NATION
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
East Oregonian
High court lets Trump,
military implement
transgender restrictions
Senate sets up showdown
votes on shutdown plans
By JESSICA GRESKO
Associated Press
By ALAN FRAM AND
ANDREW TAYLOR
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
—
Senate leaders on Tuesday
agreed to vote on dueling
proposals to reopen shut-
tered
federal
agencies
this week, forcing a polit-
ical reckoning for senators
grappling with the longest
shutdown in U.S. history:
Side with President Donald
Trump or vote to tempo-
rarily end the shutdown and
keep negotiating.
Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
set up the two showdown
votes for Thursday, a day
before some 800,000 federal
workers are due to miss a
second paycheck. One vote
will be on his own measure,
which reflects Trump’s offer
to trade border wall funding
for temporary protections
for some immigrants. It was
quickly rejected by Demo-
crats. The second vote is
set for a bill approved by
the Democratic-controlled
House reopening govern-
ment through Feb. 8, with
no wall money, to give
bargainers time to talk.
Both
measures
are
expected to fall short of the
60 votes needed to pass,
leaving little hope they
represent the clear path out
of the mess. But the plan
represents the first test of
Senate Republicans’ resolve
behind Trump’s insistence
that agencies remain closed
until Congress approves
$5.7 billion to build a wall
on the U.S.-Mexico border.
For Democrats, the votes
will show whether there
are any cracks in the so-far
unified rejection of Trump’s
demand.
Democrats on Tuesday
ridiculed McConnell’s bill,
which included tempo-
rarily extended protections
for “Dreamer” immigrants,
but also harsh new curbs on
Central Americans seeking
safe haven in the U.S.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., leaves the chamber after speaking about his
plan to move a 1,300-page spending measure, which includes $5.7 billion to fund President
Donald Trump’s proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, at the Capitol on Tuesday.
Senate Minority Leader
Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.,
said the GOP plan’s immi-
gration proposals were “even
more radical” than their past
positions. “The president’s
proposal is just wrapping
paper on the same partisan
package and hostage taking
tactics,” offering to tempo-
rarily restore programs
Trump himself tried to
end in exchange for wall
funding, Schumer said.
McConnell
accused
Democrats of preferring
“political combat with the
president” to resolving the
32-day partial federal shut-
down. He said Democrats
were prepared to abandon
federal workers, migrants
and all Americans “just to
extend this run of political
theater so they can look like
champions of the so-called
resistance” against Trump.
The
confrontational
tone underscored that there
remained no clear end in
sight to the closure. Amid
cascading tales of civil
servants facing increasingly
dire financial tribulations
from the longest federal shut-
down in history, the Senate
chaplain nudged his flock.
“As hundreds of thou-
sands of federal workers
brace for another painful
payday,
remind
our
lawmakers they can ease
the pain,” Chaplain Barry
Black intoned as the Senate
convened.
The planned vote on the
Democratic plan marked
a departure for McCon-
nell, who had vowed to
allow no votes on shutdown
measures unless Trump
would sign them.
The White House views
its latest offer as a test of
whether Democratic leaders
can hold their members
together in opposition,
said a person familiar with
White House thinking who
was not authorized to speak
publicly. The administra-
tion also wants to show they
are willing to negotiate,
hoping it will push more
blame onto Democrats,
who are opposing negotia-
tions until the government
reopens. Public polls show
Trump is taking the brunt
of the blame from voters so
far.
“How long are they going
to continue to be obstruc-
tionists and not solve the
Defying Pelosi, Trump proceeds
with State of the Union plans
By JILL COLVIN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The
White House is moving
forward with plans for
President Donald Trump
to deliver his State of the
Union speech next week in
front of a joint session of
Congress — despite a letter
from House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi requesting he delay
the speech.
The White House sent an
email to the House sergeant-
at-arms asking to schedule
a walk-through in antici-
pation of a Jan. 29 address,
according to a White House
official who was not autho-
rized to discuss the plan-
ning by name and spoke on
condition of anonymity.
“Nancy Pelosi made the
invitation to the president on
the State of the Union. He
accepted,” said White House
spokeswoman Sarah Huck-
abee Sanders. “At this point,
we’re moving forward.”
The move is the latest in a
game of political brinksman-
ship between Trump and
the House Speaker as they
remain locked in an increas-
ingly personal standoff over
Trump’s demand for border
wall funding that has forced
a partial government shut-
down that is now in its
second month.
The
gamesmanship
began last week when
Pelosi sent a letter to
Trump suggesting that he
either deliver the speech in
writing or postpone it until
after the partial govern-
ment shutdown is resolved,
citing security concerns.
But the White House main-
tains Pelosi never formally
rescinded her invitation, and
is, in essence, calling her
bluff.
“She has not canceled it.
She asked us to postpone
it,” White House spokesman
problem and not reopen
the government?” White
House spokeswoman Sarah
Huckabee Sanders said of
Democrats.
As the stalemate grinded
on, Alaska Airlines said the
closure would cause at least
a three-week delay in its
plan to start new passenger
flights from Everett, Wash-
ington. Lawrence Yun,
chief economist for the
National Association of
Realtors, said the shutdown
could slow home sales by 1
percent in coming months.
And a restaurant in Red
Bank, New Jersey, owned
by musician Jon Bon Jovi
joined the list of establish-
ments serving free meals to
furloughed federal workers.
McConnell’s bill largely
reflects the proposal Trump
described to the nation in
a brief address Saturday. It
would reopen federal agen-
cies, revamp immigra-
tion laws and provide $5.7
billion to start building his
prized border wall with
Mexico — a project Demo-
crats consider an inef-
fective, wasteful monu-
ment to a ridiculous Trump
campaign promise.
WASHINGTON
—
The Trump administra-
tion can go ahead with its
plan to restrict military
service by transgender
men and women while
court challenges continue,
the Supreme Court said
Tuesday.
The high court split 5-4
in allowing the plan to take
effect, with the court’s five
conservatives greenlighting
it and its four liberal
members saying they would
not have. The order from
the court was brief and
procedural, with no elabo-
ration from the justices.
The court’s decision
clears the way for the
Pentagon to bar enlistment
by people who have under-
gone a gender transition. It
will also allow the adminis-
tration to require that mili-
tary personnel serve as
members of their biological
gender unless they began a
gender transition under less
restrictive Obama adminis-
tration rules.
The Trump administra-
tion has sought for more
than a year to change the
Obama-era rules and had
urged the justices to take up
cases about its transgender
troop policy immediately,
but the court declined for
now.
Those
cases
will
continue to move through
lower courts and could
eventually
reach
the
Supreme Court again. The
fact that five justices were
willing to allow the policy
to take effect for now,
however, makes it more
likely the Trump admin-
istration’s policy will ulti-
mately be upheld.
Both the Justice and
Defense
departments
released statements saying
they were pleased by the
Supreme Court’s action.
The Pentagon said its policy
on transgender troops is
based on professional mili-
tary judgment and neces-
sary to “ensure the most
lethal and combat effec-
tive fighting force.” Justice
Department spokeswoman
Kerri Kupec said lower
court rulings had forced
the military to “maintain a
prior policy that poses a risk
to military effectiveness
and lethality.”
Before beginning to
implement its policy the
administration is expected
to need to make a proce-
dural filing in one case in
Maryland challenging the
plan. That request could be
made this week.
Groups that sued over
the Trump administra-
tion’s policy said they ulti-
mately hoped to win their
lawsuits over the policy.
Jennifer Levi, an attorney
for GLBTQ Legal Advo-
cates & Defenders, said in
a statement that the “Trump
administration’s
cruel
obsession with ridding our
military of dedicated and
capable service members
because they happen to be
transgender defies reason
and cannot survive legal
review.”
Until a few years ago
service members could be
discharged from the mili-
tary for being transgender.
That changed under the
Obama administration. The
military announced in 2016
that transgender people
already serving in the mili-
tary would be allowed to
serve openly. And the mili-
tary set July 1, 2017, as the
date when transgender indi-
viduals would be allowed to
enlist.
But after President
Donald Trump took office,
the administration delayed
the enlistment date, saying
the issue needed further
study. And in late July 2017
the president tweeted that
the government would not
allow “Transgender indi-
viduals to serve in any
capacity in the U.S. Mili-
tary.” He later directed the
military to return to its
policy before the Obama
administration changes.
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AP Photo/ Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump, center, Vice President Mike Pence,
left, escorted by Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt,
right, visit the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on Monday in
Washington.
Hogan Gidley said in an
interview Tuesday with Fox
News Channel.
“We have no announce-
ment at this time,” he said,
“but Nancy Pelosi does
not dictate to the president
when he will or will not
have a conversation with the
American people.”
At the same time, the
White House is continuing
to work on contingency
plans to give Trump a
backup in case the joint-ses-
sion plans fall through.
The president cannot speak
in front of a joint session
of Congress without both
chambers’ explicit permis-
sion. A resolution needs to
be agreed to by both cham-
bers specifying the date
and time for receiving an
address from the president.
Officials have been
considering a list of poten-
tial alternative venues,
including a rally-style event,
an Oval office address— as
Pelosi previously suggested
— a speech before the Senate
chamber, and even a return
visit to the U.S.-Mexico
border as Trump is expected
to continue to hammer the
need for a barrier, according
to two others familiar with
the discussions.
Multiple versions are
also being drafted to suit the
final venue.
The Constitution states
only that the president
“shall from time to time
give to the Congress Infor-
mation of the State of the
Union,” meaning the presi-
dent can speak anywhere he
chooses or give his update in
writing. But a joint address
in the House chamber, in
front of lawmakers from
both parties, the Supreme
Court justices and invited
guests, provides the kind of
grand backdrop that is hard
to mimic and that this presi-
dent, especially, enjoys.
Still, North Carolina’s
House Speaker Tim Moore
wrote a letter inviting
Trump to deliver the
speech in the North Caro-
lina House chamber. And
Michigan House Speaker
Lee Chatfield on Friday
invited Trump to deliver the
address at the state Capitol
in Lansing instead.
Trump called Moore
Monday evening, according
to his office, and spoke
by phone with Chatfield
Tuesday morning, Chatfield
tweeted.
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