Playbook PM: Advocates applaud Biden’s transgender policy moves

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Mar 31, 2022 View in browser   By Eugene Daniels and Eli Okun Presented by BREAKING IN FLORIDA — U.S. District Court Judge MARK WALKER has ruled that the restrictive voting law that Florida enacted in 2021 violates the Voting Rights Act. The ruling includes a permanent injunction against the law's limitations on drop boxes for absentee ballots, per the Tampa Bay Times. The ruling also says Florida must obtain preclearance from federal courts before it enacts new election laws in key areas, per Gary Fineout. The ruling TRANS DAY OF VISIBILITY — Today is the International Transgender Day of Visibility, and the Biden administration is rolling out a series of new actions aimed at bolstering transgender people's rights and experiences. Among the moves: (1) The State Department will now allow Americans to choose "X" as their gender on their passports, along with other steps to broaden gender identity marks on government documents. (2) The administration is setting aside money for transgender representation in census data, and (3) putting out new materials around mental health care. And in a first for a federal agency, HHS will fly a transgender pride flag today. CNN has more details Trans and queer advocates applauded today's announcements from the administration, but conceded that it could seem minuscule when compared to the recent wave of anti-trans legislation enacted in red states. Given the limits on what the president can do alone — and the DOJ's lawsuits against those state laws on behalf of trans youth — many feel that President JOE BIDEN is doing all he can. The question, in part: Is it enough? "It's frustrating, simply because the administration's hands are tied in so many ways," GILLIAN BRANSTETTER, press secretary at the National Women's Law Center, told Playbook. "They're necessarily limited in what they can do, but within that scope, they've been very active. … We've seen, just in the first year of the administration, more federal movement on trans rights than we saw in all eight years of the Obama administration." — LGBTQ advocates today filed the first lawsuit challenging Florida's controversial law restricting teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity, Andrew Atterbury reports from Tallahassee. The plaintiffs gave their first interview to Time's Madeleine Carlisle. — CAITLYN JENNER is joining Fox News as a contributor. In a statement, Fox News CEO SUZANNE SCOTT said that Jenner "is a trailblazer in the LGBTQ+ community, and her illustrious career spans a variety of fields that will be a tremendous asset for our audience." Jenner, as an outspoken Republican, has been a controversial figure in the trans community, especially over her comments supporting bans on transgender student-athletes. — TOP-ED: Rep. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-Wash.) writes for Teen Vogue, as the mother of a transgender daughter, that federal leaders should do more to protect transgender kids: "I have watched admiringly as she has come into her full creativity and brilliance. But I also worry deeply that the world we live in now doesn't receive her in the same way." Good Thursday afternoon. National Economic Council Director BRIAN DEESE will join comms director KATE BEDINGFIELD at this afternoon's White House press briefing. JUDICIARY SQUARE GRAHAM AND CAPITO TO OPPOSE JACKSON — More Republicans came out against KETANJI BROWN JACKSON's Supreme Court nomination today, including Sens. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO (R-W.Va.) and LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.). Graham had once been seen as a possible yes vote, having supported her lower-court nomination last year, though it's been clear for a while that he was heading in the opposite direction. On Twitter and the Senate floor, he blasted Jackson's "record of judicial activism" and "flawed sentencing methodology regarding child pornography cases," and said she "will not be deterred by the plain meaning of the law when it comes to liberal causes." — The other Supreme Court spotlight: Asked at her presser this morning whether Justice CLARENCE THOMAS should resign over his wife VIRGINIA's actions, Speaker NANCY PELOSI said she wouldn't get into that yet. But "I don't think he should have ever been appointed," she said, adding that Thomas should recuse himself from relevant cases and that Congress should create a Supreme Court code of ethics. — Meridith McGraw and Daniel Lippman have an interesting story that just posted on Ginni Thomas and just how powerful she really is: "Depending on who you ask in Washington, Thomas is either a political powerhouse or a harmless busybody with too much time on her hands and access to too big a Rolodex. And depending on who you talk to in Trumpworld, she was the type of over-eager, well-connected D.C type that every administration must deal with, or a serious player who helped maintain the political coalition that elevated [DONALD] TRUMP."   A message from The American Beverage Association: At America's beverage companies our plastic bottles are made to be remade. We're carefully designing them to be 100% recyclable — so every bottle can become a new one. That means less plastic waste in our environment. Please help us get Every Bottle Back. EveryBottleBack.org   CONGRESS COVID AID FIGHT — Sen. MITT ROMNEY (R-Utah) told reporters today that Senate negotiators are close to a deal on a reduced $10 billion Covid funding package that slashes aid to vaccinate other countries. He said they have an "agreement in principle" that would be fully paid for, but it still needs to be scored by the CBO before Republicans get on board with even a procedural vote. Romney noted there "may be $1 billion" for global efforts, down from the $5 billion Democrats wanted. — House Democrats slammed the idea, warning that failing to vaccinate the rest of the world would put everyone at risk by giving variants more room to emerge. "Either they don't care or they don't know, but it is wrong," Pelosi said of Republicans at her weekly presser this morning. — But Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER sounded more open to such a deal: "We would like considerably more money than our Republican colleagues, but we need to reach 60 votes," he said, per Burgess Everett. MANCHIN IN THE MIDDLE — The Senate's swingiest swing vote, Sen. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.), sounded off this morning: — Title 42: He said the administration should reconsider its plans to do away with the Trump-era border policy: "If anything we'd be looking at permanency for Title 42," he said, per Burgess. "Maybe that would spur us to get a good immigration policy that works for the borders. The borders have to be secure." — Biden releasing more oil from the reserves: He likes it. — Dems' policy agenda: He's still more focused on deficit reduction and taming inflation than picking up the pieces of Democrats' Build Back Better dreams. "I'm talking about fixing the tax code," he said, per CNN's Manu Raju. "That's the one thing we all agreed was wrong." NEGOTIATING LIKE IT'S 2015 — If the Biden administration can finally land the revived Iran nuclear deal, it's likely to face similar prospects in the Senate as the Obama administration did seven years ago: strenuous opposition from Republicans and even some Democrats, but not enough to tank it, Andrew Desiderio reports. One of the moderate Dems new to the chamber since last time, MARK KELLY (Ariz.), sounds warm to a deal. And opponents are unlikely to marshal enough votes to override a presidential veto. "That doesn't mean the sales job for a still-unfinished deal will be easy." CAWTHORN IN THEIR SIDE — The House GOP may be fed up with Rep. MADISON CAWTHORN (R-N.C.), but he's not backing down: In a new ad, he blames the left wing for his recent kerfuffles and declares he "cannot be stopped." GARCETTI IN TROUBLE? — Sen. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-Conn.) joined the list of senators who have raised issues with Los Angeles Mayor ERIC GARCETTI's nomination to be U.S. ambassador to India over sexual harassment allegations against a municipal aide. "I have concerns because I've seen and heard about the allegations," Blumenthal said, per Axios' Hans Nichols.   SUBSCRIBE TO NATIONAL SECURITY DAILY : Keep up with the latest critical developments from Ukraine and across Europe in our daily newsletter, National Security Daily. The Russian invasion of Ukraine could disrupt the established world order and result in a refugee crisis, increased cyberattacks, rising energy costs and additional disruption to global supply chains. Go inside the top national security and foreign-policymaking shops for insight on the global threats faced by the U.S. and its allies and what actions world leaders are taking to address them. Subscribe today.     THE ECONOMY INFLATION STILL RED HOT — The personal consumption price index, the inflation measure the Fed prefers to use, jumped 6.4% last month year over year — a 40-year high, AP's Christopher Rugaber reports. Gas and food prices in particular spiked in February. "Measures of inflation will likely worsen in the coming months because Thursday's report doesn't reflect the consequences of Russia's invasion of Ukraine." — How it can be spun: With Dems staring down a difficult midterm season, Insider's Adam Wren asked five Democratic admakers how they think the party should try to sell the economy to voters. Among their various ideas: "Steer into inflation … Focus on bridges and hospitals … Break barriers with empathy … Pivot to outsourcing … Blame the billionaires." THE UNEMPLOYMENT PICTURE — New jobless claims ticked up slightly last week to 202,000, up a bit from the previous week's historic low level, per the WSJ. It's a continuing sign of labor-market strength. WAR IN UKRAINE LATEST ON THE GROUND … — The Kyiv suburbs saw heavy levels of fighting today, and NATO Secretary-General JENS STOLTENBERG warned that "Russian units are not withdrawing but repositioning," despite Kremlin claims, per the NYT. — A temporary cease-fire was announced in Mariupol, but it remained unclear how successful or safe it would turn out to be. More from Deutsche Welle — Russia ordered nearly 135,000 new army conscripts as part of an annual call-up, though it said it wasn't related to the war in Ukraine. More from Reuters REACTION IN THE WEST … — Oil prices fell today on the news that the U.S. planned to release much more from its reserves, per the BBC. But OPEC+, including Russia, said it wouldn't go beyond the slight monthly increases of supply it had previously announced, shrugging off pressure from the West, per Reuters. — New U.S. sanctions: The Biden administration said they'd take aim at Russian tech companies, including the country's largest chipmaker. More from Bloomberg — The ruble has rebounded to nearly pre-war levels after Western sanctions initially sent it spiraling, thanks largely to higher prices for the oil and gas that sanctions avoided, Kate Davidson reports. Some say it's an indication that the West needs to get even tougher with sanctions, while other experts note that the change "primarily reflects the extraordinary steps Russia's central bank has taken to stop the ruble's freefall," not "a sign of an improvement in the Russian economy or in Putin's hand." ALL POLITICS REDISTRICTING ROUNDUP — FiveThirtyEight's Nathaniel Rakich and Elena Mejía have a good step back to look at how Democrats have majorly cut down the House's Republican bias for the coming decade. But they caution: "Put bluntly, the national House map still isn't fair; its gerrymanders are just more fairly balanced. And the unfairness of the individual maps has other important consequences." POLICY CORNER IT'S OFFICIAL — The Biden administration will invoke the Defense Production Act to ramp up supplies of the minerals needed for electric vehicle batteries. Details from The Verge IMMIGRATION FILES — The administration is adding 35,000 more seasonal visas for workers this spring and summer, WSJ's Michelle Hackman scooped. About a third are earmarked for El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti and Honduras, to try to deter illegal immigration. "The move marks the largest release of additional visas for the summer season since Congress changed the rules in 2017 governing how many seasonal-worker visas would be made available each year."   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH KNOWING BENNIE THOMPSON — The New Republic's Grace Segers has a new profile out of the Mississippi Democrat leading the House Jan. 6 panel, a role that builds on his career fighting for civil rights and facing racist challenges to his early elections in the 1960s and '70s. "For Thompson, one of the honors of his committee chairmanship is in showing that the son of man who never voted — who couldn't vote in the apartheid state of Jim Crow Mississippi — can lead the investigation uncovering the truths of a dark day in U.S. history," she writes. "Can rise within the system that initially and aggressively sought to exclude him." BEYOND THE BELTWAY WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE AND NOT A DROP TO DRINK — They've got plenty of Covid aid dollars to spend on new hires, but state and local governments are having a hard time finding workers to fill open positions, Eleanor Mueller reports. Private-sector employment levels have rebounded at far higher levels from the pandemic (93% vs. 53%). The labor market is tight everywhere, but it's particularly tough for governments to compete with rising private-sector wages. "Economists and unions warn that if public-sector employers can't reverse the trend, it will erode the quality of services like education and slow the overall economic recovery." THE PANDEMIC FOR YOUR RADAR — Whenever the official coronavirus public health emergency is declared over, the U.S. health care system will face an array of challenges related to how it's changed under temporary measures over the past two years, AP's Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar reports . "That could force an estimated 15 million Medicaid recipients to find new sources of coverage, require congressional action to preserve broad telehealth access for Medicare enrollees, and scramble special Covid-19 rules and payment policies for hospitals, doctors and insurers." PLAYBOOK METRO SECTION CONVOY WATCH — The conservative trucker convoy that has hovered outside of D.C. for almost a month is leaving the area today to head for California. More from WJLA PLAYBOOKERS SPOTTED: First lady Jill Biden at Hank's Oyster Bar at the Wharf on Wednesday evening. … Eric Schmidt having lunch with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday in the Senate Dining Room. Sen. MarkWarner (D-Va.) stopped by for a few minutes too. … Theresa May having breakfast at the St. Regis on Tuesday. OUT AND ABOUT — EarthX gathered people for a discussion Wednesday evening about sustainability in the cable TV industry, with speakers including Trammell Crow, Michael Fletcher, Reps. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and John Curtis (R-Utah), and Vanessa Sinders. Also SPOTTED: Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) and Jack Bergman (R-Mich.). FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Lindsey Curnutte is now deputy comms director for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' reelect. She most recently was press secretary for Heritage Action for America, and is a Ken Buck alum. TRANSITIONS — David Norquist will be the next president and CEO of the National Defense Industrial Association. He previously was a deputy secretary of Defense from 2019 to 2021. … Erik Telford is joining the startup Commonwealth Group Services as an SVP. He most recently was at Stand Together and the Koch network. … Jay Campbell is joining the Independent Brewing Federation. He most recently has been senior legislative assistant for Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas).   A message from The American Beverage Association: America's beverage companies are working together to reduce our industry's plastic footprint by investing in efforts to get our plastic bottles back. Our goal is for every bottle to become a new one, so they don't end up in our oceans, rivers and landfills. EveryBottleback.org     Follow us on Twitter Rachael Bade @rachaelmbade Eugene Daniels @EugeneDaniels2 Ryan Lizza @RyanLizza Eli Okun @eliokun Garrett Ross @garrett_ross   Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook  |  Playbook PM  |  California Playbook  |  Florida Playbook  |  Illinois Playbook  |  Massachusetts Playbook  |  New Jersey Playbook  |  New York Playbook  |  Ottawa Playbook  |  Brussels Playbook  |  London Playbook View all our politics and policy newsletters Follow us

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