It’s Tuesday, the traditional day for elections and for our pause-and-consider newsletter on politics and policy. We think of it as a mini-magazine in your inbox.
THE SHUTDOWN IS OVER — FOR NOW
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews
Correspondent
Of all the questions hovering over the U.S. Capitol, an odd one came up in the press gallery today.
How do we define “dramatic” anymore? Because — to me — today easily qualified.
The House narrowly pushed a package to end the partial government shutdown through the two votes needed to get to the president’s desk.
Both votes were a spectacle, thanks to the now one-vote margin in the House of Representatives.
The first vote was a key procedural motion. This typically has been an easy lift in past years. Today, six Republicans refused to go along, leading to Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team moving around the floor trying to deal with a slew of issues from members — most prominently conservatives who want tougher voter identification laws. After nearly an hour, the House speaker prevailed.
The final vote, similarly, was close. I watched as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi — for my money, the best vote counter in the House — seemed to carefully monitor the numbers and waited to vote “nay” until the package was in the clear. It was so close that Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina switched her vote to yes.
What does all this tell us? The partial shutdown is ending. But in 10 days, when the funding for the Department of Homeland Security runs out, we could very easily be back here.
A longtime friend and newspaper reporter told me that Tuesday’s votes were not dramatic to him because, in the end, the motions passed.
I beg to differ. Whatever happens in the next week, I do expect drama.
Correction: Due to a production error, last week’s newsletter incorrectly described Alex Pretti as an "ICE nurse" rather than an "ICU nurse." We regret the error. Thanks to readers who flagged this mistake.
One Big Question: How concerned is the Trump White House about the midterms? NPR’s Tamara Keith and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter discuss.
A Closer Look: Shooting deaths climb in Trump's mass deportation effort. Here’s what we know.
The latest tranche of files related to the late sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein reveal new details about the extent to which key members of President Donald Trump's inner circle were interacting with Epstein for years after he was initially arrested and convicted on state prostitution charges.
Trump himself maintains that he cut ties with Epstein long ago, and has not been accused of any specific wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial for federal sex trafficking charges.
But Trump's name appears hundreds of times in the latest release. Many of those references came in news articles Epstein shared with others. Some were attached to new, unverified allegations, including participation in or awareness of sexual abuse.
More than 3 million pages of documents and tens of thousands of emails and videos were in the Justice Department's latest release, which comes more than a month after the agency missed a deadline to release all of its Epstein files, as set by Congress and signed into law by Trump.
The Department of Justice is required by law to release all documents, including unproven or unsubstantiated claims. Some files have been redacted, though the department has not given a full explanation for what's excluded.
Watch: A former federal prosecutor analyzes legal questions over the DOJ's Epstein files release.
Read: Government says it's fixing thousands of documents in Epstein-related files that may have had victim information.
Notable Names: A list of powerful men named in the Epstein files, from Elon Musk to former Prince Andrew, compiled by the Associated Press.
THIS WEEK’S TRIVIA QUESTION
A print, circa 1870, celebrating the passage of the 15th Amendment. Image courtesy of Library of Congress
By Joshua Barajas
Senior Editor, Digital
On Feb. 3, 1870, the 15th Amendment was ratified to the U.S. Constitution.
The last of the “Reconstruction Amendments,” the 15th Amendment declared that states could not deny the right to vote based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” securing voting rights for African American men.
This change to the Constitution prompted a schism within the women’s suffrage movement. Some white women’s suffrage leaders opposed the amendment because it did not ban voting restrictions based on sex. Leaders like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, using racistrhetoric, argued that white women were more deserving of the vote than Black men.
Many Black women championed the amendment’s ratification, believing it was a crucial step toward racial justice and universal suffrage for all. That included Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, who said, “When it was a question of race, I let the lesser question of sex go. But the white women all go for sex, letting race occupy a minor position.”
Our question: Which amendment would later expand voting rights to include women?
Send your answers to [email protected] or tweet using #PoliticsTrivia. The first correct answers will earn a shout-out next week.
Last week, we asked: Who was the last person to lead the State Department while also serving as the president’s national security adviser?
The answer: Henry Kissinger. Before Marco Rubio wore both hats, Kissinger was the last person to take on the dual roles in the 1970s. Other past high-level officials, such as Colin Powell, served in both of these positions, but not at the same time. Powell was the national security adviser under Ronald Reagan in the late 1980s and later was appointed as state secretary under George W. Bush.
Congratulations to our winners: Sean Skilling and Michael Skarzynski!
Thank you all for reading and watching. We’ll drop into your inbox next week.
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