Month: August 2022

It’s a political risk for Manchin to sign onto a bill that will impose a corporate minimum tax on large corporations, spend $369 billion on climate and energy, lower prescription drug prices and extend Affordable Care Act subsidies. The centrist’s willingness to become the bill’s top salesman — alongside Democratic leaders who are deeply unpopular in red states like Manchin’s — makes him a likely target for a GOP that has often treated him as an ally this Congress.

“His party’s very unpopular in the state of West Virginia and what he’s doing now is very unpopular as well,” said No. 3 Senate GOP leader John Barraso of Wyoming, who’s also the top Republican on the Manchin-led Energy Committee. “We’re going to be focused on that seat in 2024. We’ll see what comes to fruition of what promises might have been made to Joe Manchin in order to agree to this.”

Though Democrats’ party-line legislation is much smaller than previously envisioned last year, it’s quite a bit larger than the health care-only package that Manchin appeared to be pushing just two weeks ago. Democrats see plenty of upside for Manchin in the bill, particularly the revival of a black lung disability trust fund that helps care for West Virginia coal miners.

And another integral part of Manchin’s deal with the rest of his party is a promise to enact energy permitting legislation later this year that’s designed to make fossil fuel and green energy projects easier to build — an idea that Barrasso dubbed “a lot of pie in the sky that Democrats are not going to support in the end.”

Asked for comment about Republicans’ fury over the deal, Manchin’s office pointed out several provisions that would specifically benefit his state: money for carbon-capture energy projects; finishing the Mountain Valley gas pipeline; a $4 billion carveout for coal communities and the health care components that disproportionately help West Virginians. Manchin’s betting those will help the bill become more popular with his constituents, alongside his legendary political run in the state and knack for retail politics.

But his home-state GOP colleague, Sen. Shelley Moore Capitosaid Manchin’s got his work cut out for him pitching the deal back home: “It’s not good for the state, and I think it’s difficult to sell in the state,” she said, adding that “he’ll put that in his calculus and make his own decision” on running again in 2024.

For months, Manchin’s been Republicans’ best Democratic partner. He helped keep the legislative filibuster unscathed and blocked his own party’s sweeping Build Back Better bill. He’s been raising warnings about inflation as nearly as long as National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Rick Scott (R-Fla.).

And Manchin’s political standing in West Virginia is strong, which means that his potential opponents sense a rare opportunity in the current moment.

“After holding the line against some of the terrible bills being pushed by President Biden and the left, Joe Manchin just changed course and let the dam break wide open,” said West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who lost narrowly to Manchin in 2018 and could run again in 2024. “I respectfully ask Senator Manchin to change his position and vote no.”

State Treasurer Riley Moore is also seen as a potential candidate by Republicans. He’s Capito’s nephew and the grandson of former Gov. Arch Moore, and is leading a GOP charge against banks factoring in climate change risk into their lending decisions.

Manchin himself is dismissing questions about 2024 at the moment — though by declining on Sunday to endorse a second term for Biden, he took a position that probably helps him in his state. As for the party-line deal with Schumer, Manchin said, “this is not about politics.” He’s repeatedly said the party-line energy, tax and health care bill is neither Republican nor Democratic, but instead “an American bill.”

“I think it absolutely is so needed for our country,” Manchin said on Monday. “So does it affect me politically or not? I didn’t look at it that way and I still don’t.”

Manchin agonized over running again in 2018, frustrated by the Senate’s plodding pace and the leadership style of Republican leader Mitch McConnell. He’s made no decision on what to do in 2024, according to his colleagues, and he’s declined to answer direct questions about his political future in recent weeks.

“For Republicans, we’re getting more red and the Biden administration is doubling down on some of the Obama administration things, which are tied to the Democratic party,” Capito said. “Any Democrat’s having trouble.”

Three red-state senators who face reelection in 2024 are integral to Democrats’ majority: Manchin, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana. All represent states that have only gotten more Republican over the past few election cycles, making it critical for Democrats to hold their seats and make space in the caucus for their unique ideological brands.

And Manchin comes from probably the toughest state for Democrats of anyone in the caucus, which is why he was so deliberative when it came to supporting a party-line deal with Schumer. It’s plainly clear that Democrats want him to run for the Senate rather than retire, run for governor or pursue something like an independent presidential run.

There’s almost certainly no one else who can compete in a Senate race in the state, let alone win one.

“I’d like him to” run for reelection, said Sen. Tim Kain (D-Va.). “But trying to predict what Joe Manchin will do? … He’s a vigorous, healthy guy who is playing a healthy role.”

Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.

In what appears to be a first-of-its-kind case, a veteran Minnesota pharmacist went on trial Monday accused of violating the civil rights of a mother of five by refusing to fill her prescription for emergency contraception.

Andrea Anderson, according to a civil lawsuit filed under the Minnesota Human Rights Act, sought the morning-after pill Ella in January 2019 at the only pharmacy in her hometown, McGregor (population 391), after a condom broke during sex.

“She acted quickly because any delay in obtaining emergency contraception increases the risk of pregnancy,” the complaint states.

But George Badeaux, who had been dispensing drugs from the McGregor Thrifty White pharmacy for several decades, refused to fill Anderson’s prescription, claiming it would violate his “beliefs,” according to the complaint.

“Badeaux informed her that there would be another pharmacist working the next day, who might be willing to fill the medication but that he could not guarantee that they would help,” the complaint states.

Badeaux also warned Anderson against trying to get the prescription filled at a Shopko pharmacy in a nearby town and refused to tell her where else she could try, as required by state law, the complaint states.

Another pharmacist at a CVS in the city of Aitkin also blocked Anderson from getting the prescription filled. She wound up traveling 100 miles round trip, “while a massive snowstorm was headed to central Minnesota,” to get the prescription filled at Walgreens in Brainerd, according to the complaint.

Anderson is seeking unspecified damages and wants an injunction requiring Badeaux and the drugstore he works for to follow state law, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, including issues related to pregnancy and childbirth.

The Badeaux trial, which began with jury selection Monday, comes as the once-dormant debate over contraception was rekindled after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade—and by prominent lawmakers like Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who openly questioned the constitutionality of birth control.

Last week, the US House passed a bill that would guarantee the right to contraception under federal law.

Anderson is being represented by lawyers from Gender Justice, which is based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Neither her lawyers nor Badeaux’s representatives are commenting on the case.

A spokeswoman for Gender Justice said the Anderson case appears to be the first in the country brought to trial by a woman who was refused contraception.

Originally, Anderson’s lawsuit included CVS as a defendant.

In court papers, Anderson said that after she was rebuffed by Badeaux, she called the CVS in Aitkin, where a female technician told her she couldn’t fill her prescription and falsely told her she wouldn’t be able to get it filled in. Brainerd, either.

Anderson and CVS reached a settlement before the case went to trial, and she received unspecified compensation, court records revealed.

NBC News asked CVS for the details of the settlement and to see whether the technician faced any discipline, but it hasn’t heard back from the pharmaceutical giant.

After Anderson got her prescription filled, she called the Thrifty White pharmacy and complained about how Badeaux treated her to owner Matt Hutera, court papers show.

Badeaux has refused to fill prescriptions for contraceptives at least three other times because he believes they cause abortions, the papers show. He said he objected to dispensing Ella, saying it could possibly prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus.

“It is similar to removing all care from a newborn child by throwing it out the backdoor into the woods,” he said in a court filing.

But Ella doesn’t induce abortions. It is a prescription drug that prevents a woman from becoming pregnant in the first place when it is taken within five days of unprotected sex, according to the manufacturer.

“If an individual is already pregnant, meaning that fertilized egg has implanted in their uterus, emergency contraception ‘Will not stop or harm the pregnancy,’” Anderson’s lawyers said in their complaint.

Aitkin County District Judge David Hermerding has already ruled that Badeaux can’t raise federal constitutional issues such as freedom of religion at the trial, although he will be allowed to explain his beliefs to the jury.

“The issue for the jury is not defendant’s constitutional rights,” the judge wrote. “It is whether he deliberately misled, obfuscated and blocked Ms. Anderson’s path to obtaining Ella.”