WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep, Analilia Mejia will help lead a new House Democratic task force focusing on the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — the one with the birthright citizenship provision President Donald Trump has been trying to overturn.
The task force will bring in experts to discuss the amendment and educate the public about the rights it provides to American citizens. They include the provision that anyone born in the U.S. automatically is a citizen, and that insurrectionists cannot hold federal office.
The U.S. Supreme Court, by a narrow 6-3 majority, upheld the citizenship provision, which Trump tried to eliminate through an executive order. Trump has urged Congress to overturn the provision and the justices to rehear the case.
“We are witnessing a coordinated campaign by the Trump administration and a radicalized Supreme Court to dismantle the fundamental freedoms forged in the aftermath of slavery and protected by the 14th Amendment, including the right to vote, equal protection and due process under the law, and the citizenship of every child born on this soil,” said Mejia (D-Glen Ridge).
“This is a deliberate strategy to silence the communities who fought hardest to build this democracy and to strip them of the rights they bled for.”
She will serve as a co-chair alongside Reps. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), Emily Randall (D-Wash.) Lateefah Simon (D-Calif.) and Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.).
Booker wants committee to examine Acting AG Blanche
Before holding hearings on the nomination of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to run the Justice Department, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker wants the Senate Judiciary Committee to look at the way the nominee is handling the Cabinet-level agency now.
Booker and other committee Democrats say that the scheduled July 21 needs to focus on the department, not on Blanche’s nomination.
“As you know, considering the nomination of a Cabinet-level official and conducting oversight of the department they lead are two distinct exercises of the Senate’s constitutional duties that have been entrusted to the committee,” Booker and the other Democrats wrote to Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). “One cannot be substituted for the other.”
Of particular concern, the senators wrote, is Blanche’s support of Trump’s proposal to set aside $1.8 billion in taxpayer dollars to pay people who claim they were unfairly targeted by the department, That could include the hundreds of pro-Trump individuals convicted of crimes after storming the U.S. Capitol to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Trump later pardoned all of the insurrectionists.
“Mr. Blanche has played an integral role in the Department’s most outrageous actions since Watergate,” the senators wrote. “Throughout his tenure at the Department of Justice, Mr. Blanche has used its power not to shield Americans from injustice, but as a sword aimed downward at the president’s perceived enemies The pendency of a nomination should not excuse the official in charge from answering for that conduct.”
Summer vacation shouldn’t mean hungry kids, McIver says
When schools close for the summer, some kids go hungry.
So Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark) has introduced legislation making it easier for schools and community groups to provide free meals to kids where they live, even if they’re not at school.
According to McIver, only 16% of those receiving free or reduced-price school lunches get lunch during the summer.
“Every child deserves access to healthy and nutritious meals, no matter the season,” McIver said, “We know what works. Giving summer meal providers the flexibility to offer grab-and-go meals and meal delivery options are common-sense, proven measures to fight summer hunger. Your ZIP code shouldn’t determine whether young people have enough to eat.”
The legislation is sponsored in the Senate by Andy Kim.
“For millions of kids, the summer break from school means worrying about where they’ll get their next meal,” Kim said.
