House Republicans strike deal on motion to vacate, making it harder to oust speaker
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(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Mike Johnson announced Wednesday evening that House Republicans from across the conference struck a deal to raise the threshold for the motion to vacate — a procedure rank-and-file lawmakers can use to remove the speaker. The new agreement makes it harder to remove a speaker from the position.
The agreement would raise the threshold to force a vote on ousting a speaker from one member to nine members.
While the nine-member threshold makes it harder to oust a speaker, it does not completely remove the threat.
Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris of Maryland and Main Street Caucus Chairman Dusty Johnson of South Dakota — who negotiated the deal on Wednesday — appeared with Johnson at a press conference where they explained the change.
“We had an opportunity to set the motion to vacate at a higher than number one, that motion to vacate will be set at nine in return for getting rid of some amendments that probably would have divided this conference,” Johnson said.
He said the agreement allows Republicans to be “in a better position to move forward with the Republican agenda to make sure that Speaker Johnson, South Dakota Senate Leader John Thune and our President Donald Trump have an opportunity to go forward.”
“For me this is exactly how we’re supposed to come together,” Johnson said.
Harris said the change allows the conference to execute on Trump’s plans.
“We’ve been able to work across the conference to eliminate the controversial issues that could have divided us and move forward together to deliver on the President’s agenda. That’s it,” Harris said.
Earlier this year, Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair, threatening to oust Johnson just months after he ascended to the speakership. When she officially triggered a vote on her motion to oust Johnson, Democrats joined almost all Republicans to overwhelmingly reject her move.
House Republicans will are huddling Thursday morning where they’ll still have to ratify the agreement.
Johnson won the House Republican nomination Wednesday to stay on as the House’s top job. On Wednesday, he said he was “delighted” and “honored” to be the nominee for speaker, saying “we’ll head into Jan. 3 to make all that happen.”
The chamber will vote on their rules package for the 119th Congress on Jan. 3, 2025, following the election of the speaker on the floor.
(WASHINGTON) — Democrats and Republicans have proposed vastly different policies on education – and one key difference highlights a battle that has been happening on the ground in states across the country.
Education Savings Accounts, or ESAs, and school vouchers have spurred debates at the local level for years.
ESA programs allow families to divert a designated amount of per-student public school spending to pay for expenses for private schools, microschools and homeschooling — including tuition, books, tutoring, transportation and more.
School vouchers similarly use public funds to allow students to pay for tuition.
Arizona passed the country’s first ESA program in 2011, and at least eight other states have followed its lead: Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah and West Virginia.
Former President Donald Trump has expressed support for ESAs and has proposed a plan that will allow parents to spend up to $10,000 a year per child in taxpayer money, “completely tax-free,” on alternative education or homeschooling costs.
The Democratic 2025 platform opposes using private school vouchers and tuition tax credits, opportunity scholarships, “and other schemes that divert taxpayer-funded resources away from public education.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a former public school teacher who is running for vice president on Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential ticket, has opposed private school vouchers in the past.
In opposition to a school voucher policy proposal from Republicans in his state amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, Walz stated: “We are not going to defund our public schools at this time, when especially those hardest hit need them more than ever,” MPR News reported at the time.
The start of vouchers
Scholars trace the origins of school choice to the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, where the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregating public school students based on race was unconstitutional.
Anti-segregation efforts led to state-funded school voucher programs in some states like Virginia and Georgia, offering financial assistance to white students to attend all-white private academies known as segregation academies.
However, the first modern private school voucher program started in Milwaukee in 1990, as some communities of color saw vouchers as a chance to help low-income students of color attend private schools.
Vouchers also have been geared toward disabled students; however, vouchers often force students with disabilities to forfeit some Individuals with Disabilities Education Act protections because they are considered “parentally placed” in private schools.
These schools are not legally required to provide individualized or “appropriate” education to students and are not held to the same nondiscrimination standards as public schools.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, microschools, private schools, and homeschooling have seen a boom — and so has the availability for families to use vouchers or ESAs to fund tuition at these institutions or fund alternative forms of education and their expenses.
According to pro-ESA organization EdChoice, the number of students using ESAs has increased seven-fold between 2022 and 2024 to a total of more than 328,000 students.
As these programs continue to gain momentum, the debate about these policies continues.
Evolution of voucher and ESA programs.
The debate about ‘school choice’
How much ESA programs cost has varied from state to state — in Arizona, the ESA program has been estimated by the state governor’s office to cost the state $943,795,600 for the 2024 fiscal year for roughly 79,728 students. Meanwhile, in West Virginia, it could cost over $10 million for roughly 2,333 applicants to the 2022-2023 academic year of the program, according to the scholarship program report.
This has been one major source of contention around ESAs.
Critics of school choice, including West Virginia Education Association President Dale Lee, say that public schools are already under pressure due to underfunding and poor staffing. Shifting funds away from public schools will make it harder for them to thrive, Lee said.
“Because of the loss of funding, we’ve reduced the opportunities in the curriculum areas that they have,” said Lee, adding that vocational and technical schools have reduced the number of offerings they have and reduce the number of courses that secondary students have available.
In some cases, that includes the arts.
“As a high school teacher myself, the arts are one of the areas that for many students, that’s what drew them into the school, and that’s why they were continuing,” Lee said.
He said public education is supposed to be “the great equalizer” … “if you go back to the system of the haves and have nots, you eliminate that opportunity for students.”
Emily Kirkland, communications director at the Arizona Education Association, slammed some ESA programs for funding controversial purchases. These purchases have been dubbed “welfare for the wealthy” by critics, after a CNN analysis of state and federal data found that wealthy communities are disproportionately benefiting from these programs.
ABC affiliate KNXV-TV in Arizona analyzed ESA data for the 2022-2023 school year and found that some of the money was used for purposes that have been condemned by critics, including ski resort passes, trampoline parks and ninja warrior training centers, aeroponic indoor gardens, pianos and more.
Expenses in some states, like Arizona, are approved by program staffers.
Supporters of school choice, including president and CEO of pro-school choice EdChoice Robert Enlow, applauds the transparency, arguing that its more insight into specific expenditures than is publicly known from public schools. He adds that the expenses allow families to tailor their education to their individual needs.
“You can see in Arizona, every single minute of every single day where every single dollar is going in the ESA program, I challenge you to do that in public schools, right?” said Enlow. “You may not like where the dollars are going. There may be an issue of whether you like it, but the reality is, you know exactly where they’re going.”
Enlow adds that these programs allow students to take an individualized approach, noting that those who may have different needs based on disability, neurodiversity, and other needs can make adjustments based on those needs.
He adds that criticism over spending doesn’t take into account that, in some cases, families are buying what schools would buy: “It’s OK if a government system buys $1,000 per classroom Lego set, but it’s not OK if a family does it?”
It is unclear how successful alternative education like microschooling or homeschooling can be. Rules and regulations dictating microschool and homeschool requirements are determined by each state’s Department of Education. For example, the National Microschooling Center notes that some microschool educators do not need to be licensed teachers and some institutions do not need to follow state academic standards.
Enlow notes that as these kinds of educations become more popular, the question about what regulation should look like and how success is measured is being asked: “You can’t put a one-size-fits-all system of regulation on a system that is meant for families to have individual options and choices.”
“Successes are in children making progress towards what makes them a successful human being, a successful strategy for coping and for living and for being successful right in life,” Enlow said. “We believe, for example, that families want to have knowledge about how their kids are doing on a test, but we don’t think this is the only way to go.”
Critics are concerned about the lack of regulations and accountability about the quality of education, success of the institution and the stability of the institution.
“I called microschools the food trucks of the education industry, because they can open up, go wherever they want, and close down very quickly,” said Josh Cowen, author of “The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers.”
Cowen calls alternative education “a predatory environment where private schools and microschools are promising the world to each of these kids,” making it hard for families to know what the truth is because of the lack of oversight and measures of success.
He continued, “It could take months, if not years, for a parent to understand that they’ve gone to a school that has substantially altered their child’s academic trajectory. Or worse, it could take three or four years, and by then, it’s too late. And so that’s where you need oversight.”
In West Virginia, Lee argues that the school choice program has contributed to a teacher shortage, citing poor teacher pay, poor school funding and poor resources that contributes to low moral “when you’re seeing the dollars go to these microschools and learning pods where there’s no accountability.”
Enlow argues that adding more education paths for students could lead to improvements in public schools: “Who’s going to really buy a system where we’re just trying to let it continue the way it is without any kind of challenge?”
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(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris forcibly panned the recent “harmful” attacks on Springfield, Ohio’s Haitian migrants during a National Association of Black Journalists panel in Philadelphia on Tuesday where she delivered her most extensive comments on those attacks and on race more largely, a topic she has shied away from focusing on — a stark contrast from her 2019 run for president.
“It’s a crying shame,” Harris said when asked about former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, spreading the unsubstantiated claims that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing and eating neighbors’ pets. “I mean, my heart breaks for this community.”
A spokesperson for the city of Springfield told ABC News these claims are false, and that there have been “no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals in the immigrant community.”
A rash of bomb threats have targeted schools, government buildings and elected officials’ homes in Springfield, forcing evacuations and closures. Harris noted that some children in Springfield had to evacuate their schools because of bomb threats on what was picture day for them.
“Children. Children. A whole community put in fear,” she said.
The vice president said those in power should understand the weight of their words and be measured in what they say. She argued that Trump’s comments about the migrants in Springfield have lost him the public’s trust.
“When you are bestowed with a microphone that is that big, there is a profound responsibility that comes with that, that is an extension of what should not be lost in this moment, this concept of the public trust to then understand what the public trust means,” she said. “It means that you have been invested with trust to be responsible in the way you use your words, much less how you conduct yourself, and especially when you have been and then seek to be again, president of the United States of America.”
She called on the rhetoric to stop and for Americans to “turn the page.”
“I know that people are deeply troubled by what is happening to that community in Springfield, Ohio, and it’s got to stop,” Harris told the panel. “And we’ve got to say that you cannot be entrusted with standing behind the seal of the president of the United States of America, engaging in that hateful rhetoric that, as usual, is designed to divide us as a country, is designed to have people pointing fingers at each other.”
Harris called the former president’s comments about migrants in Springfield “exhausting” and “harmful.”
“I think most people in our country, regardless of their race, are starting to see through this nonsense and to say, ‘You know what, let’s turn the page on this,'” she said. “This is exhausting and it’s harmful and it’s hateful and grounded in some age-old stuff that we should not have the tolerance for.”
Harris’ comments on Tuesday marked her harshest rebuke of the unfounded claims about Springfield’s Haitian migrants. Despite being asked multiple times by reporters about them, Harris had previously declined to comment.
The panel comes just days after an apparent assassination attempt on Trump at his West Palm Beach golf club. The White House said Harris had a “cordial” call with the former president on Tuesday.
“I checked on to see if he was OK, and I told him what I have said publicly, ‘there is no place for political violence in our country,'” Harris said of the call. “I am in this election, in this race, for many reasons, including to fight for our democracy and in a democracy, there is no place for political violence. We can and should have healthy debates and discussion and disagreements, but not resort to violence to resolve those issues.”
Asked if she felt Secret Service could keep her and her family safe, Harris said, “I do.”
“But I mean, you can go back to Ohio, not everybody has Secret Service, and there are far too many people in our country right now who are not feeling safe.”
The panel discussion also featured Harris’s most extensive remarks on race since launching her presidential bid over the summer.
She tied many of her economic proposals to the Black community, including her small business tax credit, saying “part of what I also know is that our young Black men, our Black men, just like any group of people … are really the backbone of our economy overall. And when they do better economically, we all do better.”
But in the time since she got into the race, at a similar NABJ panel interview in July, Trump got into a fiery back-and-forth with reporters and falsely questioned Harris’ race.
“So I’ve known her a long time, indirectly, not directly, very much, and she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” Trump said during that heated exchange. “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
Harris — the child of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, both immigrants to the United States — has not directly responded to Trump’s comments. In an August interview with CNN, after being asked to comment on the personal attacks Trump has lobbied at the vice president surrounding her racial identity, Harris dodged.
“Same old, tired playbook,” she told the network. “Next question, please.”
And when asked to comment on the same attacks during ABC News’ debate last week, instead of speaking about her own racial identity, Harris chose a more generic answer.
“I think it’s a — a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president who has consistently over the course of his career attempted to use race to divide the American people,” she told ABC News’ David Muir.
Harris is not new to people falsely questioning her “Blackness.” During her presidential run in 2019, Harris faced questions about whether she was Black enough to identify as a Black candidate.
“I’m Black, and I’m proud of being Black,” Harris said on “The Breakfast Club” radio show in February of that year. “I was born Black. I will die Black, and I’m not going to make excuses for anybody because they don’t understand.”
Harris’ 2019 campaign also put a larger focus on race compared to her current run for president.
At the NBC debate in 2019, Harris strong-armed her way into the opportunity to take on then-Vice President Joe Biden on efforts to desegregate public schools, specifically school busing programs.
“As the only Black person on this stage, I would like to speak on the issue of race,” Harris said, interjecting as the moderators were moving on to someone else.
During that debate, Biden brought up his ability to work with politicians across the aisle, fondly recounting his relationship with segregationist Sens. James O. Eastland of Mississippi and Herman E. Talmadge of Georgia. Harris, who directly benefited from busing programs, jumped in to respond.
“It was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing,” Harris continued. “And you know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me.”
In another departure from her time as a candidate in 2019, as vice president, and as Biden’s running mate during his bid for reelection, Harris hardly mentions one of her top issues: Black maternal mortality.
In 2020, Harris had a section on her website’s issues page devoted to “Health Justice For Black Communities,” with a commitment to “fight to end the Black maternal mortality crisis.” Now, her website only says she’ll “combat maternal mortality” more generally. She introduced the Maternal CARE Act to tackle the issue while in the Senate. The bill mentioned “Black women” 10 times.
ABC News has reached out to the Harris campaign for comment on the shift between her two presidential campaigns, and whether this is part of political calculation ahead of the general election. They did not respond by the time of publication.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images/Julia Beverly/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — As we head into the final full week of campaigning before Election Day, the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll shows Kamala Harris with a slight 51-47% lead over Donald Trump among likely voters nationally — but the polls in the battleground states remain essentially deadlocked within the margin of error.
Fallout continues over racist comments made at Trump’s big rally on Sunday at Madison Square Garden and Harris is preparing for her “closing argument” Tuesday night on the Ellipse near the Capitol and White House in Washington.
Of the 41,989,199 total early votes, 21,111,171 were cast in person and 21,338,290 were balloted returned by mail.
On Monday, voters in Washington, D.C., can start casting their ballots early, in person. Almost all of the states that offer in-person early voting have begun offering it by now.
-ABC News’ Oren Oppenheim
Michelle Obama uses op-ed to reiterate message imploring men to support women’s reproductive health
The former first lady repeated her passionate message on women’s health being at stake this election in an op-ed published by the New York Times on Monday,
The op-ed featured excerpted remarks from her rally in Michigan on Saturday in which she blasted Trump’s record on the issue in comparison to Harris’, and made an appeal to men to support the women in their lives. The rally marked her first campaign appearance since her speech at the Democratic National Convention this summer.
“I am asking you, from the core of my being, to take our lives seriously,” she said. “Please do not put our lives in the hands of politicians, mostly men, who have no clue or do not care about what we as women are going through, who don’t fully grasp the broad-reaching health implications that their misguided policies will have on our health outcomes.”
Despite her stated aversion to partisan politics, the former first lady is ramping up her involvement in the final stretch of the 2024 campaign. She will headline a rally on Tuesday in battleground Georgia.
Harris counters dark and racist comments at Trump’s MSG rally
Harris is countering the dark and racist comments made by speakers at Trump’s Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden, while the former president’s campaign tries to distance itself from the comedian who referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”
Harris will stump in two critical counties in the battleground state of Michigan to kick off the final full week of campaigning. First, she will visit Corning’s manufacturing facility in Saginaw before getting a tour at a union training facility in Macomb County.
The vice president will cap the day with a rally with her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, in Ann Arbor. The rally will feature a concert by musician Maggie Rogers.
Trump will be in Georgia to deliver remarks at National Faith Advisory Board in Powder Springs before a 6 p.m. ET rally in Atlanta.
