According to Jayapal, every single squad member voted for the CPC to endorse Shontel Brown over Nina Turner.

This doesn't inspire confidence in the "elect more progressives" theory of change. https://t.co/iqXulsptOV

— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) May 2, 2022

Very smart approach: Look at which companies lobbied which members, and then check to see if they made well-timed trades around the time of that lobbying.

Answer: Yes https://t.co/Fla7yQVj40

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) May 2, 2022

Screw your Loyalty Day Biden. May 1st belongs to the workers of the world!

HAPPY MAY DAY pic.twitter.com/ZOa37ibbYr

— ka foro ☭ (@sadgloopyrice) May 1, 2022

I wasn’t aware Biden had proclaimed a loyalty day. Not going to get it from young people if you means test student debt forgiveness.

Thank you, AOC. I knew we could count on you for supporting Nina Turner – Even it’s a little late.

In Ohio developments, Team @AOC is backing @ninaturner , sending out a fundraising pitchhttps://t.co/wvn4GuPtVf

— Katie Glueck (@katieglueck) May 2, 2022

From the NYT:

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, one of the nation’s most prominent left-wing officials, is planning to endorse Nina Turner’s congressional bid in the final hours of an Ohio primary contest that has increasingly morphed into a divisive national Democratic battle.

Ms. Turner, a former state senator who co-chaired Senator Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign, is challenging Representative Shontel Brown from the left in a rematch in Tuesday’s primary election, after Ms. Brown won a special election last year in what was widely seen as a victory for the institutional Democratic Party.

“Nina is exactly the kind of progressive leader we need more of in Congress,” read a fund-raising email from Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s team reviewed by The New York Times, that was set to go out widely later Monday. “She will be a powerful voice for policies that will make a meaningful difference in the lives of working people across this country — like Medicare for All, a $15 minimum wage, and a Green New Deal.”

For her part, Ms. Brown has been endorsed by President Biden and has campaigned in recent days with high-ranking party officials including Representatives James E. Clyburn and Hakeem Jeffries.

Ms. Brown was also endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s political arm, a dynamic that sparked left-wing backlash in some corners and debate about the group’s endorsement process on Capitol Hill, Punchbowl News reported Monday morning.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Ms. Brown are both members of the caucus. Mr. Sanders, another member of the caucus, has also backed Ms. Turner. Both he and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez supported her in her previous primary.

Pay attention to the Ohio Senate Primary piece of the story. It could be a game changer in Ohio for Turner – Brown rematch as GOP’s who voted for Brown may be interested instead in the senate race. JD Vance campaigned with fellow Fake News advocates Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

2022 midterms: What to know about Ohio, Indiana primaries

The first multistate contest of the 2022 midterm election season unfolds on Tuesday, as Ohio voters pick nominees for governor and the U.S. Senate while Indiana voters consider whether their Legislature should become even more conservative.

The races, particularly in Ohio, could provide a fresh window into former President Donald Trump’s sway among the party faithful. He has been especially involved in Ohio’s Senate primary, which has been marred by Republican divisions, along with campaigns for the U.S. House and secretary of state.

For Democrats, a potential threat to incumbent U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown in Cleveland is of keen interest. Brown is locked in a rematch against progressive challenger Nina Turner, a former state senator and surrogate for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns. Turner is trying again after losing to Brown in last year’s special election.

Voting in Ohio comes against the backdrop of a chaotic and still unresolved redistricting battle.

What to watch as the Ohio and Indiana primaries unfold:

WHO WILL SURVIVE OHIO’S NASTY SENATE PRIMARY?

Seven candidates are on the ballot in Tuesday’s Republican faceoff for the coveted open U.S. Senate seat of retiring Republican Rob Portman. They are Trump-endorsed “Hillbilly Elegy” author JD Vance, former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, Cleveland investment banker Mike Gibbons, former Ohio Republican Chair Jane Timken, state Sen. Matt Dolan, whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, and entrepreneurs Mark Pukita and Neil Patel.

The campaign has featured months of jockeying among top contenders for Trump’s endorsement, more than $65 million in TV and radio spending, dozens of debates and candidate forums, and one highly publicized physical confrontation between two candidates.

As Vance rides high on the Trump endorsement, other candidates who campaigned on their loyalty to the former president are hoping that heavy ad spending or a strong ground game can help them win. Dolan is the only candidate who ran as a Portman-like centrist, but Timken landed Portman’s endorsement.

Whoever prevails will face the winner of a three-way Democratic primary between 10-term U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, former consumer protection attorney Morgan Harper and Columbus activist and tech exec Traci Johnson.

IS A TRUMP ENDORSEMENT A SLAM-DUNK IN OHIO?

Trump twice won Ohio by more than 8 percentage points, so many viewed getting his nod in the Senate race as critical to winning the crowded Senate primary. Instead, when he finally chose Vance, it divided the state.

That’s because Vance opponents, including Mandel, Gibbons and their allies, had aired months of ads highlighting Vance’s past anti-Trump statements. Some tea party Republicans protested an April 23 Trump rally featuring Vance, and one conservative group, Ohio Value Voters, urged its supporters to boycott — or boo Vance when he walked on stage. The deep-pocketed Club for Growth, a conservative group backing Mandel, has taken to TV with ads directly attacking Trump for his choice.

Trump also has backed candidates in two Republican congressional primaries: Max Miller, his former White House and campaign aide, in the sprawling new 7th District in northeast Ohio, and Madison Gesiotto Gilbert in the Akron-area 13th District. He also is backing Secretary of State Frank LaRose in his primary against former state Rep. John Adams, a conservative Trump supporter.

WILL A WOMAN BREAK THROUGH IN OHIO’S GUBERNATORIAL RACE?

Democrat Nan Whaley is seeking to be the first woman in Ohio to get a major party’s nomination for governor. The former Dayton mayor is locked in a tight race with ex-Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley, who is endorsed by feminist icon Gloria Steinem.

They see eye-to-eye on most major issues — guns, abortion rights, social justice — but Whaley has repeatedly pointed out that Cranley only recently said he was pro-choice. She also has the backing of the state’s top Democrat, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown.

Neither candidate is a household name across Ohio. Both have struggled to draw attention as much of the state is focused on the contentious U.S. Senate race and ongoing redistricting fight.

The big question for first-term Republican Gov. Mike DeWine is just how many conservative voters will punish him for pushing aggressive mandates and shutdowns during the pandemic.

DeWine is widely known from a 40-year career in Ohio politics and in a solid position to win the GOP’s nomination for another four-year term. His two main challengers have tapped into the anger over the governor’s COVID-19 policies, but they’re likely to split those far-right voters.

DeWine isn’t taking any chances, pouring millions into advertising during the weeks leading into the primary. The concern will be whether those same conservative voters who were furious with DeWine will come back to him in November.

WILL CONFUSION OVER OHIO’S PRIMARY CALENDAR AFFECT RESULTS?

A protracted battle over Ohio’s congressional and legislative maps has played havoc with the state’s 2022 election calendar. For a long time, it looked like the May 3 primary wouldn’t go forward amid all the legal wrangling. Then suddenly it did.

Voter advocates, campaigns and political parties have stepped up efforts to get the word out as participation in early voting showed a 40% decline from four years ago.

Tuesday’s ballots will not list state legislative races, which are expected to be decided in a second primary later this year. The Ohio Redistricting Commission faces a deadline next week to try for a fifth time to draw district lines that don’t represent a partisan gerrymander and can meet constitutional muster. If the panel fails, a federal court has said it will force an Aug. 2 primary using one of the previously invalidated maps.

Congressional races have gone forward using a map that has also been invalidated by the Ohio Supreme Court. Ongoing litigation could result in a new map before 2024 elections.

IS INDIANA’S LEGISLATURE CONSERVATIVE ENOUGH?

More than a dozen Indiana House members are trying to hold off Republican primary challengers who argue that the GOP-dominated Legislature hasn’t been aggressive enough on issues from attempting to ban abortion to overturning COVID-19 restrictions that were ordered by the state’s Republican governor.

Those challengers say they are tapping into frustration among conservative voters and want to push the Legislature further to the right in a state where Republicans control all statewide offices and have had legislative supermajorities for the past decade.

Whether the challengers can defeat incumbents backed by Republican leaders’ multimillion-dollar campaign fund should be answered in Tuesday’s primary.

Republican legislative leaders argue the “no compromise” stances adopted by many challengers aren’t practical and tout the state’s low taxes and unemployment and broad private school voucher program among its conservative successes.

Challengers like Brittany Carroll, a family law attorney running for a central Indiana seat, maintain Indiana lawmakers should be aggressively pushing issues such as the Texas ban on abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy.

“Indiana could be leading in terms of liberty, like Florida, like Texas,” Carroll said.

Sure is a good thing Democrats let that puppy expire. Wouldn’t want to make McConnell’s fears come true! https://t.co/hL0UhDY592

— Walker Bragman (@WalkerBragman) May 2, 2022

Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows

The Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, according to an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito circulated inside the court and obtained by POLITICO.

The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision – Planned Parenthood v. Casey – that largely maintained the right. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he writes in the document, labeled as the “Opinion of the Court.” “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

Deliberations on controversial cases have in the past been fluid. Justices can and sometimes do change their votes as draft opinions circulate and major decisions can be subject to multiple drafts and vote-trading, sometimes until just days before a decision is unveiled. The court’s holding will not be final until it is published, likely in the next two months.

The immediate impact of the ruling as drafted in February would be to end a half-century guarantee of federal constitutional protection of abortion rights and allow each state to decide whether to restrict or ban abortion. It’s unclear if there have been subsequent changes to the draft.

No draft decision in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending. The unprecedented revelation is bound to intensify the debate over what was already the most controversial case on the docket this term.

The draft opinion offers an extraordinary window into the justices’ deliberations in one of the most consequential cases before the court in the last five decades. Some court-watchers predicted that the conservative majority would slice away at abortion rights without flatly overturning a 49-year-old precedent. The draft shows that the court is looking to reject Roe’s logic and legal protections.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”

Justice Samuel Alito in an initial draft majority opinion

A person familiar with the court’s deliberations said that four of the other Republican-appointed justices – Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – had voted with Alito in the conference held among the justices after hearing oral arguments in December, and that line-up remains unchanged as of this week.

The three Democratic-appointed justices – Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan – are working on one or more dissents, according to the person. How Chief Justice John Roberts will ultimately vote, and whether he will join an already written opinion or draft his own, is unclear.

The document, labeled as a first draft of the majority opinion, includes a notation that it was circulated among the justices on Feb. 10. If the Alito draft is adopted, it would rule in favor of Mississippi in the closely watched case over that state’s attempt to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

A Supreme Court spokesperson declined to comment or make another representative of the court available to answer questions about the draft document.

POLITICO received a copy of the draft opinion from a person familiar with the court’s proceedings in the Mississippi case along with other details supporting the authenticity of the document. The draft opinion runs 98 pages, including a 31-page appendix of historical state abortion laws. The document is replete with citations to previous court decisions, books and other authorities, and includes 118 footnotes. The appearances and timing of this draft are consistent with court practice.

The disclosure of Alito’s draft majority opinion – a rare breach of Supreme Court secrecy and tradition around its deliberations – comes as all sides in the abortion debate are girding for the ruling. Speculation about the looming decision has been intense since the December oral arguments indicated a majority was inclined to support the Mississippi law.

Under longstanding court procedures, justices hold preliminary votes on cases shortly after argument and assign a member of the majority to write a draft of the court’s opinion. The draft is often amended in consultation with other justices, and in some cases the justices change their votes altogether, creating the possibility that the current alignment on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization could change.

The chief justice typically assigns majority opinions when he is in the majority. When he is not, that decision is typically made by the most senior justice in the majority.

‘Exceptionally weak’
A George W. Bush appointee who joined the court in 2006, Alito argues that the 1973 abortion rights ruling was an ill-conceived and deeply flawed decision that invented a right mentioned nowhere in the Constitution and unwisely sought to wrench the contentious issue away from the political branches of government.

Alito’s draft ruling would overturn a decision by the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that found the Mississippi law ran afoul of Supreme Court precedent by seeking to effectively ban abortions before viability.

Roe’s “survey of history ranged from the constitutionally irrelevant to the plainly incorrect,” Alito continues, adding that its reasoning was “exceptionally weak,” and that the original decision has had “damaging consequences.”

“The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions,” Alito writes.

Alito approvingly quotes a broad range of critics of the Roe decision. He also points to liberal icons such as the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, who at certain points in their careers took issue with the reasoning in Roe or its impact on the political process.

Alito’s skewering of Roe and the endorsement of at least four other justices for that unsparing critique is also a measure of the court’s rightward turn in recent decades. Roe was decided 7-2 in 1973, with five Republican appointees joining two justices nominated by Democratic presidents.

The overturning of Roe would almost immediately lead to stricter limits on abortion access in large swaths of the South and Midwest, with about half of the states set to immediately impose broad abortion bans. Any state could still legally allow the procedure.

“The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion,” the draft concludes. “Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.”

Opinion | A Victory for Nina Turner Is Exactly What the Democratic Party Needs | ⁦@AlanMinsky⁩ ⁦@commondreams⁩ https://t.co/bTACV8ZVLW

— Nina Turner (@ninaturner) May 2, 2022

Good morning! Kicking off Election Day in Lakewood. https://t.co/Nq8HfJaYEG

— Nina Turner (@ninaturner) May 3, 2022

BREAKING: 250 Starbucks stores have filed to unionize with @SBWorkersUnited.

Workers have filed in 36 different states and have already successfully unionized 47 stores in 17 states. https://t.co/Owmwgi47YI

— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) May 2, 2022

manchin keeps saying we gotta elect more democrats to make up for all the democrats who don't vote democratic lmao

— Elizabeth Bruenig (@ebruenig) May 3, 2022

I voted for Obama, who promised to codify Roe into law immediately. Did he just forget to?

— Billy Ray Gyruss (@canoepickles) May 3, 2022

One thing the right has always felt deeply about is the sense that it is not legitimate for the public to play a role in making policy. That’s for the king and his court. https://t.co/xqk8iKpYk4

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) May 3, 2022