"We're in this together" - Joyce Vance

 

Trump made them plain on Friday while speaking in the Cabinet Room in connection with his meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who heads what he has called an “illiberal democracy” in that country. Trump called on Senate Republicans to scrap the filibuster rule and allow simple majority votes to prevail on the shutdown and for most other legislation. Trump promised his party that if they did so, the GOP would “never lose the midterms and we will never lose a general election” for the foreseeable future. No one should be surprised that the man who orchestrated the January 6 insurrection sees a permanent takeover of the country in the Republican party’s future. There is word tonight of a possible path to ending the shutdown. 

A deal in the Senate that would apparently fund the government through January 30, 2026, reversing federal employee layoffs and providing full-year appropriations for veterans’ affairs and SNAP benefits. It also secures a mid-December Senate vote on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies but doesn’t guarantee immediate funding. Of course, the House remains out of session and would have to return and vote in favor as well for a deal to go through, so consider this very preliminary.

Not all Democrats are on board with the contours of this proposal. While the vote would have the effect of forcing each Republican to take a position in public on healthcare costs and access as we head into the midterm election year, some Democrats likened it to caving in. California Governor Gavin Newsom was among them, and Bernie Sanders encouraged his colleagues to oppose the deal. And a preliminary vote tonight, where Republicans were joined by seven Democrats, and Maine Independent Angus King was rejected by Senators Schumer and Warren. Warren called the potential compromise “a terrible mistake” and said Democrats should “stand and fight for health care.”

The shutdown and how it ends are important. But we shouldn’t let it distract us from Trump’s careless words on Friday. He’s increasingly comfortable with expressing his desire for permanent one-party rule in this country, and saying it with Orbán, who has immeasurably weakened Hungary’s democracy, at his side, sends a stark message. 

Make sure you share Trump’s comments, which are likely to get lost as the media embarks on coverage of the back-and-forth regarding the shutdown. It’s unacceptable for a president to support measures that will give his party eternal control. That’s not how a democracy works—that’s dictatorship. Trump wants to forget last Tuesday’s elections, where American voters shared their clear views on this administration with their elected officials, and move on. It’s up to us to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Here are the stories we’ll be tracking this week:

At the Supreme Court

The Court is deciding whether to hear an appeal in Davis v. Ermold that would provide it with the opportunity to reverse Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 decision that made same-sex marriage legal nationwide. Concerns in that regard have been in the works at least since Justice Thomas’ concurrence in Dobbs, the case that overturned Roe v. Wade, suggested marriage equality could be next.

The case involves Kim Davis, the Kentucky court clerk who objects to giving marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The Court does not have to hear the case—it’s up to the Justices to decide whether they want to, which they discussed in a private conference on Friday.

There is no particular reason for the Court to take this case, in which Davis claims she should not have to do the job she chose to do. Her appeal has been rejected by the lower courts, and it’s not the kind of attractive case on the facts the Court uses for this sort of major precedent breaker. In addition to Justice Thomas, Justices Alito and Gorsuch have expressed some hostility towards same sex marriage, and Gorsuch was not on the Court when Obergefell was decided. 

The question is whether there is a fourth Justice who might join them to bring the case before the Court, which would be deeply concerning given its repeated willingness to overturn precedents like Dobbs and Chevron. The timeline for a decision isn’t certain. We can expect an order at any time clarifying whether they will hear the case this term or decline to do so.

From the FBI

Once masked ICE agents started abducting people, including American citizens, off of our streets, it was only a matter of time. The FBI issued a nationwide bulletin to law enforcement agencies, advising them that criminal impersonators are using ICE as a shield for committing crimes. The bulletin encouraged nationwide coordination to distinguish real operations from fakes.

Wouldn’t it be easier to make federal law enforcement follow the law?

The National Guard and Portland

Friday night, Judge Karin Immergut entered a preliminary injunction that prevents the president from deploying National Guard troops to Portland using his trumped-up “rampant crime” excuse while the litigation proceeds. That could be quite a while, and of course, the administration will ask the appellate courts to overturn the decision, as they did with her earlier temporary one, which has permitted them to keep National Guard troops from both Oregon and California on site.

As we noted when we discussed her earlier temporary injunction order in this case, the Judge noted that the government misrepresented the facts to the court, claiming that the Federal Protective Service was forced to deploy personnel from other locations to protect assets in Portland. That wasn’t true. Judge Immergut, who is a Trump appointee, wrote, “This Court arrives at the necessary conclusion that there was neither ‘a rebellion or danger of a rebellion’ nor was the President ‘unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States’ in Oregon when he ordered the federalization and deployment of the National Guard.”

You can read the Judge’s 106-page order here. We’ll hear more about the case this week as the government tries to get a higher court to prevent her order from going into effect.

SNAP

Last Monday, the Trump administration advised a Rhode Island judge that the government would use all of the money in its SNAP contingency fund to partially fund SNAP. They declined to dip into Section 32 Child Nutrition Program funding, which the Judge had suggested, as a way to fully fund SNAP. The government wrote that it planned “to deplete SNAP contingency funds completely and provide reduced SNAP benefits for November 2025.”

The plaintiffs went back to the district court later in the week, asking the Judge to enforce his earlier order because the government wasn’t in compliance with it. He agreed. The First Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently explained, “In a November 6 order, the district court granted the motion to enforce its October 31 order, concluding that the government had failed to either fully fund SNAP for November or to resolve administrative and clerical burdens such that partial payments would be made.” The court ordered the government to use the Section 32 funds by Friday to make full payments to SNAP recipients.

The administration went to the First Circuit, asking for a stay. The court entered an order denying an administrative stay and advising that “The government’s motion for a stay pending appeal remains pending, and we intend to issue a decision on that motion as quickly as possible.”

That, of course, was not acceptable to the government, which took its request for an immediate administrative stay, with the clock ticking on payments, to the Supreme Court. The Solicitor General claimed in his brief that the Trump administration would be “irreparably harmed” if it was forced to give American citizens American taxpayer dollars earmarked to keep them from going hungry.

At the Supreme Court, Justice Jackson entered an administrative stay, permitting the administration to hold off at least until the First Circuit rules. She wrote, “Given the First Circuit’s representations, an administrative stay is required to facilitate the First Circuit’s expeditious resolution of the pending stay motion,” giving that court the opportunity to decide the issue before SCOTUS weighs in. Her administrative stay will end 48 hours after the First Circuit rules, which she wrote she expects it to do “with dispatch.”

Of course, if the shutdown ends promptly, there will be no rationale for continuing to withhold payments.

Back to Trump.

It’s not as if the president was concerned with the prospect of starving children and elderly people. Trump spent Saturday golfing. That was followed by the debut of a seafood buffet at Mar-a-Lago, ignoring the prospect of starving Americans while feasting. Instagram user the orange crumble posted video of the buffet, noting it included “shrimp towers, lobster tails, caviar for miles.”

@theorangecrumble

The Orange Crumble on Instagram: "Check out the royal feast at …

Democrats seem to have their election-year themes set: Democracy and affordability. Affordability is the new word that’s on everyone’s lips in the Democratic Party and in Washington. The president is talking about functionally ending democracy and feasting on lobster while letting people on SNAP go hungry. The question for Democrats will be whether they can avoid internal bickering and rally the big tent in 2026.

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We’re in this together,

-Joyce Vance