’t the case earlier in the week and over the weekend. President Trump responded on Monday by threatening to use the military to “dominate” the streets where Americans are demonstrating following the death of George Floyd, a black man who died when a white police officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes.

Trump had urged governors to call out the National Guard to contain protests that turned violent and warned that if they do not, he would invoke the Insurrection Act and send in active duty military forces.

The response by the president led to U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand to join other Senate Democrats in condemning the Trump administration’s threat. In a letter to U.S. Department of Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, Sen. Gillibrand expressed deep concerns over the use of the military to restrict what they are calling peaceful protests, which fall under rights given to Americans by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“Rather than listen or acknowledge the legitimate pain of protesters and the black community, President Trump has sought to divide us further, eagerly inflaming tensions and sowing anger and fear,” said Senator Gillibrand. “His continued threats to use violence against peaceful protesters and deploy our military to states is outrageous and deeply troubling. The Department of Defense must immediately answer whether the Department would deploy federal troops outside of the use of the Insurrection Act and I demand that combat units are not used to impede on Americans’ civil liberties in the fight for racial justice.”

Defense Secretary Esper reportedly angered Trump when he said he opposed using military troops for law enforcement, seemingly taking the teeth out of the president’s threat to use the Insurrection Act. Esper said the 1807 law should be invoked “only in the most urgent and dire of situations.” He added, “We are not in one of those situations now.”

President Donald Trump holds up a bible while taking a photo outside of St. John’s Episcopal Church, near Lafayette Square in Washington D.C. Prior to the photo being taken, peaceful protesters were forced by authorities dressed in riot gear and who were wielding shields and using pepper spray .

Former Defense Secretary James Mattis, a retired Marine general, also lambasted both Trump and Esper in an essay in The Atlantic for their consideration of using the active-duty military in law enforcement — and for the use of the National Guard in clearing out a largely peaceful protest at Lafayette Square near the White House on Monday evening.

According to Gillibrand’s office, the Insurrection Act, last used in 1992 during the L.A. Riots, is an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act to be invoked only under extreme conditions. The legislation allows states to request support from the federal government, and would allow the President to activate federal troops independent of a state’s request – under specific and limited conditions that Gillibrand argues are not currently met.

In the letter, Gillibrand urges the Department of Defense provide information by Friday, June 5 on whether the Department would deploy federal troops outside of the use of the Insurrection Act, if deployments would ever include combat designated troops, how troops would be trained and prepared, what the mission, scope, and rules would entail for the use of force as well if they would be authorized to perform arrests.

Schumer, meanwhile, tried to force action in the U.S. senate on Tuesday for lawmaker to approve a symbolic resolution to condemn both the violence and Trump’s actions at Lafayette Square. But Majority leader and Sen. Mitch McConnell objected, chiding Democrats for pushing a measure that he said addressed neither justice for black Americans nor “peace for our country in the face of looting.”

“Instead, it just indulges in the myopic obsession with President Trump that has come to define the Democratic side,” Mr. McConnell said.

Rep. Tom Reed (R-Corning)

WASHINGTON – Congressman Tom Reed (R-Corning, NY 23) said on Tuesday he’s confident that the next phase of COVID-19 stimulus money coming out of Washington will include aid for local governments.

Because of the economic shutdown created by efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus, local governments across the country – including here in New York State – will likely see significant budget deficits during the rest of this year.  Local and state leaders are calling on the Federal Government to assist with the financial challenges and most seem on board, including President Donald Trump. But Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) said last week that he would rather see local governments declare bankruptcy than adding to an already ever-growing federal debt.

During his conference call with regional media, Reed, who was the past mayor of Corning, NY before being elected to Congress, said he disagree’s with McConnell’s approach.

“I disagree with [bankruptcy] being a tool to deploy because the consequences of doing that would be significantly bad for the nation and for the economy and would disrupt the bonding and municipal borrowing and would set a precedent that we as a nation should not go down,” Reed said.

Reed said that leaders in Congress have already started discussing how a Phase Four stimulus bill would address budget deficits and the local level. He said Congress will likely return to session and finalize the bill between mid May and early June, though he said at this point the exact amount of funding that would be provided hasn’t been determined.

But if Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) gets his way, there isn’t likely going to be any aid to help address growing budget deficits caused by the coronavirus and related shutdown. McConnell announced Wednesday that his Republican caucus won’t support federal bailouts for New York and other states.

“I would certainly be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route,” he said Wednesday in response to a question on the syndicated Hugh Hewitt radio show. “It’s saved some cities, and there’s no good reason for it not to be available.”

In defending his position, McConnell said he’s not in favor of the federal government borrowing more money from future generations to have to deal with. Instead, McConnell suggested Congress could adjust Chapter 9 laws so states can restructure their mounting debts by declaring bankruptcy — an option that’s currently only available to cities and local governments.

The comments by McConnell run counter to what President Donald Trump had suggested just a day earlier, following a meeting with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The president said that states will need assistance “and I think most Republicans agree too, and Democrats,” Trump said. “And that’s part of phase four.”

The president was referring to a fourth phase of federal COVID-19 funding to help the country deal with the economic fallout of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

But McConnell said he blocked additional state and local aid in the latest relief package, which passed the Senate Tuesday and is set for a vote Thursday in the House.

“I said yesterday we’re going to push the pause button here, because I think this whole business of additional assistance for state and local governments needs to be thoroughly evaluated,” McConnell added.

Gov. Cuomo has pleaded for a federal bailout for weeks and says New York could suffer a $15 billion revenue shortfall because of the pandemic, with businesses shuttered and hundreds of thousands of residents forced into unemployment.

In response to McConnell’s position, Cuomo did mix words.

“That is one of the saddest, really dumb comments of all time,” the governor said. “OK, let’s have all the states declare bankruptcy … That’s how you want to reopen by bankrupting the states? I mean, it’s just a really dumb statement.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) also criticized McConnell for his remarks.

“Senator McConnell’s comments today on hitting the ‘pause button’ on further federal emergency legislation, and that cities and states should declare bankruptcy, are utterly reprehensible,” Gillibrand said in a statement sent out Wednesday night. “McConnell eagerly passed billions in tax breaks for wealthy companies and made sure to take care of big companies and the airlines last month, but now he is telling struggling Americans to take their $1200 check and keep quiet. It is utterly infuriating that McConnell is telling American cities and states to go bankrupt, as millions fall behind on their rent and mortgages and face food insecurity.”

Gillibrand added that she plans to work in a bipartisan manner to craft another emergency relief bill in the coming weeks to address the “multitude of crises” the country will face. She also encouraged every American to “raise their voice at this outrage” from McConnell.

Rep. Tom Reed (R-Corning)

WASHINGTON – Senate Republican leaders are trotting out their new, but reeling, health care bill and angling toward a showdown vote next week amid signs that they have lots of work ahead to win over GOP lawmakers or face a resounding failure.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., planned to present the revamped measure rolling back much of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act to GOP senators Thursday.

He’s aiming at a do-or-die vote next week on whether to begin debating the bill – a roll call for which he’s got little to no margin for error. Since Democrats uniformly oppose the effort, McConnell needs the votes of 50 of the 52 GOP senators to prevail.

Chautauqua County’s representative in Congress, Corning Republican Tom Reed, said he’s not going to predict how the vote will pan out in the Senate. During his weekly conference call with regional media, he did say that as Republicans in Congress work to address costly health insurance in the country by replacing the Affordable Care Act with the American Health Care Act, but he’s hoping lawmakers will also continue to identify ways to improve health care for Americans.

“Right now we’re having primarily the focus on health insurance and what the American Health Care Act is going to do to stabilize these Obamacare insurance market places,” Reed said. “But there are opportunities, I truly believe, that when we get to the issue of health care and improving health care in America and how we develop policies that reward quality and do it in the most cost-efficient manner, those conversations are something we can have at the same time when it comes to dealing with health insurance in the present manner.”

Reed also responded to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s recent criticism of the GOP health insurance plan, which would significantly cut Medicaid funding across the country, some of which is used to combat the ongoing Opioid epidemic.  Reed said that both the House and the Senate have included funding to address the opioid crisis in their respective healthcare bills, adding that the governor is using the crisis to cover up his unwillingness to make tough decisions in the state budget.

“I think what the governor is doing is he’s just so afraid to make the hard decisions in order to control the cost of Medicaid and make it sustainable in regards to not being placed on the backs of hard working Americans who are paying the bill through their tax bills in the state of New York and to try to work together, I hope, long-term, to make those hard decisions to get Medicaid in a more efficient, effective manner,” Reed said. “So from my perspective, what the governor is doing is he is just engaging in the practice we see out of typical politicians who don’t want to engage in the hard issues.”

Governor Cuomo says that the funding proposed by the Republicans in Congress to fight the opioid addiction is not even close to the amount that would be needed to properly address the crisis. He made his comments in an op-ed piece that appeared earlier this week in the New York Daily News.

Donald Trump

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to repeal and replace “Obamacare” is now in the hands of a key group of GOP senators who are opposing -or not yet supporting – legislation Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing to bring to a vote this week.

These lawmakers range from moderate to conservative Republicans, and include senators who were just re-elected and a couple facing tough re-election fights. Their concerns about the legislation vary along with their ideology, from those who say it’s overly punitive in ejecting people from the insurance rolls, to others who say it doesn’t go far enough in dismantling former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine tweeted after the Congressional Budget Office analysis on Monday that the Senate bill won’t fix the flaws in the current bill. She says she will vote no on the “motion to proceed.”

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin says he has “a hard time believing I’ll have enough information for me to support a motion to proceed this week.”

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky says it’s worse to “pass a bad bill than to pass no bill.”

CUOMO WEIGHS IN ON SENATE HEALTHCARE BILL

NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo (left) and Congressman Tom Reed (right)

Meanwhile, Gov. Andrew Cuomo hasn’t been shy about voicing his criticism of the Senate version of the health care bill. In a statement released Monday following an assessment report released by the Congressional Budget Office on the Senate Plan, the governor said the report shows that Republicans in the Senate are choosing to put millionaires over the middle class, cutting taxes for the rich at the expense of the health care of millions of Americans.

“This bill will leave 22 million more Americans without health care coverage, including 15 million more Americans by next year alone,” The governor noted. “Just like the House bill, this legislation is a death trap for New Yorkers. The Senate bill will jeopardize health care coverage for millions of New Yorkers, raise premiums on the poor and the elderly, and eliminate more than $7 billion for New York’s health care system, including life-saving funding for the fight against the opioid crisis. It also specifically targets New York, threatening to withhold federal tax credits for New Yorkers because of our support for women’s reproductive rights.”

He also said that the inclusion of the Faso-Collins amendment – which aims to eliminate the local contribution counties pay the state to help cover the cost of Medicaid – would force every resident to pay more through a new state tax.

“And by including the reckless Faso-Collins amendment, this bill will force every resident of this state to pay a ‘Faso-Collins Federal Tax’ added onto local property taxes to make up the $2.3 billion shortfall created by their proposal,” The governor noted.

Cuomo said he’s already called on the state’s Congressional delegation to do everything within their means to protect New York residents and not support the measures. However, Chautauqua County’s representative in Congress, Republican Tom Reed of Corning, released a statement critical of the governor, calling him a liar and a bully who’s done nothing for upstate New York.

“Governor Cuomo is a liar who has done nothing for upstate New York,” Reed said. “He’s a one trick pony for whom everything is an excuse to raise taxes. He needs to buck up like other governors and start reining in the cost of Medicaid and figure out more efficient ways of spending the taxpayers’ money. Instead, he acts like a bully and threatens a tax hike on middle class families.  I’d like to see Gov. Cuomo run for president owning the highest tax increase in America.”

Chautauqua County’s representative in Congress, Tom Reed (R-Corning), was one of 167 GOP members of the House who voted against the spending bill, that will keep homeland security programs operating for the remainder of the fiscal year. However, the Bill still had enough support from moderate Republicans and Democrats to pass by a vote of 257 to 167. All 182 Democrats present voted for the bill, while it received only 75 Republican “yes” votes.

The bill had already cleared the Senate prior to the House vote.

Reed was just one of two members of the NY congressional delegation to vote against the measure.  Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Long Island)  was the only other member of the New York congressional delegation to vote no

On Monday, Reed had said the Senate should hold a simple majority vote on House legislation to defund President Barack Obama’s executive order protecting millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation.

“It is clear President Obama has overreached with his Executive Amnesty,” Reed stated. “In fact, 57 percent of the Senate, as demonstrated by the senators’ own votes, agree with holding the President accountable on this point.  However, it seems the Senate has chosen to ignore the will of the people and fund the very executive amnesty action the Senate itself opposes.”

The Republican-controlled Senate had removed the House’s contentious immigration language from its bill because Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could not get the 60 votes needed for its passage.

There are 54 Republican senators, six short of the number needed to overcome a filibuster.

In the end, House members felt it was more important to keep Homeland Security up and running, rather than hold it hostage in order to fight the president’s amnesty order regarding immigration. As a result, it approved a spending bill on Tuesday that didn’t include any of the immigration-related concessions they demanded for months.

“I am as outraged and frustrated as you at the lawless and unconstitutional actions of this president,” House Speaker Boehner told his GOP caucus prior to the vote, admitting they were out of options. “I believe this decision — considering where we are — is the right one for this team, and the right one for this country.”

The measure passed Tuesday funds the Homeland Security Department through the Sept. 30 end of the budget year. It pays for numerous priorities including Transportation Security agents, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, a host of immigration-related functions and grants to local governments.

Last week, the Senate and House agreed to a one-week stopgap funding measure for the Homeland Security Department after Senate Republicans were unable to advance a House-passed bill that would have defunded Obama’s executive action on immigration.