Politics

By Howard Schneider and Ann Saphir

May 13 (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate is expected to confirm Kevin Warsh as chair of the Federal Reserve on Wednesday, putting the 56-year-old lawyer and financier at the helm as the U.S. central bank grapples with intensifying inflation that may make it hard to push through the interest-rate cuts that President Donald Trump has demanded.

A Senate vote is for 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT), following Tuesday’s vote in the Republican-majority body approving Warsh’s appointment to the Fed’s seven-member Board of Governors.

His swearing-in to both positions would then await final White House signatures on paperwork sent by the Senate. Warsh will take the leadership baton from Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whose term ends on Friday but who will remain a Fed governor. Fed Governor Stephen Miran, currently the central bank’s biggest advocate of rate cuts, will vacate his spot on the board to make room for Warsh.

Expected to be in place to chair the Fed’s next meeting June 16 to 17, Warsh joins the central bank in which policymakers are engaged in a vigorous debate on the direction of interest rates.

Several central bankers have argued that the Fed should consider rate hikes, concerned that inflation is broadening even beyond the impact of the Trump administration’s tariffs and the spike in oil prices from the Iran war.

An index of producer prices, a key component of overall inflation, jumped 6% in April from a year earlier, the Labor Department reported on Wednesday. That’s the fastest pace since December 2022 when the Fed was battling a 40-year record surge in prices with sharp rate hikes.

Analysts expect the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index to have risen 3.8% last month, moving further from the Fed’s target of 2%.

In the run-up to his first meeting, Warsh may have to navigate a divided group of policymakers with growing support for more hawkish language indicating that a rate increase is as likely as a rate cut in coming months. At least five of the Fed’s 19 policymakers have said they wanted that change as of April.

Also in June, Fed policymakers are scheduled to release fresh rate-path forecasts. March’s projections for a single rate cut this year look increasingly stale as the unemployment rate hovers around 4.3%, indicating the labor market may not need the support of a rate cut. However, inflation has continued to gain steam: a government report on Tuesday showed consumer prices rose in April at the fastest pace in three years.

Financial markets now expect no change to the Fed’s 3.5%-3.75% policy rate target this year, with a rate hike as soon as January.

Warsh is no stranger to discord within the Fed. As a Fed governor during Ben Bernanke’s tenure as chair, he expressed reservations about policy, though he left the Board in 2011 before ever casting a dissenting vote.

At his confirmation hearing he told senators he welcomes a “family fight” at the Fed as policymakers hammer out the right monetary policy response to economic conditions.

Unlike during Warsh’s first stint at the Fed, the current president has been badgering the central bank for rate cuts. Trump has also undertaken what Powell calls a “series of legal attacks” on the central bank, including an attempt to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook last year. Trump’s Department of Justice also launched a criminal investigation of Powell which it has dropped for now but has left the door open to reviving.

Powell and others have said those attacks threaten the Fed’s ability to set interest rates according to economic fundamentals. Powell has opted to buck tradition and stay on at the Fed beyond the end of his chair term, at least until the DOJ probe is definitively closed.

Warsh also faces a different inflation backdrop than he did the last time he was a Fed governor. Then, inflation was mostly running below the Fed’s 2% target, yet Warsh argued that policymakers should tighten financial conditions with a smaller balance sheet.

Trump expects Warsh to advocate for lower rates, and Warsh had expressed support for Trump’s view. Still, he told senators at his confirmation hearing last month that he had not made any promises.

(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by David Gregorio)

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By Luc Cohen

May 13 (Reuters) – The Department of Justice has issued a formal legal justification for the federal government’s demands that states share their unredacted voter rolls, even though half a dozen federal courts have already ruled that states have no obligation to provide those lists. 

The May 12 opinion from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel – which provides advice to the White House and federal agencies – is not binding on states, dozens of which have resisted the Trump administration’s demands that they hand over lists including sensitive information such as voters’ partial social security numbers and driver’s license numbers.

But it signals that the Justice Department does not intend to back down from its push for the data, even after federal judges in California, Oregon, Michigan, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Arizona have blocked it from forcing states to share their lists. The department says it needs the unredacted lists to oversee states’ processes for ensuring that ineligible people, including noncitizens, are not registered to vote.

The opinion comes as President Donald Trump’s Republicans are battling to maintain control of both houses of Congress in the November midterm elections. Trump and his allies have falsely asserted that his loss in the 2020 presidential election was due to fraud. Trump also frequently states that voting by illegal immigrants is rampant, even though state audits and independent studies have shown that the practice is rare. 

LISTS COULD BE SHARED WITH DHS

In its opinion, the OLC said the Justice Department would be authorized to share the lists with the Department of Homeland Security, which enforces immigration laws, to check whether noncitizens were improperly registered to vote. 

Voting rights advocates have raised concerns that the plans to run states’ voter rolls against DHS data could wrongly flag naturalized citizens as ineligible to vote. 

The opinion also concluded that the voter rolls were subject to a civil rights law allowing the Justice Department to compel states to provide it with certain election-related documents, and that the department’s collection of such data would not run afoul of federal privacy laws. 

DOJ SUES DOZENS OF STATES

The U.S. Constitution assigns individual states the role of administering federal elections, though the Justice Department has some oversight authority. 

Since last year, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has sent letters to nearly every state demanding access to their unredacted rolls. Dozens of states, including several governed by Republicans, have resisted. The Justice Department has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia seeking to force them to hand over their rolls. 

The judges who have ruled against the Justice Department include three appointed by Democratic presidents and three appointed by Trump during his first term. 

The Justice Department is appealing its losses in California, Oregon and Michigan. 

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New YorkEditing by Rod Nickel)

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CHAMBLEE, Ga. (AP) — Being as well known as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger would be a dream for many ambitious politicians.

“I think most people by now know who I am,” the Republican candidate for governor joked Tuesday as someone put up signs with his name before a speech in the Atlanta suburb of Chamblee.

But that fame may wound Raffensperger in next Tuesday’s primary because it stems from opposing Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential victory in 2020. He was one of a few Georgia leaders who earned Trump’s scorn by rejecting his falsehoods, and even though Raffesperger won reelection in 2022, many Republicans still view him as a traitor.

Now the 70-year-old is spending millions of his own money trying to reintroduce himself as the person he was before that moment in the spotlight.

“I really think I need to let people know that I’m actually a conservative Christian businessman,” Raffensperger told reporters recently. “If you don’t realize, that’s where I cut my teeth.”

It’s unclear whether Republican voters are willing to forgive Raffensperger’s political heresy in a party that remains in thrall to Trump. He’s faced threats over the years, and spokesperson Ryan Mahoney said Raffensperger was informed of a credible one Monday as he began flying around the state on a campaign swing.

A sheriff’s office in Mississippi received a four-page document including a picture of Raffensperger with the word “boom” written across his forehead, Mahoney said. Law enforcement agencies did not immediately acknowledge an investigation.

When authorities swept the Macon airport ahead of Raffensperger’s arrival Tuesday, a police dog found a suspicious object that prompted an evacuation. It was not a bomb, and Raffensperger gave his speech on the tarmac.

Raffensperger is trying to offer himself as an alternative to Georgia voters who may be recoiling from an expensive and ugly primary featuring Trump-endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and healthcare billionaire Rick Jackson, who are spending huge sums attacking each other.

One Raffensperger television advertisement portrays Jones and Jackson firing guns wildly into the air while Raffensperger takes careful aim at targets one by one. Another depicts “creepy Rick Jackson” and “big baby Burt Jones” throwing mud at each other in a barnyard.

“All they have been talking about is each other and running each other down,” Raffensperger said Tuesday. “No one’s talking about the most important person. And that’s our fellow Georgian.”

Raffensperger likely has a narrow shot at the nomination. Even if he qualifies for a June 16 runoff, the campaign could quickly turn into a brawl over which candidate is the most conservative, an environment in which Raffensperger would face even more severe attacks over disloyalty to Trump.

Because he’s directly responsible for election administration as secretary of state, Raffensperger has been a punching bag for many Republicans, even some who aren’t notable Trump loyalists. His relations have been particularly bad with Jones, one of 16 Georgia Republicans who declared themselves “duly elected and qualified” electors for Trump in 2020 even though Biden won the state.

Georgia Republican Party delegates voted in June to ban Raffensperger from running under the party’s banner, saying he’s hostile to Trump, but the party qualified him anyway. A judge last month dismissed an effort by two voters to throw him off the primary ballot.

Raffensperger’s campaign estimates that a fifth of the state’s Republican electorate would never vote for him, a cadre they describe as “never-Raffensperger.”

Sabrina Mao, a Cobb County resident who attended a Jones campaign appearance Tuesday in Smyrna, said, “Everybody knows there is fraud in voting.”

“I don’t think he was doing anything good,” Mao said of Raffensperger. “He’s just a follower. I don’t think he’s a leader.”

Raffensperger is definitely a throwback to an older Republican Party. While other campaigns deploy blaring country music and barbecue, Raffensperger’s go-to move is a speech to a Rotary Club.

He sold his concrete reinforcement company, Tendon Systems, for an undisclosed amount in 2023. Through last week, Raffensperger had loaned his campaign $6 million and spent or committed at least $4.2 million on ads. That pales next to Jackson and Jones, who are self-funding their campaigns at unprecedented levels. Jones has loaned his campaign $17 million, while Jackson has dumped a staggering $83 million into his electoral bid.

Besides Jones and Jackson, Raffensperger is also running against Republican Attorney General Chris Carr, who appeals to many of the same voters as Raffensperger.

On the Democratic side, top candidates include former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, state Sen. Jason Esteves and former state Labor Commissioner Mike Thurmond.

Geoff Duncan, a former Republican lieutenant governor who also spurned Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election, is running as a Democrat as well.

Raffensperger stands behind how Georgia’s elections are run, but quickly pivots to preferred themes of creating high-paying jobs, cutting property taxes, enhancing school safety and supporting Trump’s efforts to increase manufacturing jobs.

“If you can create and, build great paying jobs for people, you can change their lives,” Raffensperger said last month when answering a reporter’s question about Georgia’s voting system.

He frequently portrays himself as standing up against Democrat Stacey Abrams, a frequent critic of Republican election administration, hoping to unite Republicans who despise Abrams.

“Brad Raffensperger secures Georgia’s elections like Joe Biden secures the border — and no amount of false advertising can erase that record,” Jones campaign manager Kendyl Parker wrote to television stations Tuesday, demanding that they take down Raffensperger’s mudslinging ad, which also mentions Abrams and Biden.

Among the supporters Raffensperger needs most are the suburban voters who have backed conservatives but have been leery of Trump. For example, in 2022, many cast ballots for Republican Gov. Brian Kemp but voted for Democrat Raphael Warnock for Senate because they were turned off by GOP candidate Herschel Walker.

Katherine Weber of suburban Sandy Springs, for example, described herself as “Republican, but not pro-Trump” after she cast her ballot last month.

“I voted for Brad Raffensperger,” Weber said. “I feel like he is a man of integrity and not swayed by politics. He doesn’t do whatever Trump says.”

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By Andrew Goudsward

WASHINGTON, May 12 (Reuters) – Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday pressed FBI Director Kash Patel over a media report that episodes of excessive drinking interfered with his ability to lead the premier U.S. law enforcement agency, drawing an angry response from Patel.

At a hearing before a Senate budget panel, Patel defended his leadership of the FBI against Democratic accusations that his conduct, including the reported drinking, had undermined national security and demonstrated poor judgment.

It was Patel’s first appearance before Congress since his beer-drinking celebration at the Milan Winter Olympics and the publication of an article in the Atlantic magazine drew renewed scrutiny to his tenure. Both matters were raised in the hearing.

Patel testified in support of the Trump administration’s proposed $12.5 billion 2027 budget for the FBI and defended his performance, saying violent crime had fallen over the past year while FBI arrests had increased.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, questioned Patel about the Atlantic report, which detailed instances of “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences” during his tenure that had alarmed officials at the FBI and the Justice Department. Patel has sued the Atlantic and its reporter over the article, accusing them of defamation. The magazine has said it stands behind its reporting.

“If true, they demonstrate a gross dereliction of your duty and a betrayal of public trust,” Van Hollen said at the start of the hearing.

Patel, who was nominated to the post by President Donald Trump, denied what was reported in the article, calling it a “total farce.”

He then accused Van Hollen of “slinging margaritas in El Salvador on the taxpayer dollar,” a reference to the senator’s trip last year to visit Kilmar Abrego, a Salvadoran migrant from Maryland who was imprisoned in El Salvador following wrongful deportation by the Trump administration.

Van Hollen responded that Patel’s statement was “provably false.” Photos of the trip showed Van Hollen and Abrego with cocktail glasses on a table, but Van Hollen later said the glasses were placed there by Salvadoran government officials to undermine the credibility of the meeting.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

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By Steve Gorman

May 12 (Reuters) – The Republican speaker of Tennessee’s House of Representatives on Tuesday stripped Democratic lawmakers of all committee assignments as punishment for their role in boisterous protests during last week’s special session on redistricting.

The move came five days after the Republican-controlled Tennessee House approved a new congressional map dismantling a Black-majority district in the U.S. House of Representatives built around the predominantly African American city of Memphis.

Last Thursday’s vote, likely to result in flipping the Democratic-held seat to the Republicans in November’s midterm elections, came as several Southern states moved to leverage the recent U.S. Supreme Court vote that severely weakened the landmark Voting Rights Act.

The House floor vote in Nashville was met with raucous protests by activists yelling from the balcony of the visitors’ gallery and from Black lawmakers who stood at the front of the chamber linking arms in prayer as protesters sounded air horns and chanted slogans against the new map.

Opponents of the redrawn congressional district compared the undoing of the majority-Black district as a throwback to the Jim Crow era of racial discrimination in the Deep South. 

In a letter to Tennessee’s House Democratic leader Karen Camper, the speaker, Cameron Sexton, said House Democrats were being removed from all standing committees and subcommittees as discipline for “instigating and encouraging” disruptions and “disorder on the House floor” during last Thursday’s vote.

As examples, he cited lawmakers for “interlocking arms in the well of the House”, for “blocking aisles on the House floor” and for using “prohibited props and noisemakers.”

Of the 99 seats in the Tennessee House, Republicans hold 75 and Democrats 24.

At least one House Democrat, Representative Justin Jones, posted online a copy of the individual letter he received serving notice of his committee and subcommittee removals, referring any questions to Camper.

“This is the same pattern of racial discrimination and authoritarian abuse we have come to expect,” Jones, who is Black and represents Nashville, said on social media.

Democratic leader Camper, who is Black and represents Memphis,  later posted an open letter to her Facebook page decrying the redrawing of the Memphis-area congressional district as “one of the most troubling abuses of power this legislature has seen in recent memory.”

“When Democrats stand up, speak out, and expose what is happening in this chamber, the response from this supermajority is retaliation,” she wrote. “We are hurt. We are disappointed. But we are not intimidated.”

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Ross Colvin and John Mair)

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By Yasmeen Abutaleb and Ahmed Aboulenein

WASHINGTON, May 12 (Reuters) – U.S. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary resigned, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, after weeks of clashing with top White House and health advisers and drawing scrutiny for a series of controversial agency decisions, according to several people familiar with internal dynamics.

Food and Drug Administration Deputy Commissioner for Food Kyle Diamantas will lead the agency in an acting capacity, Trump said. Politico first reported the development.

“Marty is a terrific guy, but he’s going to go on and he’s going to lead a good life. He was having some difficulty,” Trump told reporters. “The assistant, the deputy is taking over temporarily until we find someone.”

Makary resigned effective Tuesday via a text message to Trump, touting his moves to speed up some drug review times, support research into psychedelic drugs and broaden use of menopause hormone therapies.

“It’s been the honor of a lifetime to serve as your FDA Commissioner. I am forever grateful,” he wrote in the message, which Trump shared on Truth Social.

Makary’s departure followed weeks of intensifying pressure from powerful Republicans, anti-abortion groups, and the Wall Street Journal editorial board, all while he clashed with top officials at the White House and Department of Health and Human Services, according to multiple sources.

On Friday, Reuters and other outlets reported that Trump had signed off on a plan to fire him. ​Trump had rebuked Makary earlier this month for not moving quickly to approve flavored vapes and nicotine products, two people familiar with the conversation said. The FDA approved them days later.

A source familiar with Makary’s thinking said that was what drove him to resign.

“It really came down to the fruit-flavored vapes issue,” the source said. “He is at peace with the decision. He is a principled guy, didn’t want to sign off on something he doesn’t believe in.”

The White House has not yet found someone to replace Makary on a permanent basis, according to three of the sources.

Makary’s exit simultaneously leaves the U.S. without permanent heads of the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as other top public health posts.

MOUNTING PRESSURE ON MAKARY

Makary was criticized for actions including his handling of reintroducing flavored vapes into the U.S. market, a stalled abortion-pill review and public disagreements with drugmakers over reviews of potentially lifesaving medicines and vaccines.

The Journal’s editorial page has featured at least half a dozen op-eds blasting Makary for controversial drug rejections, including most recently of a cancer drug from Replimune, and calling for his ouster.

Makary, a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine surgical oncologist who criticized vaccine mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as FDA commissioner last March.

He oversaw a sharply smaller agency as thousands of employees were forced out. The FDA had five different vaccine chiefs in the span of a year, including one who was fired, hired back a month later, then left again less than a year after that.

A growing number of top Trump advisers had grown frustrated with Makary’s tumultuous tenure at the agency, the public criticism and negative news cycles about its decision-making under his leadership, and several advisers clashed with him personally, said the people familiar with internal dynamics.

SEARCHING FOR A CANDIDATE

The White House has exerted more control over the health agency in recent months and has sought more conventional candidates for top health jobs that require Senate confirmation.

Among those under consideration are former FDA Commissioner Steve Hahn and former acting commissioner and Assistant Health Secretary Brett Giroir, according to three sources.

Many who might qualify as candidates are wary of working under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has espoused views, particularly on vaccines, that contradict scientific evidence.

Trump allies, supporters of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement, conservative media, pharmaceutical companies, and anti-abortion groups have all taken public shots at Makary over the past few weeks.

One of the Wall Street Journal op-ed pieces asked whether any administration official had created more headaches for Trump than Makary.

The search for a new commissioner has already started, Kennedy said in a post on X in which he thanked Makary and expressed “full confidence” in Diamantas as acting FDA chief.

Diamantas, who has been photographed hunting with the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., is a lawyer with no medical or scientific degrees.

FLAVORED VAPES CONTROVERSY

Makary’s handling of flavored e-cigarettes drew Trump’s ire, as the president had pledged to protect the product during his 2024 campaign.

U.S. regulators had avoided granting licenses to vapes due to concern over their youth appeal with ​fruit and candy flavors, and demanded evidence that the products could help smokers quit.

A few days after authorizing the first fruit-flavored e-cigarettes in the United States, the FDA said it would ease its crackdown on some unauthorized vapes under review.

Tobacco companies ​have been lobbying Trump and administration officials for changes ‌including ⁠a faster, clearer FDA authorization process for the products.

ABORTION AND DRUGMAKER CLASHES

Makary repeatedly clashed with drugmakers, in several cases reversing course on product decisions only after companies such as Moderna and Sarepta pushed back publicly.

Some decisions under Makary “didn’t really seem to be based on anything that was in line with standard scientific practices. And so it really was just unpredictable,” said one pharmaceutical executive, who asked not to be named as they were not authorized to speak.

“The process of making medicines takes such a long time, and it’s so time and money intensive, that consistency and predictability is everything in our industry,” the executive added.

He also was accused by some Republicans and anti-abortion groups of slow-walking a promised abortion pill safety review.

(Reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb, Gram Slattery, Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington and Michael Erman in New York; Additional reporting by Daphne Psaledakis in Washington, Bhargav Acharya in Toronto and Emma Rumney in London; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Bill Berkrot)

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By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON, May 12 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration said on Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement official David Venturella, who worked at private prison company GEO Group before rejoining ICE, will be the agency’s new acting director.

“Dave Venturella will serve as acting ICE director following Todd Lyons’ departure,” the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said in a statement.

Lyons, ICE’s current acting head, will leave the federal government on May 31, DHS said in April. ICE has operated for years with directors serving in an “acting” capacity. The agency has been without a Senate-confirmed director since early 2017.

Since taking office early last year, Trump has cracked down on immigration, with rights groups saying the government’s actions violate due process and free speech rights and create an unsafe environment, especially for ethnic minorities.

ICE has been at the heart of Trump’s crackdown with its immigration detentions and attempted deportations. ICE agents’ fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, in January sparked nationwide protests.

Trump has justified the crackdown by saying it aims to cut illegal immigration and improve domestic security.

Venturella has worked at ICE under Republican and Democratic administrations. He has also worked at GEO Group, a private prison firm that operates more than a dozen federal civil immigrant detention centers across the country. He rejoined ICE last year.

ICE DETENTION CONDITIONS CRITICIZED BY RIGHTS GROUPS

Rights advocates have raised concerns about ICE detention conditions. At least 18 deaths have been reported in ICE custody in the first four months of 2026, following 31 ​deaths last year, ​a two-decade high.

Rights groups recently criticized the year-long detention of Palestinian American woman Leqaa Kordia, who suffered ​a seizure in detention and said she was ​chained while in ⁠hospital. 

They also condemned the detention of Hayam El Gamal and her five children aged 5 to 18, who all reported their health deteriorated while in custody.

Kordia, who lost ⁠175 family ​members during Israel’s assault on Gaza, was released in March, and the ​El Gamal family last month.

The government denies mistreatment, saying detainees are allowed medical care ​and due process.

There have been leadership changes at DHS in recent weeks. Trump fired former DHS chief Kristi Noem in March, replacing her with Markwayne Mullin. 

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Kate Mayberry)

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HONOLULU (AP) — Two states could try a new way to reduce the influence of corporations and hard-to-track “dark money” groups that have been able to spend unlimited amounts on politics since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling.

Hawaii lawmakers on Friday sent a bill to the governor that would redefine corporations in a way that precludes spending on elections. A volunteer group in Montana is gathering signatures in hopes of putting a similar issue to voters in November.

Supporters say voters dislike corporate and dark money in elections and this effort meets a need. Detractors say states can’t pass laws to skirt Supreme Court decisions they don’t like.

Similar legislation has been introduced in at least 14 states besides Hawaii, but none of those bills have gotten very far.

Citizens United, a conservative group, wanted to run TV commercials promoting its anti-Hillary Clinton movie when she was running for president in 2008. The high court’s ruling in its case two years later effectively struck down a ban on corporate and union election spending as long as they don’t donate directly to any campaigns.

The ruling has benefitted Democrats and Republicans. The campaign finance watchdog group OpenSecrets tracked more than $4 billion in outside political spending in the 2024 federal elections — almost 12 times as much as in 2008.

Some of that came from dark money groups that aren’t required to disclose donors, and the Brennan Center for Justice tallied a record $1.9 billion in that type of spending in 2024. Dark money has also played a part in some state-level races.

Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School who studies campaign finance law, said keeping companies from spending on elections might not make a big difference in how political spending works, noting that far more is spent by wealthy people such as Elon Musk.

Americans want to undo the Citizens United ruling, according to Tom Moore, a former Federal Elections Commission lawyer who is now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. The think-tank in Washington, D.C. is pushing to redefine corporations to ban spending on campaigns but allow them to lobby lawmakers.

The prohibition would also include the nonprofit organizations involved in dark money spending.

“This is a genuinely new approach to getting Citizens United out of America’s politics that is based on absolutely foundational corporation law,” he said.

If just one state adopts it, Moore said, it would be tested in court.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, a Democrat, hasn’t said whether he’ll sign the bill. He has to say by June 30 if he intends to veto it.

“This is an instance where a small state has a chance to make big waves on the national scene,” said state Sen. Karl Rhoads, a Democrat, who introduced the legislation. “I think we should take advantage of it.”

The office of Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez, a Democrat, opposed the bill, arguing in part that will be difficult and costly to defend in court.

Separately, volunteers are gathering signatures hoping to put the corporate redefinition idea — branded as The Montana Plan — before voters in that state in November.

Montana’s Supreme Court ruled in April that the effort could proceed even after Republican state Attorney General Austin Knudsen said it violates the requirement that ballot initiatives stick to one subject.

“It really resonates with citizens,” said Jeff Mangan, a former Montana state commissioner of political practices who’s leading the ballot effort. “They probably see it because they live it.”

Bradley Smith, a Republican former member of the Federal Election Commission, says Moore’s idea is not likely to pass muster in court.

“The mistake I think supporters of this are making is thinking you can ignore the substance of a Supreme Court ruling by semantic lawyerly tricks,” he said.

Lower courts likely won’t approve a measure that aims to circumvent a Supreme Court ruling and would probably reject any law that ties the provision of general government services to the behaviors of the recipients, Smith said.

If the measures take effect, he said, companies might withdraw from states rather than curtail their political spending.

Loyola’s Levitt says he’s not sure whether the effort would work, but he knows who would decide.

“The one thing I am absolutely sure of is if it got the signatures and is passed by the Montana public and is approved by the Montana courts, that the Supreme Court will want a crack at it,” he said. “There are a lot of steps between here and there.”

___

Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield, New Jersey.

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(WASHINGTON) – President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet in Beijing May 14th and 15th in a closely watched summit that could steer U.S.-China ties amid rising global tensions.

Key items on the agenda include trade disputes, technology and artificial intelligence, Taiwan security, the Middle East ceasefire effort, and reports of China’s ties to Iran. Leaders are also expected to discuss agricultural purchases, Boeing sales, export controls, and cooperation on fentanyl and other narcotics.

Analysts say big breakthroughs are unlikely, but both sides aim to prevent further escalation between the world’s two largest economies. Taiwan is set to be one of the most sensitive topics — Beijing reportedly wants the self-governing island central to talks, while some U.S. supporters fear a transactional approach to Taipei. Retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery warns Taiwan could be “on the menu” during negotiations. China’s foreign minister has urged the U.S. to “make the right choices” on Taiwan; U.S. officials say policy hasn’t changed and warn forced alteration of Taiwan’s status would destabilize the region.

The case of jailed Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai is also expected to be raised — Lai’s family hopes Trump will press Xi for his release. The White House notes continued U.S. military support for Taiwan, including approved defense sales.

The President is taking with him to China a delegation of top U.S. business leaders — notably Elon Musk — invited to push major deals and American interests, sources report.

The lineup reportedly includes Apple’s Tim Cook, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg, Citi’s Jane Fraser, Cisco’s Chuck Robbins, GE Aerospace’s H. Lawrence Culp, Meta’s Dina Powell McCormick and others, signaling a high-profile reunion of tech and finance chiefs alongside the president.

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By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON, May 11 (Reuters) – Republican U.S. Representative Jen Kiggans faced calls from Democrats to resign for agreeing with a radio host after he said Democratic lawmaker Hakeem Jeffries should get his “cotton-picking hands off of Virginia.”

Kiggans later said she was agreeing with the host that Jeffries, who is the House of Representatives minority leader and the first Black American to lead a party in Congress, should stay out of Virginia politics and that she did not condone the host’s language.

“If Hakeem Jeffries wants to be involved in Virginia politics, then I suggest he does what a bunch of New Yorkers are doing. Leave New York, move down here to Virginia. Run for office down here, you can represent us. If not, get your cotton-picking hands off of Virginia,” conservative radio host Rich Herrera said on “Richmond’s Morning News.”

“That’s right. Ditto, yes, yes to that,” Kiggans, who represents Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, replied during the interview.

The term “cotton-picking” is considered offensive due to the U.S. history of slavery, when cotton was picked by enslaved people.

Kiggans later issued a statement on X.

“The radio host should not have used that language and I do not – and did not – condone it. It was obvious to anyone listening that I was agreeing Hakeem Jeffries should stay out of Virginia,” Kiggans’ statement said. 

Jeffries had not commented as of late Monday.

U.S. House Minority Whip Katherine Clark and California Governor Gavin Newsom said the Republican lawmaker should resign.

“Now they are using brazenly racist language to attack Black leaders,” Clark said on X.

“Every Republican should be denouncing this racist statement,” Newsom’s office added.

“I am deeply appalled by anyone who promotes this rhetoric. We are no longer enslaved on plantations. We now hold positions of power our ancestors fought for,” Democratic Virginia state Senator Aaron Rouse said in a statement.

Republicans currently hold slim majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives, but control is up for grabs in the midterm elections later this year. 

Republican President Donald Trump launched a national mid-decade redistricting battle between the two parties last ​year that is also playing out in Virginia. 

Virginia voters on April 21 approved a new Democratic-drawn congressional map in a special election that could have flipped four Republican U.S. House seats. 

But the state Supreme Court on May 8 threw out the results, ruling in favor of a Republican challenge that Democratic lawmakers did not follow proper procedures when they passed the proposed referendum and put it on the ballot.

Virginia Democrats on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive the congressional map designed to boost their party’s chances in November’s midterm elections.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Kate Mayberry)

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