Updates

“As the Jewish community gathered to begin a period of determined introspection and solemn atonement, we can all take this opportunity to reflect on the last year and find ways – large and small – to come together and repair our world. I wish the Jewish community in Maryland, across America, and around the world a meaningful fast. From my family to yours, g'mar chatimah tova.”

Sarbanes Prepares for Elevated Role as Leading Reformer in Congress 
Josh Kurtz, MARYLAND MATTERS

As Democrats push to retake the U.S. House of Representatives in November, government ethics and political reform have become an increasingly important part of their message. And that means an elevated role for Maryland Congressman John P. Sarbanes (D).

Sarbanes is House Democrats’ apostle of political reform, the chairman of the Democracy Reform Task Force. He’s the architect of the party’s multi-pronged good government agenda. If the Democrats seize the majority, he will play a leading role in shaping the suite of reform bills that Democrats will try to advance through Congress. 

“I’m focused on trying to map out what a reform package would look like,” Sarbanes said in a recent interview in the Capitol, a few steps away from the House chamber, where votes were taking place. 
 

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House Democrat: here are 8 scandals Congress should investigate instead of Twitter bias 
Tara Golshan, Vox

Twitter’s Jack Dorsey is testifying in Congress. Democrats think it’s a waste of his time.

Congress is wasting Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s time when it should be investigating the Trump administration’s wrongdoing, Maryland Democrat Rep. John Sarbanes told Dorsey at one of his two congressional testimonies Wednesday. 

Dorsey spent Wednesday fielding questions in the House about how Twitter’s efforts to combat dangerous information and misinformation shared on the social media platform is actually censoring conservative voices. 
 

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Congressman John Sarbanes (D-Md.) today joined more than 170 House Democrats in demanding that Secretary Betsy DeVos prohibit the use of federal education funding to buy guns for teachers and school staff. The letter comes in the wake of a New York Times report that revealed the administration’s plan to allow schools to redirect federal education funding intended for services like mental health counseling in order to purchase firearms or firearms training.

President Trump’s latest assault on our nation’s civil servants is part of an ongoing and longstanding attack on the federal workforce. By effectively reducing federal pay, the President will hamper efforts to retain and attract talented and qualified candidates to fill the ranks of America’s civil service. If the Trump Administration can afford a $1.5 trillion tax cut for millionaires, billionaires and wealthy corporations, then it can certainly afford a modest and hard-earned pay bump for the women and men who honorably serve our country.

Trump’s Corrupt Inner Circle Won’t Be Democrats’ New Midterm Focus 
Kevin Robillard, The Huffington Post

The party will focus on a culture of corruption, not the Trump administration’s wrongdoing.

The nearly simultaneous, split-screen convictions of President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and one-time campaign chairman on Tuesday seemed designed to give the Democratic Party a powerful message heading into the 2018 elections, the same one Trump successfully deployed in 2016: “Drain the swamp.” 

The narrative builds itself: The number of close Trump associates linked to criminal wrongdoing is growing, the first two members of Congress to endorse him are both under indictment, his cabinet has already seen two members resign over corruption allegations and Trump has never separated himself from his businesses, turning Mar-a-Lago into an invitation for bribery. And for armies of armchair campaign strategists, railing against the Trump administration’s corruption is a message Democrats can ride to victory in 2018 and 2020. 
 

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In fallout from Trump controversies, Republicans warn Democrats will seek his impeachment. Democratic candidates are avoiding the word. 
Michael Scherer, The Washington Post

A day after President Trump’s former lawyer implicated him in directing a crime, Democratic leaders sharpened their election-year attack on the GOP as the party of corruption. But in an effort to keep the electoral focus on bread-and-butter issues, they largely steered clear of any discussion of impeachment.

Party leaders encouraged candidates and elected members to talk instead about demanding protection for the ongoing Justice Department investigations of Trump and his allies, offering a clear sign that they feel confident that grass-roots energy against Trump will show up at the polls without the need for a divisive rallying cry from the stump.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sent a letter to her caucus members asking them to keep speaking about economic issues, while also urging them to call out what she described as the “cesspool of self-enrichment, secret money and ethical blindness” that exists in Washington under unified Republican rule.

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With the recent one-year anniversary of the white nationalist march in Charlottesville those same hateful elements tried to rally again. In the face of this, we must stand in solidarity for a different vision of America. The vile ideology embraced by white nationalists and neo-Nazis will not win the day as long as people of good will work together to build a more caring, tolerant and just society. That must be our relentless pursuit.