The West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin announced this morning he would join Republicans in voting against the measure, leaving it no chance of achieving a majority. The backing of at least 60 senators would have been needed for it to pass.
But Democratic senate majority leader Chuck Schumer insisted on pressing ahead with the doomed vote in order to put Republican senators on record.
Polls have shown that an overwhelming majority of voters don’t want to see the supreme court overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that protected abortion rights, and Democrats see the issue as a vote-winner ahead of November’s crucial midterm elections.
In comments before the symbolic vote, Schumer said:
Every American will see how they voted. And I believe the Republican party, the Maga Republican party, will suffer the consequences electorally when the American people see that.
We’re ending the live US politics blog now, but look out shortly for the Guardian’s full coverage of Wednesday’s historic vote in which Democrats’ efforts to enshrine abortion rights into federal law fell well short in the US Senate.
The day was dominated by the vote on the women’s health protection act, which Democrats knew was doomed to failure, but which they hope can now be used against Republicans who went on record to defeat the legislation.
Here are the day’s highlights:
Senators voted 51-49 to reject the women’s health protection act, West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin crossing the aisle to vote with Republicans.
Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska issued a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to abortion rights but promoting instead more restrictive legislation.
Arizona ended an eight-year death penalty hiatus when it executed convicted murderer Clarence Dixon by lethal injection.
A New York district judge said he would lift a civil contempt order against Donald Trump for failing to cooperate with a criminal investigation into his business activities if the former president paid $110,000 and met other obligations.
Joe Biden hailed American farmers as the “backbone of freedom” during a speech in Illinois and announced measures to support the agriculture industry and reduce food prices.
A judge in Florida struck down new congressional districts drawn by the state’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis, saying they made it harder for Black voters to elect the candidate of their choice.
Democrats criticize Republican Senators after doomed vote on abortion
After leaving the chamber, the vice president, Kamala Harris, told reporters that the Senate is “not where the majority of Americans are on this issue”.
“This vote clearly suggests that the Senate is not where the majority of Americans are on this issue,” @VP Harris says after presiding over the failed vote on abortion rights. pic.twitter.com/BrEmO7yqvt
A number of Senators from the Democrats also quickly reacted after the expected failure to advance their legislation to protect abortion.
Ron Wyden, from Oregon, said the vote was a “punch in the gut” for those who “believe in liberty, privacy and equal rights. Now Americans know which side every Senator stands on.”
Angus King, of Maine, said women across the country are worried the Supreme Court “may take away their basic right to make decisions about their own body,” adding “we cannot move backwards”.
The West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin announced this morning he would join Republicans in voting against the measure, leaving it no chance of achieving a majority. The backing of at least 60 senators would have been needed for it to pass.
But Democratic senate majority leader Chuck Schumer insisted on pressing ahead with the doomed vote in order to put Republican senators on record.
Polls have shown that an overwhelming majority of voters don’t want to see the supreme court overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that protected abortion rights, and Democrats see the issue as a vote-winner ahead of November’s crucial midterm elections.
In comments before the symbolic vote, Schumer said:
Every American will see how they voted. And I believe the Republican party, the Maga Republican party, will suffer the consequences electorally when the American people see that.
Senators begin voting on abortion rights legislation
Vice-President Kamala Harris has called the vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act and senators have begun voting. 60 Senate votes are needed for it to pass.
Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski has issued a statement insisting that “I strongly support women’s reproductive freedoms, including the right to abortion”.
But she says she also “believes in limited government” and won’t be voting for the Women’s Health Protection Act in the imminent US Senate vote.
Lisa Murkowski. Photograph: Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock
Murkowski’s statement follows an earlier joint release with Maine Republican Susan Collins, in which they promoted their own reproductive rights act as an alternative.
In her new statement, Murkowski says:
The legislation before the Senate today goes well beyond the precedent established in Roe and Casey. It does not include the Hyde amendment, which prohibits taxpayer dollars from being spent on abortions - and has been the law almost as long as Roe.
It does not include conscience protections for healthcare providers that refuse to perform abortions based on religious beliefs. It explicitly overrides the religious freedom restoration act for the first time. It also allows late-term abortions without any notable restrictions.
Instead of taking yet another failed vote on a wholly partisan measure, I urge Democrats and Republicans alike to recognize that what Senator Collins and I have offered is in line with the views of a strong majority of Americans who support a woman’s right to choose but believe that legal abortion should include reasonable limitations.
The Senate is edging ever closer to the abortion rights vote. Members are currently finishing a vote on confirming Joe Biden’s pick Alvaro Bedoya to the federal trade commission, and will turn their attention to the Women’s Health Protection Act next, according to C-Span.
Joe Biden has just wrapped up an address to agricultural workers in Kankakee, Illinois, in which he promised support for farmers and new measures to make food prices more affordable.
The president hailed farmers as “the backbone of the country” and “the backbone of freedom” as he blamed soaring inflation and high prices on Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine:
You feed America. You got us through a pandemic and you’re literally the backbone of our country. But you’re also feeding the world. And we’re seeing Putin’s war in Ukraine, you’re like the backbone of freedom.
America’s fighting on two fronts. At home, inflation and rising prices. Abroad, it’s helping Ukrainians defend democracy, and feeding those who are left hungry around the world because Russian atrocities exist.
American farmers understand Putin’s war has has has cut off critical sources of food.
Joe Biden speaks Wednesday during a visit to O’Connor Farms in Kankakee, Illinois. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP
On Tuesday, at the White House, Biden insisted that tackling inflation was “my top priority”. Despite a small lift this morning with news that inflation had slowed for the first time since August, it remains at a near 40-year high and is likely to remain uppermost on voters’ minds as November’s midterm elections approach.
Biden laid out measures he was taking to “lower costs on farmers”, including doubling an investment in fertilizer production to $500m, and looking at extending crop insurance protection “to give financial security to farmers”.
By protecting farmers, Biden said, food prices could stabilize and fall.
“Every little bit matters,” he said as he went back over previous initiatives to tackle high prices, including issuing a summer waiver for ethanol-rich fuel which he said would reduce gas prices.
The AAA, however, was reporting on Wednesday a new record high national average for a gallon of unleaded gasoline at $4.40.
The White House released a fact sheet setting out Biden’s proposals to “make food more affordable, and lower costs for farmers”.
Lethal injection ends Arizona's death penalty hiatus
Arizona ended an eight-year hiatus on executions Wednesday when it put to death a man convicted of killing a college student in 1978.
The state halted the death penalty in 2014 following an execution critics say was botched, and difficulties in finding lethal injection drugs, Reuters reported.
Clarence Dixon, 66, died by lethal injection at the state prison in Florence for his murder conviction in the killing of 21-year-old Arizona state university student Deana Bowdoin, making him the sixth person to be executed in the US in 2022.
Dixon’s death was announced late Wednesday morning by Frank Strada, a deputy director with Arizona department of corrections.
Protestor Charles Keith stands outside the state prison in Florence, Arizona on Wednesday. Photograph: Rick Scuteri/AP
Dixon’s death appeared to go smoothly, said Troy Hayden, an anchor for the Fox10 TV news program who witnessed the execution.
“Once the drugs started flowing, he went to sleep almost immediately,” Hayden said.
Dixon’s lawyers asked to postpone his execution, but judges rejected his argument that he wasn’t mentally fit to be executed and didn’t have a rational understanding of why the state wanted to execute him.
The US supreme court rejected a last-minute delay of Dixon’s execution less than an hour before the execution began.
In another Arizona death penalty case, the Guardian’s Ed Pilkingtonreported last week that Frank Atwood, convicted for murdering an eight-year-old girl, has two weeks to decide whether to be executed with cyanide gas, the poison known as Zyklon B used by the Nazis to murder millions of people in Auschwitz and other extermination camps, or lethal injection.
Atwood’s execution is set for 8 June.
Last month, the Texas court of criminal appeals issued a stay of execution for Melissa Lucio, a Mexican-American woman set to be judicially killed for the death of her two-year-old daughter Mariah.
A state judge struck down new congressional districts in north Florida on Wednesday, saying that the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, who drew the lines, made it harder for Black voters to elect the candidate of their choice.
“I am finding the enacted map is unconstitutional because it diminishes African Americans’ ability to elect candidates of their choice,” circuit judge Lane Smith said on Wednesday, according to the Tributary.
Ron DeSantis. Photograph: Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock
Lawyers for the state of Florida are expected to immediately appeal the ruling, and the Florida supreme court shaped by DeSantis could ultimately decide the case.
The decision dealt specifically with DeSantis’ decision to dismantle Florida’s fifth congressional district, which stretched from Jacksonville to Tallahassee, was 46% Black, and is currently represented by Al Lawson, a Black Democrat. DeSantis’ new district chopped the district up into four districts where Republican candidates would be favored to win.
A coalition of civic action groups and Florida voters immediately challenged the map, saying that they violated a provision in Florida’s constitution that says new districts can’t “diminish” the ability of minority voters to elect the candidate of their choosing.
Last month, plaintiffs asked the court to block the districts in northern Florida specifically from taking effect for the 2022 election. Smith ordered the state to adopt a map that maintained a 5th congressional district stretching from Jacksonville to Tallahasee, according to the Tributary.
The Florida map is one of the most aggressively gerrymandered maps in the US. Republicans currently have a 16-11 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation, but DeSantis’ plan would add an additional four GOP-friendly seats, increasing that advantage to 20-8 (Florida is gaining an additional US House seat because of population growth). It’s an effort that’s seen as a critical part of Republican efforts to retake control of the US House in the midterm elections.
In a separate court on Tuesday, DeSantis, a possible 2024 presidential candidate, won the opening legal round of his fight with Disney over the state’s “don’t say gay” bill that bans classroom discussions of sexual preference and gender identity issues.
Three central Florida taxpayers alleged state laws were broken when DeSantis signed a new law dissolving Disney’s self-governing status, which critics said was in retaliation for the company attacking the “don’t say gay” law.
But district court judge Cecilia Altonaga threw out the lawsuit, partly because the plaintiffs aren’t personally harmed, the Orlando Sentinel reports.
The supreme court’s upcoming decision to reverse Roe v Wade (an early draft of which was leaked last week) doesn’t ban abortions. It leaves the issue to the states. As a result, it will put another large brick in the growing wall separating blue and red America.
The second American civil war is already occurring, but it is less of a war than a kind of benign separation analogous to unhappily married people who don’t want to go through the trauma of a formal divorce.
One America is largely urban, racially and ethnically diverse, and young. The other is largely rural or exurban, white and older.
The split is accelerating. Red zip codes are getting redder and blue zip codes bluer. Of 3,143 counties, the number of super landslide counties – where a presidential candidate won at least 80% of the vote – jumped from 6% in 2004 to 22% in 2020.
Surveys show Americans find it increasingly important to live around people who share their political values. Animosity toward those in the opposing party is higher than at any time in living memory. Forty-two per cent of registered voters believe Americans in the other party are “downright evil”.
Almost 40% would be upset at the prospect of their child marrying someone from the opposite party. Even before the 2020 election, when asked if violence would be justified if the other party won the election, 18.3% of Democrats and 13.8% of Republicans responded in the affirmative.
Increasingly, each America is running under different laws.
Good news, of a sort, for Donald Trump out of New York, where a judge has said the former president must pay the state attorney general $110,000 and meet other conditions to purge a contempt of court order, but also that the fine will not grow by $10,000 a day, as it had been doing.
The New York attorney general, Letitia James, says her civil investigation of the Trump Organization has found evidence of fraudulent behaviour in tax filings. Trump says the investigation is a politically motivated witch hunt.
The judge in the contempt case, Arthur Engoron, said the daily fine on Trump stopped accruing on Friday, when the former president filed affidavits about his search for requested information – and his inability to find four phones which investigators would like to look at.
Engoron said the contempt order could be restored if certain conditions are not met.
Here’s our report on Trump’s phones, from yesterday:
