It’s a Big Club, And You Ain’t In It

Risking so much just to save Filibuster

Two of the eight centrist Democratic senators who helped end the shutdown this week now say maintaining the filibuster played a critical role in their decision.

Senator Angus King (I-ME), who sits in the Democratic caucuses, told the Portland Press-Herald that it was Trump who touted his newfound enthusiasm for a nuclear strike on the filibuster after Democrats won the election last week that propelled him into power.

“Don't forget that Donald Trump's position on this issue was not to negotiate, but to end it – entirely on their terms – by pressuring Senate Republicans to abolish the filibuster, thereby completely eliminating Democratic influence on this – or anything else -. And I know that this was not an empty threat or a negotiating ploy; this is what he meant, and a growing number of Republicans have agreed to it,” King said. “No filibuster, and we'll face a nationwide abortion ban, voter suppression laws, and quite possibly the repeal of the Affordable Care Act itself without any tool to stop it.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) made a similar point in an op-ed published this week in the Journal New York Times.

“It is likely that the chaos caused by a continued shutdown would lead to the elimination of the Senate filibuster so they could pass a government funding bill without Democratic votes, which would be a dangerous consolidation of one-party rule,” Kaine wrote.

This argument avoids the bigger picture: They have abandoned a fight that, based on polls and elections this month, they appeared to be winning. Instead, they defended a procedural tool that would likely hinder future agendas of Democratic administrations.

All of this feeds into a broader question about democracy.

Democrats have spent the final weeks of the 2024 election viewing it as a fight for the core of our political system. After Trump's first term, January 6, the radicalization of the Republican Party against democracy and the principle of equality with the other side, this is understandable. It's true that eliminating the filibuster would clear the way for Republicans to push their senators, willingly or not, to pass the kinds of laws King mentioned. But as pundits and online pedants alike will remind you, elections have consequences.

When you think about what kind of agenda a future pro-democracy, anti-corruption administration might have in mind, it's very hard to imagine that happening under the current filibuster. More broadly, Democrats have spent their growing leverage gained from the lockdown not on today's political victory, but on maintaining a permanent obstacle to governing the country.

— Josh Kovensky

Epstein, Epstein, Epstein

Similarly, but much more lasciviously, thousands of files from Jeffrey Epstein's email account were released this week. You've already seen the headlines. But the way it happened was a curious example of escalation: House Democrats released a small portion of emails in which Epstein discussed Trump, including with powerful Democratic Party confidants Kathy Rummler and Larry Summers.

House Republicans followed suit, releasing a batch of more than 20,000 emails into the public domain. There is enough here to tarnish the reputation of American elite figures. Steve Bannon is here, as well as Alan Dershowitz and Michael Woff.

But Rümmler and Summers are especially interesting, although for different reasons.

Ruemmler was an adviser to President Obama in the White House from 2011 to 2014. She was Eric Holder's nominee to become attorney general and rose to that level of prestige with the cadre of federal prosecutors who staffed the Enron task force during the Bush administration. This group launched several extremely distinguished legal careers: Andrew Weissmann, the prosecutor in the Mueller investigation, worked on the case, as well as at least two heads of the Justice Department's criminal division.

All of this is meant to contrast this prestige with the extremely sordid reality that the emails reveal, at least as far as Rümmler is concerned. She looks more like one of Epstein's buddies than anyone else. At one point, she complains to him about having to “watch all the people” at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike who are “at least 100 pounds overweight,” causing a “mild panic attack” before deciding to never eat “another bite of food for the rest of my life for fear that I'll end up just like one of those people.” Elsewhere, Ruemmler dismisses news of the charges against Epstein as “a novella of rehashed nonsense.” Like others, they track Trump's rise in popularity, sympathize with his election and note the progress of the Mueller investigation.

Ruemmler, now Goldman Sachs' general counsel, said she regrets ever knowing Epstein. She knew the charges he faced, the emails show. The exchanges occurred after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution with a minor. Again, Ruemmler was, at the time the reports were published, considered a viable candidate to become the nation's top law enforcement officer.

Summers appears to be a different figure in reports, seeking relationship advice from the disgraced financier.

In one conversation in March 2019, Summers describes a woman he knows who told him she was busy after he asked what she was “up to.”

“I said you’re incredibly shy,” Summers wrote in the message. “And then I asked, did you actually reschedule the weekend we were going to spend together because guy number 3 was coming?”

“I don't want to be in a gift-giving competition while still being a friend without any benefits,” he later added.

Epstein responded that the unnamed woman was “smart. Made you pay for past mistakes. Never mind dad, I'm going out with a motorcyclist, you responded well… irritation shows care. No whining showed any force.”

Summers described his relationship with Epstein was called a “major mistake” by the Harvard Crimson.

As with Ruemmler, the Summers case is not one of error of judgment—these people are smart, sophisticated, and occupy enormous positions of influence and public trust. It is implausible to view the exchanges we observe as an isolated error.

— Josh Kovensky

How Trump's redistricting efforts stalled in Utah

This week a Utah judge rejected a Republican-led congressional map in favor of a map put forward by the League of Women Voters and Mormon Women for Ethical Government that would have allowed for a Democratic district around Salt Lake City. The decision represents a major setback in the Trump administration's pressure campaign to force red states across the country to gerrymander their mid-cycle maps to influence the 2026 midterm elections.

Kathryn Biele, president of the League of Women Voters of Utah, explained in an interview with TPM that Utah's redistricting efforts were met with “perhaps the most impressive grassroots anti-gerrymandering effort in the United States.”

Biele also stressed that unlike other redistricting efforts, the map proposed by the League of Women Voters and Mormon Women for Ethical Government is not and was never intended to be partisan. She acknowledged that the newly approved map “won't make Utah a democracy,” an idea she called “absurd.”

“This is a very Republican state, and it will remain a very Republican state. But it's important to give people the opportunity to voice their opinions,” she said. “Our efforts to create districts were not politically motivated. It was all about giving people the right to vote.”

In her ruling this week, Judge Dianna Gibson explained that the Republican maps do not comply with Proposition 4, a ballot amendment passed by Utah voters that makes nonpartisan redistricting demands for the Legislature. Republicans are currently trying to put forward a measure next year to repeal Proposition 4. Biele characterized the effort as “Republicans working against their constituents.”

Although Republicans plan to appeal Gibson's decision, Biele is confident the appeal will not be successful.

“I'm pretty sure the Utah Supreme Court will reject the appeal because they've already ruled in our favor,” she said. “Our Republican legislature is absolutely convinced that they are the only people who know anything.”

— Chaya Himmelman