 |  | | Washington, Fast. | | Presented by ExxonMobil | | | | | | | Good Tuesday morning. Tips, comments, recipes? You know the drill. This is the Power Up newsletter – thanks for waking up with us. | | | On the Hill 🚨: "A U.S. judge on Monday dismissed most claims filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C., Black Lives Matter and others in lawsuits that accused the Trump administration of authorizing an unprovoked attack on demonstrators in Lafayette Square last year," our Spencer S. Hsu reports. ALL ROADS LEAD TO THE FILIBUSTER: President Biden came into Washington preaching bipartisanship but he's run into the buzzsaw of a 50-50 Senate in which the filibuster is standing in the way of his most ambitious priorities. The latest is the sweeping For the People Act bill, which Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) is scheduled to bring up for a test vote today. But even if Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) — the biggest thorn in the Democratic agenda at the moment — ultimately sides with his party, the bill won't garner the 60 votes needed to advance. And on infrastructure, a bipartisan deal is progressing but the process has been dogged by disagreements over how to pay for it, and excludes Democratic priorities that would have to be pushed through the partisan process of reconciliation. The fate of these two efforts is only likely to intensify the debate among Democrats about whether to abolish the filibuster which Democrats currently don't have the votes to do. As Schumer said at the end of May in a letter to his colleagues to tease the month ahead: " … the next few weeks will be hard and will test our resolve as a Congress and a conference."  Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) walk together as they leave a meeting of bipartisan senators on Capitol Hill last night. (Photo by MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock) | It's still unclear where the chips for Manchin may fall, who "declined on Monday to commit to advancing Democrats' sweeping elections bill, saying he would need more assurances that his proposed changes would be adopted," Politico's Burgess Everett reports. But Manchin's compromise bill, which adopted some Republican mandates like requiring voters provide identification, also lacks Republican support. A senior GOP Senate aide called the bill "toxic" and said that it was "antithetical" to "federalism." There's more that just the For the People Act, a massive overhaul of U.S. voting laws, in danger of stalling in the Senate because of GOP opposition: Asked about the fate of the filibuster, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the Tuesday's vote would likely "prompt a new conversation about the path forward, and we'll see where that goes." And "top party leaders are betting that a show of firm GOP intransigence in Tuesday afternoon's procedural vote will prompt movement among the handful of wary Democrats," DeBonis and Elise Viebeck report. - "In a fiery floor speech Monday that served, in part, as a veiled appeal to members of his own caucus, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) hammered the point that Republicans were threatening to block even a discussion of voting rights."
- "If we reach unity on a voting bill in the Democratic Party, with all of the debates that we have been having over the last few months, I don't think anything is over yet," Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) told reporters of the filibuster last week.
- "I think that we will have some decisions to make about how we make sure that we assure every American has a right to vote," Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) told reporters.
But Manchin and others have already made clear that they will not be moved when it comes to retaining the 60-vote threshold. "The filibuster compels moderation and helps protect the country from wild swings between opposing policy poles," Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post last night. - Sinema writes: "To those who want to eliminate the legislative filibuster to pass the For the People Act (voting-rights legislation I support and have co-sponsored), I would ask: Would it be good for our country if we did, only to see that legislation rescinded a few years from now and replaced by a nationwide voter-ID law or restrictions on voting by mail in federal elections, over the objections of the minority?"
Biden met with Manchin and Sinema at the White House yesterday evening to discuss the bipartisan infrastructure deal that Sinema touts in her op-ed. But the White House and lawmakers have yet to agree on how to pay for the $1 trillion deal and some Democrats questioning the size of the package are threatening to withhold support. - Biden "told them he was encouraged by the plans that were taking shape but still had questions about the policy and the financing for the proposal, a White House official said. Biden also said he was focused on budget resolution discussions," the Associated Press's Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro report.
- "Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., has described the infrastructure bill being negotiated as a good start. But he says most Democrats don't believe it does enough on climate and also want it to address priorities like paid family leave. He is pushing a 'two-track' approach that leaves open the possibility of a far larger bill without Republican votes."
| | | The campaign HAPPENING TODAY: "Democrats in America's largest city will pick a nominee to succeed Mayor Bill de Blasio, after a campaign shaped by a surge in violent crime and a debate about how the places hardest hit during the coronavirus pandemic can recover," per our colleagues Jada Yuan and David Weigel. - Who to watch: Eric Adams, "a 60-year-old retired police captain and former state legislator, has become the dominant figure in a race where sexual misconduct allegations, a campaign staff revolt, and even a debate question about real estate prices knocked other candidates off course. In public polls, he's charged ahead of 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang, 46, who's attacked Adams as a corrupt insider who won't deliver real change."
- "No Democrat is expected to win an outright majority — but since New York City is majority Democrat, the eventual primary winner will likely become mayor in November."
- "Also on the ballot are city, borough and other positions, most prominent of which is Manhattan district attorney. The incumbent, Cyrus Vance Jr., who has been leading an investigation of former president Donald Trump, announced earlier this year that he would not seek a fourth term."
Democracy's next big thing: ranked-choice voting. "Tuesday will be the city's first test of ranked-choice voting, which allows voters to list up to five candidates in order of preference. No winner will be declared until those preferences are added up and lower finishing candidates are nixed in a series of tallies until one candidate cracks 50 percent." - "The system can breathe new life into a candidate's prospects as the counting plays out — but only if voters fill the ballots properly, a worry among some candidates and voting experts," the New York Times's Michael Wilson reports.
 (Source: The Washington Post) | | | | At the White House THE GHOSTS OF BIDEN'S (LEGISLATIVE) PAST: "Biden is expected to lay out an anti-crime strategy [on Wednesday], focusing on gun crimes as part of an effort to stem the rise in homicides across the country at the beginning of what his administration and experts believe will be a tumultuous summer," our colleagues Annie Linskey, Tyler Pager and Cleve R. Wootson Jr. report. - "The issue brings Biden to the center of a policy area that has proved fraught for him over his long career. As a senator, Biden wrote several major anti-crime packages including a 1994 bill that contained provisions now viewed by critics as an overreaction to the crime spikes in the 1980s and 1990s that contributed to mass incarceration of Black Americans."
- "Biden has voiced regrets about aspects of the 'tough on crime' legislation and acknowledged its harmful impacts on many Black Americans."
- Today, the administration will move toward dismantling the effects of the bill: "The administration plans to endorse legislation that would end the disparity in sentences between crack and powder cocaine offenses Biden helped create decades ago, a step that highlights how Biden's attitudes on drug laws have shifted over his long tenure in elected office," our colleagues Sean Sullivan and Seung Min Kim first scooped.
| | | The investigations SCOTUS DEALS MAJOR BLOW TO NCAA: "The Supreme Court of the United States unanimously affirmed a ruling Monday that provides for an incremental increase in how college athletes can be compensated and also opens the door for future legal challenges that could deal a much more significant blow to the NCAA's current business model," ESPN's Dan Murphy reports. - "The idea that college athletes should not be paid, a fundamental tenet of the 115-year-old NCAA, has faced increasing scrutiny in recent years. Politicians in 19 states have passed laws in the past two years that rebuke the organization's rules and will soon allow athletes to start making money from third-party endorsements, and members of Congress are currently debating at least a half-dozen bills aimed at reforming the NCAA."
- But "the biggest takeaway from the court's action, experts said, might be that the court is no longer accepting of the NCAA's argument that it has a unique role to play in protecting the amateur status of college sports, and deserves special dispensation from antitrust laws," our colleagues Robert Barnes and Molly Hensley-Clancy report.
- "The ruling comes amid a sea change in the world of college sports that has shifted the tide rapidly against the NCAA when it comes to athletes' rights."
| Journalist Meg Turner: |  | | | Is it over for the NCAA? Not quite. "The NCAA is being left by the nine justices with the same power that it walked into court with: it can still make its own rules," the New York Times's Billy Witz writes. "For all the self-inflicted black eyes … the Supreme Court sent the NCAA away with the same message Congress has delivered on legislation around athlete endorsement deals: go clean up your own mess." Meanwhile, "the Trump Organization on Monday sued the city of New York after it ended its contract for a golf course at Ferry Point Park in the wake of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6," CNN's Erica Orden and Paul LeBlanc report. - "In a lawsuit filed in state court in Manhattan, the company alleged wrongful termination of the contract in mid-January, saying the city and Mayor Bill de Blasio had 'denounced President Trump in the most inflammatory terms' and 'incited others to terminate business with Trump-related entities' the day after the riot."
- "Pointing also to comments de Blasio had made earlier in his term in which he threatened to end the city's Trump-related contracts, the company said in the lawsuit that 'Mayor de Blasio had a preexisting, politically-based predisposition to terminate Trump-related contracts, and the City used the events of January 6, 2021 as a pretext to do so.'"
- But "a spokesman for the city law department said Monday that 'the actions of Mr. Trump to incite a deadly riot at the Capitol on January 6 caused a breach of the Ferry Point contract by eliminating options for hosting championship events and we will vigorously defend the City's decision to terminate the contract.'"
| Bill Neidhardt, press secretary for Mayor Bill de Blasio: |  | | | And the investigation continues. "New York prosecutors are investigating whether a top Trump Organization executive, Matthew Calamari, received tax-free fringe benefits, as part of their probe into whether Trump's company and its employees illegally avoided paying taxes on such perks," the Wall Street Journal's Rebecca Ballhaus and Corinne Ramey report. - "Prosecutors' interest in Calamari, once Trump's bodyguard, indicates that their probe into the Trump Organization's alleged practice of providing some employees with cars and apartments extends beyond Allen Weisselberg, the company's chief financial officer, and his family."
- "Receiving benefits — such as free apartments, subsidized rent or car leases — from an employer, and not paying taxes on such benefits, can be a crime."
| | | Viral CARL NASSIB MADE HISTORY YESTERDAY: "Las Vegas Raiders defensive lineman Carl Nassib became the first active NFL player in history to announce that he is gay," Outsports's Jim Buzinski reports. - "What's up people," Nassib posted on Instagram. "I'm at my house in West Chester Pennsylvania. I just wanted to take a quick moment to say that I'm gay. I've been meaning to do this for a while now but finally feel comfortable getting it off my chest. I really have the best life, the best family, friends and job a guy can ask for.
- "What Nassib has done is help make being gay in the NFL less something to fear. But it's bigger than even that. His announcement may have saved lives. Maybe a troubled LGBTQ teen, some of whom contemplate suicide, according to surveys, will see Nassib's words and feel there's no need to hide or be ashamed. That person can just ... be," USA Today's Mike Freeman writes.
Before him, there was Michael Sam: "Seven years before Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib became the first active NFL player to come out as gay on Monday, an all-American from the University of Missouri risked a promising career with a public declaration," The Post's Katie Shepherd writes. "'I am an openly proud gay man,' Michael Sam, a 24-year-old defensive end, told ESPN and the New York Times in February 2014." - "Here's the truth: Everyone owes Michael Sam such a bit of gratitude," Wade Davis, a former NFL cornerback who came out as gay in 2012, told The Washington Post on Monday. "Michael Sam did something that very few people do. They gave up something, which is potentially his entire career in the NFL, for something greater."
| | | In the media 👀WHAT WE'RE WATCHING: The New Normal. Racial trauma can be deadly for Black people. Here are five ways to cope with it. - "In this episode, host Nicole Ellis speaks with mental health experts to provide five ways Black people can cope with race-based stress."
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