In a press conference on Thursday afternoon, President Donald Trump careened from topic to topic, repeatedly told reporters to “sit down,” and boasted that his administration is running “like a fine-tuned machine.” He also announced his new selection for labor secretary, Alexander Acosta, who will be replacing Trump’s first choice for the post, Andrew Puzder, after it appeared Puzder would not be able to secure enough confirmation votes.

Trump used the press conference as a stage to air grievances that have been bubbling during his three and a half weeks in office. After announcing Acosta’s nomination, and admonishing the “mess” he inherited as president, Trump engaged reporters in a combative back-and-forth, in which he called for “friendly” questions and told reporters who asked him tough questions that their ratings were bad.

Trump deflected questions about former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn–who recently resigned amid reports that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about the true nature of his phone calls with the Russian ambassador–and instead called the reports “fake news.” He also said Flynn is a “fine person.” Referring to the classified information about Flynn’s call that leaked to the news media, Trump continued:

It’s all fake news. It’s all fake news. The nice thing is, I see it starting to turn, where people are now looking at the illegal — I think it’s very important — the illegal, giving out classified information. It was — and let me just tell you, it was given out like so much.

Trump was also asked if anyone in his administration had contact with Russia during the campaign. “Nobody that I know of,” he said, adding that he had “nothing to do” with Russia’s election hacking or WikiLeaks. Trump said the roll-out of his executive order that barred travel from seven countries–which a federal court temporarily froze–was “very smooth.” At one point, contrary to some reports, Trump claimed: “This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine.”

Before Trump began to riff on a menagerie of topics, he named Acosta as his pick for the new head of the Labor Department. Acosta has been the dean at Florida International University School of Law since 2009. He is a former member of the National Labor Relations Board, and a former clerk of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito from when he sat on the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. If confirmed, Acosta, the son of Cuban immigrants, would be the first Hispanic member of Trump’s cabinet.

Acosta was quickly chosen after Puzder withdrew his nomination on Wednesday. Despite unusually stiff opposition to a number of Trump’s cabinet appointees, Puzder seemed to be the first to potentially fail a confirmation vote. At least four Republican Senators signaled that they would oppose Puzder, who in recent weeks came under intense fire for personal matters, and for his labor practices as head of fast-food chains Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr.

But what started as a fairly typical speech soon devolved into a shouting match between the president and reporters; the dais became a medium for Trump to flood the briefing room with a barrage of half-baked claims and some outright falsehoods. Trump said his Electoral College victory was the largest since President Ronald Reagan in 1984. NBC reporter Peter Alexander corrected Trump, informing him that Presidents George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama won by a greater margin in 1988 and 2008 respectively.

“Why should Americans trust you?” Alexander asked. “I was given that information,” Trump responded. “I don’t know. I was just given it. We had a very, very big margin.” He continued: “Actually, I’ve seen that information around. But it was a very substantial victory. Do you agree with that?”

Toward the end of the press conference, Trump said he is “the least anti-Semitic person you’ve ever seen in your entire life,” in response to a question about the increase in anti-Semitic incidents reported in the U.S. after Election Day. April Ryan, an African-American reporter from American Urban Radio Networks, asked Trump about his agenda to help inner-cities, and if he would seek Congressional Black Caucus input. “Do you want to set up the meeting?” Trump replied. “Are they friends of yours?”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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A Florida judge has ordered the state to redraw its congressional districts by August 15th, in order to comply with the state’s Fair Districts Constitutional Amendment. This is a ruling that the Democrats have pushed for, because they feel that the state map has been drawn to give the GOP an advantage. But there is an unlikely group working against this change from within the Democratic Party–the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).

The Florida Constitution states that no district shall be drawn with the intention of giving favor or disfavor to a particular political party. The law also states that districts shall not be drawn with the intent of denying equal opportunity to racial minorities to participate in the political process. Last month, a judge ruled that politics were taken into consideration for the drawing of two districts and that these districts made a “mockery” of the constitutional amendment. The districts that were ruled unconstitutional are the Fifth and the Tenth and can be seen below:

Thanks WtxlTV!

The judge, Terry Lewis, ruled that these two districts are drawn to divide up the Orlando area, and to connect African American voters from the Orlando and Jacksonville areas in order to favor the GOP. Lewis gave the GOP until August 15th to submit a new map for consideration, at which point he will decide whether to delay the 2014 midterm election in Florida in order to allow the new map to be implemented, or to wait until 2016 to implement the changed map. The Democratic Party backed this suit and is pushing for the districts to be implemented for the 2014 election. Democrats currently have 10 of the 27 seats in Florida, and could stand to gain a couple seats if the map is redrawn. But the CBC, made up entirely of Democrats, is against overturning the current map.

Marcia Fudge, the chairwoman of the CBC, sent a strongly worded letter to Steve Israel, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Fudge wrote, “per our prior discussion, we are extremely disturbed by the DCCC’s efforts to dismantle CBC districts in states that have historically proven to be difficult to elect minority members.” Her issue is that Florida’s Fifth District is represented by CBC member Congresswoman Corrine Brown, and the redistricting effort might cause her to lose her seat. This may seem a bit odd, as Democrats stand to gain seats overall with a new map, but the Fifth District is an example of packing. Packing is a form of gerrymandering where a certain group or party is packed as much as possible into one district, in order to make sure there voting power only impacts on district. In the case of Florida’s Fifth, Republicans packed African Americans from Jacksonville and Orlando together, to make sure their votes would only impact a district that would go Democrat anyways. Because of the way the Fifth is currently drawn, it is no surprise the Democratic Party nominated an African American candidate that went on to win. But if the map is redrawn and the African American voters in the Fifth are divided, it will may result in more white Democrats being elected, and Brown could lose her seat. This would occur because the Fifth currently has a majority of African American voters, but if the Orlando and Jacksonville parts of the district are split, Brown’s district will change. So while the Democratic Party stands to gain seats, the CBC has to contend with possibly losing a member.

This issue is a reflection of what is fundamentally wrong with our election system. A minority group is actually advocating to keep a district that was gerrymandered by the opposing political party. That being said, were the Fifth to be divided, it is by no means certain Brown would lose her seat. But the CBC is opposing the change because they feel like African Americans are already underrepresented in Congress. Perhaps this whole issue–a judge forcing the redrawing of a map, considering delaying a election, and the CBC opposing a change that would benefit its own party–is evidence that we need election reform that would fairly represent all Americans. We need to stop allowing mapmakers to decide who Americans are going to be represented by.

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Matt DeWilde (@matt_dewilde25) is a member of the American University class of 2016 majoring in politics and considering going to law school. He loves writing about politics, reading, watching Netflix, and long walks on the beach. Contact Matt at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Jaxport via Flickr]

Matt DeWilde

Matt DeWilde is a member of the American University class of 2016 majoring in politics and considering going to law school. He loves writing about politics, reading, watching Netflix, and long walks on the beach. Contact Matt at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Redrawing the Map: Florida’s Congressional Mess appeared first on Law Street.

Two big fights are happening between the White House and the Senate over judicial nominees. Well, that’s nothing new, of course, but the two fights are pretty interesting.

Want to guess the two sides?

Well, if you guessed Democrats vs. Republicans…you’re wrong. The two sides in opposition are the Obama Administration and some Senate Democrats, although for very different reasons when it comes to the two nominees.

The first nominee is Michael Boggs. If appointed, he would have a lifetime seat on the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. He’s a pretty conservative man–as a Georgia legislator he voted very much to the right on some contentious issues. These include voting to keep the Confederate symbol on the flag of Georgia, make abortion laws stricter, banning gay marriage, and defending discrimination against gay couples.

So why in the world would President Obama nominate Boggs? Well it’s all part of a deal. Georgia, like much of the United States, has long been plagued with a shortage of judges. There are constantly open seats on every level of the judiciary. Anytime one side nominates someone too controversial, they get bogged down and that seat never gets filled. So Obama made a deal with the two Republican Senators from Georgia–Senators Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson. They compromised on seven nominees–four of whom were GOP picks, three are liberal. And the nominees are a package deal, meaning the Senate need to approve all or nothing.

It was a gutsy move on Obama’s part. And it looks like it is really not panning out well at all. They do not appear to have a problem with the other three conservative nominees, but many Democrats say that Boggs is just too much of a compromise.

For example, Human Rights Watch released a statement, saying, “through this clear and unapologetic record Boggs has signaled his hostility towards issues of equality in his home state as an elected official. If confirmed, Boggs’ could entrench these destructive, anti-equality values on the federal bench for generations to come.” The Congressional Black Caucus said they were taken by surprise by the nomination and condemned the nomination. The hearing will be today, and it will be interesting to see if there’s enough opposition for this deal to fall completely apart. 

But Michael Boggs isn’t the only judicial nominee that’s causing problems for the White House. Obama nominated David Barron, a Harvard Law School Professor to a seat on the First Circuit Court of Appeals. Unlike with Boggs, the disagreement isn’t over Barron’s politics–he’s actually pretty liberal. Instead the hesitation comes from his work on a particular case, the killing of an American extremist named Anwar al-Awlaki.

Barron worked on the team that put together the legal justification for the killing of al-Awlaki by American forces. Liberal criticism of Barron includes the fact that they do not believe the White House has released enough information on Barron’s views and involvements on the subject. Prominent liberal lobbying group ACLU, as well as both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have demanded the release of supposed memos detailing that involvement.

All of these judicial nominees hang in the balance, which is sad because the deal would make progress in filling seats, and David Barron himself is supremely qualified. And honestly speaking, I think the problems come from a lack of prudence in the White House and a strange and surprising disconnect between Obama and fellow Democrats. He’s not running for election again, obviously, but that doesn’t mean that Obama can afford to piss off too many of his usual allies. They hold the power to make the last few years of his presidency pretty ineffectual. If they deny these nominees, lots of behind-the-scenes work will be thrown out of the window, leaving behind the problem of empty courts and backed up cases. Obama has a couple choices here: asking for permission or for forgiveness. So far he’s been choosing the latter, but at this point, the former may be better advised.

[Msnbc]
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Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Feature image courtesy of [Tim Evanson via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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