A recruiting setback for Democrats, a disappointment for community service groups and two insights on the same-sex marriage ruling helped fill our final Sunday trip around the Inside Politics table.
What an amazing week
The Supreme Court ruling that made same-sex marriage a national right is one of those landmark cases that will make the history books.
One remarkable part of any discussion about the issue is how fast public opinion has moved on the issue.
The Atlantic’s Molly Ball pointed out that behind that public shift was a determined and often uphill effort by activists determined to advance their cause. She digs deep in a new piece for The Atlantic, and shared some of her reporting with us.
“The country got out ahead of the Supreme Court so that the Supreme Court only seemed to be ratifying public opinion that was already there. It’s up to 60 percent in a lot of national polls,” explained Ball.
“But that didn’t happen by accident,” she continued. “That wasn’t an organic phenomenon. That wasn’t just a natural process. It was the work, really, of 40 years of very determined activism against very long odds, something that seemed impossible for decades by a group of activists who are very stubborn and refused to give up.”
Fallout: Social conservatives will push on justices
Many Republicans hope the court’s marriage ruling will make that issue less of a 2016 debating point and allow the GOP to spend more time on issues where it is on stronger political ground.
But social conservatives aren’t ready to just move on, and it is worth remembering their clout in several early nominating battlegrounds, beginning with Iowa.
Jonathan Martin of The New York Times said his conversations suggest that at least in the short term, the candidates’ views and records on judicial appointments is sure to be an issue pushed by cultural conservatives.
“I think you’re going to see them quickly try to make the issue about two things: the kind of appointees that future presidents are going to make to the [Supreme] Court, and secondly, this broader conversation about religious liberty. I think a lot of folks on the right recognize that trying to fight a Supreme Court decision is politically not going to be easy,” said Martin.
“If they make it about those two issues, they can at the same time, sort of satisfy conservative primary voters, but also not push back against public opinion,” he added.
Democrats scrambling in North Carolina
Democrat Kay Hagan lost her North Carolina Senate seat in the GOP 2014 wave. But many in the party still viewed her as a natural for 2016, when the state’s other Senate seat is on the ballot.
Sen. Richard Burr is the Republican incumbent.
Democrats figured Hagan was battle tested and are betting on two 2016 dynamics they believe would help her: higher African American turnout in a presidential year, plus a ticket likely headed by another woman.
But CNN’s Nia-Malika Henderson says all that wasn’t enough to get Hagan in the race, and now Democrats are scrambling.
“So now they’ve got to go to Plan B,” said Henderson. “Plan B might include somebody like Anthony Foxx (U.S. Transportation Secretary and former Charlotte mayor), [but] he seems to have suggested that he doesn’t want to do it either.”
From Bill Clinton to George Bush to ???
Bill Clinton made national and community service a frequent theme of his presidency. And George W. Bush also was a big fan. Not to mention the “points of light” call to service from President George H.W. Bush.
Now, though, deficit conscious Republicans on Capitol Hill are looking for budget savings, and taking aim at federal aid for service programs such as Teach for America and Habitat for Humanity. These organizations are scrambling to find allies, and the National Journal’s Ron Fournier reports they are frustrated that, at least so far, the Obama White House is not rushing to help.
“These are all programs that give a purpose to civic-minded millennials in communities like Ferguson, Baltimore, Detroit and Charlotte and that provide services to communities like Baltimore, Ferguson, Charlotte and Detroit,” explained Fournier, adding that the Republicans in the House and the Senate are looking at cutting it by a third, which would dramatically reduce it well below the levels even under former President Bush.
According to Fournier, they plan to “play the hypocrisy card against the Republicans. They’re going to go right after the appropriators who have used national service programs and press releases to say look at what I’ve brought into… the district and … point out the hypocrisy and now they’re going to cut these programs.”
“They’re also going to shame the White House and point out the fact that the White House has done very little to make this a priority.”
Clinton email saga takes a twist
For Republicans, it was an “I told you so,” moment. For Democrats, the reaction was eye rolls and yawns in public but more than a little exasperation in private.
The issue: The State Department acknowledgment this past week that it did not have some of the Clinton emails that have been turned over to the House committee investigating the 2011 Benghazi attack.
It’s a problem because the emails clearly discuss department business. And, you might recall, Clinton assured us she gave the government everything and anything that might belong in its files before she erased her private email server.
So now Republicans are asking whether there could be more records withheld and/or destroyed. Camp Clinton says it’s a manufactured controversy as part of what it sees as a partisan investigation.
But whatever you make of this, it is a mess of Clinton’s own making.
The Republican questions would be easier to dismiss if she had asked some independent voice to monitor the email inventory process and certify that everything discussing government business was turned over. Instead, she says to trust her process. Most Republicans don’t.
Or, this could have been avoided entirely had she followed the recommendations her boss, President Barack Obama, made for Cabinet-level emails.