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In Trump vs. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court decided 6-3 the president has some immunity from prosecution for breaking the law. This ruptures the notion that no one is above the law in this country. I plan to take my time to understand the high court decision. I went outside for a shift in the garden.

After watching a bee covered in pollen (so much it couldn’t fly until after shaking some off), planting eggplant and lettuce in the covered row, and harvesting greens for vegetable broth and enough zucchini to choke a neighborhood, here is how it will roll. I will lurk to let pundits, analysts, content creators, & social media weirdos weigh in on the immunity decision before opening my mouth. Couple weeks, maybe. Also, I ask the question, “What else does this Roberts Court have in store for us next year?”

We survived the announcement. From here on I advise having a listen to Marilyn Sellars rendition of One Day at a Time then work to elect Democrats.

The final week of June must have come directly from hell. There was substantial action at the state and federal level — none of it good — and despite that, the presidential debate pushed everything aside leaving a landscape littered with the broken dreams of sensible people. It is difficult to comprehend just what happened. What did happen? What should be our focus going forward?

First things first. The Iowa Supreme Court decision to lift the injunction against the so-called heartbeat bill turned out to be anti-climactic. The law bans abortions once fetal cardiac activity is detected, typically at six weeks of pregnancy before many women know they are pregnant. Despite a thoughtful dissenting opinion by Chief Justice Susan Christensen, scattered protests by political activists around the state, and 60 percent of Iowans supporting access to an abortion, this decision was a sleeper. Can reproductive freedom impact the 2024 and 2026 elections? Yes it can, as I previously wrote. The event of Friday’s Iowa Supreme Court decision release neither helped nor hindered that possibility.

Let’s discuss the presidential debate on Thursday, June 27. I had no interest in watching it live, or afterward, nor did I. I see what you people are saying in your posts. Give it a rest. If it’s time for Joe Biden to withdraw from the race for president and retire, he will. As Biden said on Friday, “When you get knocked down, you get back up.” I sense there will soon be a speech about his campaign.

On Friday, Julie Gammack of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative quoted former Senator Tom Harkin as saying, “Last night was a disaster from which Biden cannot recover.” I love the senator, yet not so fast!

Biden has not changed during the last week. He needs space to see where his campaign is heading after the debate, one in which he admits he did not do well. I see polls taken since the debate flipped from slightly favoring Trump to slightly favoring Biden. Polls are brief snapshots in time and we shouldn’t make much of them. I land the same place Bill McKibben does regarding the post-debate environment.

…the tectonic plates shifted. And in ways that open up the possibility not just of decisively defeating Trumpism, but of pulling the country out of the polarized death spiral we’ve fallen into. But it’s going to take a while to play out, I think—time that we should grant Joe Biden, who’s at one of those hard, interesting, decisive points that come in the course of a life and of a nation. (Bill McKibben from The Crucial Years, June 29, 2024).

Recommend reading McKibben’s entire post here.

I would like to have been a fly on the wall at Camp David over the weekend when three generations of Bidens informally gathered. Those who know Biden recognize any change in course on the path to a nomination (for which he already has the pledged delegates) will be decided by Joe and Jill Biden. If he is considering retirement now, there is no public indication of it.

Overshadowing the presidential debate and parochial issues in Iowa was the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Loper Bright Enterprises, et.al. vs.Raimondo and Relentless, Inc., Department of Commerce, et.al. which overturned Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council.

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had something to say about this in the following excerpt from her press release after the decision was announced.

June 28, 2024

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) released the statement below following the Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce, which overturned Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council,  the long-standing precedent that courts provide deference to an agency’s interpretation of ambiguous federal statutes.

“This is a seismic shift. Congress passes laws and then federal agencies use their deep knowledge and expertise to implement them. In overturning decades of settled law, this extreme Court has given itself the power to second guess even the most complex regulatory decisions. This decision will result in chaos and undermine our ability to protect the health and safety of all Americans.”

As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Klobuchar has emphasized the importance of the Chevron doctrine, and specifically asked each of Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, all of whom joined today’s decision to overturn the landmark decision, if they would respect Chevron as precedent.

In 2017, during Justice Neil Gorsuch’s Senate confirmation hearing, Klobuchar pressed Gorsuch on his view, articulated as a lower court judge, that Chevron should be overturned. His views on Chevron were part of the reason Klobuchar did not vote to confirm Gorsuch. 

In 2018, during Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation hearing, Klobuchar questioned Kavanaugh on his views, wherein he stated that “Chevron serves good purposes… [AND] courts should not be unduly second-guessing agencies.”

In 2020, during Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation process, in response to written questions submitted by Klobuchar, Barrett affirmed that Chevron was “a precedent of the Supreme Court entitled to respect under the doctrine of stare decisis.”

Obviously, stare decisis has flown out the window with this and other laws decided by a radical Supreme Court. It is a big deal. For more details, read Senator Klobuchar’s entire statement here.

Like many Iowa Democrats, I was not enthusiastic about Joe Biden during any of the three times he sought support in the Iowa caucuses. The fact is, his administration has performed reasonably well on issues that matter to progressives… and to everyone. He’s not perfect. What president has been? If he continues to run, and he said he will, we must do everything possible to elect him. Our work doesn’t change no matter who is the nominee.

We are all aware of the ticking clock to the November election. After a week from hell, we need to take a moment to collect ourselves, and then get back to work electing Democrats. The consequences of doing otherwise could be worse than hell.

How does one cope with the fact Republicans hold all four Iowa congressional seats? Figure out a connection to some other Democrat. For me, that’s Jan Schakowsky who represents Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, including Skokie, where our child lives. Her periodic newsletters keep me up to speed without all the high drama of following Democratic leadership, and avoids the complaint-filled disinformation of my Republican member.

The passage of the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) is always a dogfight. Rep. Schakowsy tells it like it is as a Democrat. The good thing about following her is it gives me a starting point in discussing politics with our child. She is also in the thick of what’s happening. Here is her June 19 newsletter about the NDAA passing the U.S. House:

Last week, I joined nearly all Democrats in voting against passage of the shortsighted and harmful National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025. The original NDAA that passed out of committee 57-1 included numerous provisions that would make life better for service members and their families, including a 19.5% pay raise for junior enlisted troops, a 4.5% increase for all other service members, increased investments in childcare, and a restoration of the full Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH). These policies would go a long way towards helping ensure our military personnel and their families have what they need and deserve to thrive.

Unfortunately, the version of the NDAA that made it to the House floor included poison pill provisions that would make it impossible for women in uniform to get access to the reproductive health care they need, eliminate the office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Department of Defense, and attack the rights of LGBTQI+ service members and their families. This bill would do active harm to our national security and military readiness, and I could not vote for a bill that assaults our fundamental freedoms and attacks countless Americans.

In closing, I would like to take time to recognize Juneteenth National Independence Day. It was on this day, 159 years ago, that Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas with word of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. At long last, the remaining slaves were freed.

Black history is American history, and it should not be ignored, morphed, nor hidden. Juneteenth is a day for us all to come together to talk about our past and look towards our future. We cannot allow those who peddle fear and prejudice to take our country backwards. I will continue to use my platform to fight for a more equitable nation for all.

Have a great rest of the week, Jan.

If you seek to follow your children’s congressperson, or anything happening in the U.S. House, here is a link to the House master alert page. Follow this link to find a specific congressperson.

Iowa House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst said the message for Democratic candidates is clear in 2024. There are two issues: reproductive freedom and public education. Both are equally important. Where the rubber meets the road, during local political canvassing, many voters equate a discussion about “reproductive freedom” with one about “abortion.” In fact, Konfrst used both terms in her speech to delegates at the June 15 state convention. My question is will “reproductive freedom” do the work?

In my latest iteration as a political canvasser, beginning during the 2004 election cycle, I’ve been meeting with voters where they are. No one keeps track of how many voters they contact, yet certain themes stand out. One of them is abortion.

There is a hard line for people who oppose abortion. It’s the first question they ask of a canvasser, and the first one to shut down any dialogue if the answer is wrong. “Your candidate wants abortion to be legal? This conversation is over.” The main purpose of the canvass was accomplished: This voter is in the no column. It’s time to move on.

Polling done by the Des Moines Register is clear: “61 percent of Iowans say abortion should be legal in most or all cases and 33 percent said it should be illegal in most or all cases.” Establishing the ability for women and their physician to choose to have an abortion as part of women’s health care has broad support. The key question is will that matter in a hyper-partisan election? The Magic 8 ball returned “Reply hazy, try again.”

At one of my workplaces, my supervisor was an anti-abortion activist. That made for interesting conversations while traversing the countryside together in a rental car, listening to Rush Limbaugh, and making sales calls. I can’t count how many times I heard statistics on abortions from him. Some facts: before Dobbs, in 2021, there were 3,761 recorded abortions in Iowa. 625,978 were reported to the Centers for Disease Control that year. Literally millions of children were being killed by abortionists, my supervisor said. This was the same person who enabled me to meet John McCain, allowed me to register people to vote in the workplace, and let me lobby for the company with Dave Loebsack while we were in D.C. It was a weird work experience.

My point in telling this story is I learned the anti-abortion crowd is well financed, highly organized, and well connected. Groups like Heritage Action, part of the dark money Koch network, plan to keep awareness of how to restrict abortion rights front and center. They are in it for the long haul and are willing to spend resources and time accomplishing their objectives.

It is important to remember anti-abortion activists worked continuously for five decades to overturn Roe vs. Wade. They will not walk away from an electorate because polling shows voters favor the ability to have an abortion. We recently saw debates about abortion pills, in vitro fertilization, military policy toward abortion, and more. Women’s health care will be a constant presence in the election, creating a haze of what-aboutism, misinformation, disinformation, and outright deception. The intent is to obfuscate and by doing so, prevent Democrats from getting elected. Konfrst is right: we need to address this head on through our campaign messaging.

Will voters who support restricting abortion rights crossover and vote for Joe Biden and down ballot Democrats? I wouldn’t think so. We must know who they are and formally identify them in our database. Talking to them may be a lost cause, yet it is part of the canvassing work.

Democrats can bridge the gap where people live. There may be people, regardless of party registration for whom right to choose is valued. According to the Register poll, there are a lot of them. Once we find those people we must give them support, and if needed, some cover in return for a vote. That’s a lot different from asking whether they will vote for a specific candidate. It requires a longer term commitment to community that goes beyond elections. It would be good for Democrats to learn how to do that, and fast.

When it comes to messaging for the November election, we should follow the lead of our political leaders. To the extent Democrats do that, and frame the discussion as one of “reproductive freedom,” winning is possible. In the end, though, we will be talking about abortion because that is the vernacular voters use. There is no escaping it. We should embrace it.

The metaphor Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart used at the June 15 state convention was apt. After saying Democratic candidates had a tough road ahead, she likened the work leading to the November election to clearing rocks from a farm field. Hart talked about her experience farming in Iowa, having to pick rocks from fields with her siblings, reported the Iowa Capitol Dispatch.

“Sometimes, I think we’re in a rocky place right now, right?” Hart said. “And we’ve got to pick up that rock that makes the most sense for us. … Find the thing that you can do, that you can contribute to this effort, and do it in spades. That’s what we’ve got to do from now until November.”

Democratic political operatives are more used to having a specific plan, falling in line, and then working the plan. “Find the thing that you can do…” is counterintuitive. People scratch their head and ask, what does that even mean. I believe Hart is getting at the idea that Democrats must take more ownership of our politics now that the coordinated campaign is in the rear view mirror. There is no presidential campaign to filter down directives on what should be happening on the ground. As individual Democrats, we own this campaign. If we do the work, we have a chance of winning. There will be no more bitching about the coordinated campaign because it’s permanently gone. Simply the work remains.

It will also be challenging for Iowa Democrats to stay on message during the upcoming fall campaign. That’s mostly because the Republican Party is such an unruly, authoritarian mess. Legislation passed in recent sessions obfuscates the legislative terrain and serves as chaff clogging the radar of Democrats getting their bearings.

A case in point is the law passed last session related to immigration. Democrats and everyone with half a brain knew from jump street the law would not pass judicial muster. Republicans didn’t care if they would be sued over it. When U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Locher issued a preliminary injunction, everyone knew the argument that federal immigration law preempted the state law would prevail. As reported by the Cedar Rapids Gazette, “As a matter of politics, the new legislation might be defensible,” Locher wrote in his decision. “As a matter of constitutional law, it is not.”

Whether it be abortion, education, immigration, or whatever, poorly written, Republican-backed legislation is expected to raise a number of political issues this year. Attorney General Brenna Bird will be busy. It will serve as a distraction from Democratic work to focus messaging on women’s health care, abortion policy, and education.

At the convention, Iowa House Democratic Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst had a message for all Iowa Democratic candidates for this fall’s elections: When talking to voters, stay on message, and that message should be about reproductive freedom and education policies.

“Message discipline is critically important this year, every year,” Konfrst said as reported in the Cedar Rapids Gazette. “But this year especially because Iowans are voting on two issues this year: What’s on their mind is public education and abortion and reproductive freedom. And guess what. They’re with us. So that’s what we’re going to talk about. … “(Republicans) are wrong on public education and reproductive freedom. They’re wrong, and Iowans aren’t with them. Iowans are with us. So we’re going to talk about the issues that matter to Iowans, not just to us.”

Democrats own a clear goal for concise messaging. Republicans are all over the map with bad laws, lawsuits, negative reactions to the federal government, and generalized hubris cluttering the campaign battlefields. I don’t know if that creates an electoral environment where Democrats win. It clears the field for a new kind of politics. What do Democrats have to lose?