GOP campaign to push the courts to the right continues unabated

It's generally assumed that the Republican-led Congress will not take up any major new legislative initiatives between now and the midterm elections in November, but GOP senators will still make time for Donald Trump's far-right judicial nominees.

Yesterday's developments in the upper chamber didn't generate a lot of headlines, but that doesn't mean they're not important. Roll Call  reported overnight:

Appeals court nominee Kyle Duncan has advocated on behalf of conservatives in legal fights over contentious cultural issues such as abortion and LGBT rights, leaving behind the kind of paper trail that might have dissuaded presidents from putting him through the Senate's confirmation process.

Donald Trump is not such a president.

And changes to the Senate filibuster rules from five years ago meant Democrats alone didn't have the votes to block Duncan from a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit based in New Orleans.

Quite right. Ordinarily, Kyle Duncan is the kind of far-right lawyer whom a president would hesitate to even nominate to the federal bench. Much of his career has been built on fighting against reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, voting rights, and the rights of immigrants.

But Trump nominated Duncan anyway and every Senate Republican -- including the ostensible "moderates" -- voted to confirm him to the appellate bench, where the 46-year-old conservative will likely spend the next several decades making those who share his ideology happy.

And he won't be alone. Duncan was the 15th appellate-court judge GOP senators have confirmed to the bench since Trump took office -- and 33rd confirmed judicial nominee overall -- which reflects a concerted partisan effort to move the courts sharply and quickly to the right -- an effort that's quietly succeeding.

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New evidence shows critics of the Republican tax plan were right

The debate over the Republican tax plan was, to put it mildly, brief. GOP leaders crafted the plan in secret, then rushed it through Congress without a substantive hearing, hoping it would stand a better chance of success if no one looked too closely at its provisions.

But to the extent there was a public discussion about the plan's merits, one of the key controversies was over tax deductions for owners of "pass-through" businesses. Democrats said the provision would largely benefit the wealthy, while Republicans insisted the change would help small business owners.

NBC News reported this week on the latest findings from the Joint Committee on Taxation, which suggest the plan's progressive critics were on to something.

The deduction, which ranges up to 20 percent, will shower $40.2 billion in tax breaks on owners of pass-throughs -- largely businesses owned by an individual or a partnership, or those "S" corporations that kick income and losses to shareholders for tax purposes -- in 2018, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated. The provision was included in the larger overhaul of tax rates enacted in December.

In 2018, the lion's share of the benefit -- $17.4 billion, or 44.3 percent of the total -- will go to roughly 200,000 Americans making $1 million or more who claim the pass-through deduction, the committee said. Another $3.6 billion, or 8.9 percent, will go to a similar number of taxpayers who earn $500,000 to $1 million.

By 2024, the tax deductions will amount to $60.3 billion, and those making $1 million or more will account for $31.6 billion (52.4 percent) of that.

For Republicans, of course, this is a feature, not a bug. Their rhetoric notwithstanding, the point of the GOP tax plan was, and is, to divert more wealth to the richest Americans.

But stepping back, this latest evidence fits into a larger pattern in which Democratic predictions about the Republican tax law keep coming true.

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For his next trick, the EPA's Scott Pruitt takes aim at science

In a cabinet filled with scandal-plagued members, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt manages to stand out. In recent weeks, the corruption controversies surrounding the Oklahoma Republican have reached crisis levels, and even Donald Trump's White House has begun "cautioning" its allies about defending him.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the Senate's third-ranking Republican leader, conceded to reporters yesterday, "Obviously, Scott Pruitt has got some serious questions to answer." Thune added that while GOP lawmakers like the EPA chief's efforts to undermine environmental safeguards, the allegations Pruitt is facing make it "harder to be effective in his job."

The question of efficacy is an important one, and it's more difficult to answer than it may appear. On the one hand, when it comes to dismantling safeguards, Pruitt has a reputation for being ruthlessly effective, but his record reflects a clumsy and careless administrator.

But on the other hand, the EPA chief is proving to be quite effective in going after science. Mother Jones  reported on Pruitt's announcement yesterday -- at an event closed to the press, but well attended by his ideological allies -- intended to "restrict the kinds of scientific studies the agency can use in developing its regulations."

For years, EPA critics have pushed Congress to forbid the agency from relying on the studies that comprise the bulk of the independent research on fossil fuels on public health. Their strategy aims to sow doubt about the health effects of air pollution, while slowing down or weakening future rules targeting particulate matter and ozone. The proposed rule is modeled after bills introduced by Smith in the House, which Pruitt described as the "codification of an approach."

Under the new approach, the Environmental Protection Agency will only consider research with publicly available underlying data. And while Pruitt pretends this is about "transparency," the practical implications are dramatic. The Mother Jones piece added, "It would drastically limit the kinds of studies available to regulators crafting the agency's air and water regulations, because many of these studies rely on sensitive medical records that cannot be made public, or may be owned by private institutions not keen on publishing proprietary information."

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'Republicans shouldn't be hitting the alarm, they should be slamming it'

Congressional elections are zero-sum affairs. Candidates vie for a seat, the winner earns the opportunity to serve, and the loser gets nothing. No one gets a "nice job keeping it close" trophy.

That said, as we were reminded last night, context is everything.

Arizona's 8th congressional district is a heavily Republican area. Donald Trump won here by 21 points in his presidential race, and GOP voters enjoy a 17-point registration advantage. In yesterday's special election. Republicans ran an experienced state lawmaker, while Democrats ran a first-time candidate. Common sense suggested the race wouldn't be close.

Except it was. As of this morning, Rep.-elect Debbie Lesko (R) defeated Hiral Tipirneni (D) by about five percentage points, 52.6% to 47.4%. Politico  noted the growing anxiety among GOP officials.

Lesko's single-digit margin is the latest evidence that Republicans face a punishing midterm environment, even in Trump-friendly territory. [...]

"Republicans shouldn't be hitting the alarm, they should be slamming it," said Mike Noble, a GOP pollster based in Arizona. He added: "This district isn't supposed to be competitive, and so to see this margin, especially with the Republicans pouring in resources here -- again, it's a tough year."

That point about resources is of particular interest: Republicans spent about $1 million to help push an established local candidate over the finish line, while national Democratic organizations largely ignored the contest. And Lesko still won a close race in a district Trump won by 21 points a year and a half ago.

Making matters quite a bit worse for Republicans, this wasn't the first time. On the contrary, Democrats have already flipped two key "red" seats in Congress -- Rep. Conor Lamb (D) won in a Pennsylvania district that Trump carried by 20 points, while Sen. Doug Jones (D) won a U.S. Senate special election in a state Trump carried by nearly 28 points -- while Dem candidates kept it surprisingly close in U.S. House races in "red" districts in Montana, Georgia, Kansas, and South Carolina.

Donald Trump whined this morning that not enough people are paying attention to yesterday's results in Arizona, but he doesn't seem to understand what matters here: the outcome of this congressional special election offers fresh proof of his party's troubles under his presidency.

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