Dear Progressive Reader,

The 117th Congress of the United States is scheduled to conclude its work during the week of December 12. But there is still a lot to do in the next ten days. One postive accomplishment was the Senate’s bi-partisan passage of the Respect for Marriage Act. The effort, led by U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin, and Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, passed the Senate in a vote of 61-36. It now goes on to the U.S. House of Representatives for a final vote, after which President Joe Biden anticipates signing it into law later this month. Among other things, the Act overturns the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which passed twenty-six years ago with the support of then-President Bill Clinton, but was made unenforceable by two U.S. Supreme Court decisions in 2013 and 2015. That law, however, remained on the books and new fears of its resurgence arose last June when Justice Clarence Thomas, in his statement on the Dobbs decision, raised the specter of revisiting the Court’s Obergefell decision of 2015. Following the signing of the Respect for Marriage Act, this older law would be permanently overturned.

Elsewhere on the Hill, the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attacks on the U.S. Capitol remains hard at work. Although their report is already at the Government Printing Office, the Committee continues its interviews and evidence gathering. Last Wednesday, the Committee interviewed Wisconsin State Assembly Speaker Robin Voss, and on Friday, they met to consider criminal referrals to the Justice Department of some lawmakers who refused to comply with subpoenas. “If someone is not referred, it is not an indication that we don’t think there is evidence,” U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, told CNN on November 30. A possible criminal referral of former-President Donald Trump remains on the table as well. The Committee’s report is expected to be made available to the public sometime during the week of December 12.

In a related story, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes III and another leader of the group were found guilty on charges of seditious conspiracy on November 29. January 6 committee chair Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, and vice-chair Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, said in a statement, “Today’s convictions are a victory for the rule of law and reinforce the fact that the violence of January 6th included a deliberate attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election and block the transfer of presidential power. The Select Committee’s investigation demonstrated that when Donald Trump summoned a mob to assemble in Washington, DC on January 6th, the Oath Keepers and other extremist groups heard that call and began to plan and coordinate. Individuals involved now face the consequences of taking part in a scheme to undermine American democracy.”

Elsewhere in this week’s news, President Biden and the U.S. Congress took action to avert a nationwide rail strike. The bill, which makes the potential strike illegal, was watered down to remove the paid sick leave provisions that had been added, and that many had hoped for. As thirty-four-year veteran rail worker Hugh Sawyer told writer Michelle Chen in September, “If I mark off sick on the weekend, and I go to the doctor, I go to urgent care. . . . That means nothing. I am disciplined because I have taken a day off, or more than one day off, on the weekend . . . I can mark off one calendar day in a ninety-day period on the weekend without being disciplined.” The government action to stop the potential strike, while not unprecedented, sets a dangerous tone for future negotiations when companies can utilize federal intervention as a tactic to avoid direct talks with union members. As Railroad Workers United explained in its press release on Friday, “Both political parties opted to side with Big Business over working people yesterday and vote against the interests of railroad workers—not once, but twice, within hours. We suffered a one-two punch at the hands of, first the Democratic Party; the second served up by the Republicans.”

In other news on our website, Miles Hamberg brings an update on a strike by part-time faculty at the New School in New York; Barbara Alvarez looks at the confluence in libraries between attempts to ban books and efforts to restrict access to information about abortion; and Rann Miller examines the U.S, Supreme Court’s growing philosophy of “originalism” and how it is poised to turn the clock back on more than a century of civil rights and human rights rulings.

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,

Norman Stockwell
Publisher

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