Sydney Ember and Astead W. Herndon

In Philadelphia last month on his book tour, Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and a Democratic candidate for president, fielded an unlikely question from the audience: “Would you support a packing of the courts to expand the Supreme Court by four members?”

The inquiry elicited titters from the politics-hungry crowd that appeared surprised by the question. But not from Buttigieg.

“I don’t think we should be laughing at it,” he said. “In some ways it’s no more a shattering of norms than what’s already been done to get the judiciary to where it is today. “

His response drew immediate praise from liberal news outlets. ThinkProgress declared him the only Democratic candidate that seemed “serious about governing.” But if Buttigieg’s remarks were off-the-cuff, the question was not: It had been posed by a person involved with Pack the Courts, a liberal activist group that favors adding judges to flip the ideological tilt of the high court — known as court packing.

The success of the strategy — pushing an issue that had mostly thrived on the fringe into the 2020 conversation — illustrates how activists are leveraging the early stages of the Democratic primary, creating pseudo-litmus tests for candidates eager to respond to the energy that is driving more extreme policy proposals.

For grassroots organizers, the wide-open Democratic field — already veering to the left on taxes, health care, super PAC donations and other issues — provides multiple openings to elevate their agendas. In recent weeks they have helped spur similar exchanges on fraught topics like reparations and ending the Senate filibuster. They have also helped broaden the conversation on climate change to include an expansive proposal called the Green New Deal.

Candidates, including those in the top tier, are increasingly being urged to address these topics in interviews, at events and during media appearances. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for instance, has been asked repeatedly about reparations, including recently on ABC’s “The View.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., answered a question about ending the filibuster at an event last week in New York. And on Sunday, Buttigieg was asked again about packing the courts — during a town hall-style forum on CNN.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., co-chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said candidates who do not project boldness on such issues “are just not going to win.” She said the country was in a unique moment and that issues like court packing give candidates opportunities to show they understand this.

“Even if you don’t call it a litmus test, this is what defines us: a willingness and a courage to make bold changes — not to just follow when it’s all said and done,” she said.

The impact on the race has already been palpable. Candidates who might have dodged questions on hot-button policies in the past are now finding themselves discussing once-audacious ideas in public forums, sometimes awkwardly so if they are caught off guard.

Lesser known candidates are also using the emerging issues as an opportunity to differentiate themselves, as Buttigieg did with his response on court packing.

“My purpose is to get people thinking about what an ambitious agenda actually looks like,'’ Buttigieg said in a telephone interview this week, “and to remind everybody that structural reform is an option — whether it’s this, or the Electoral College, or any of the other stuff.'’

Former housing secretary Julián Castro called for a federal study of reparations for black Americans, even as several top-tier candidates waffled on their support, and during an interview on CNN over the weekend Castro called out Sanders by name for declining to support reparation payments. Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington has made the elimination of the Senate filibuster a major theme of his candidacy.

“While the world burns, the Senate will sit in total inaction because of an antiquated vestige of a bygone era,” Inslee said in an interview, referring to the filibuster. “We’re in an internet age and this is something from the steam engine.”

Most of the policies are largely rhetorical and probably politically unfeasible with Republicans controlling the Senate and the White House. Court packing, for example, would amount to an extraordinary bucking of constitutional and political norms.

There is also scant evidence that many of these issues are yet galvanizing a Democratic electorate more focused on nominating a candidate who can beat President Donald Trump.

“I would be knocked over with a feather if voters picked the Democratic nominee for president on the basis of getting rid of the filibuster,” said Robert Shrum, a longtime Democratic consultant. “That kind of process argument very seldom proves decisive in primaries.”

The tactics activist groups are employing are similar to those used during the midterm elections to popularize issues like abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which gained momentum during the fight over immigration policies last summer.

Sunrise Movement, the climate advocacy group that was founded in April 2017, has already had great success establishing its signature legislative proposal — the so-called Green New Deal, a sprawling economic blueprint to fight climate change, as well as societal problems like income and racial inequality — as a must-answer question for every presidential candidate. The youth-led organization has used high-profile endorsements and polarizing protest tactics to pressure Democrats and Republicans alike. It is already eyeing ways to push 2020 candidates to go even further on climate activism.

“We’re going to ensure that no one gets out of these primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire without hearing about the Green New Deal over and over and over again,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of Sunrise Movement. “This is not going away.”

Prakash, who is 25, said the lack of a 2020 front-runner has allowed grassroots groups to play the cohort of candidates against one another on certain issues. She expects Sunrise Movement to raise the standards for candidates from simply endorsing the Green New Deal to an even greater commitment: prioritizing the proposal in the first 100 days of any Democratic administration.

“Movements have changed everything,” she said, adding that Sunrise Movement plans to bring thousands of activists to the first Democratic presidential debate. “We are changing what it means for a politician to be a politician.”

Other groups have also tried to impose their legislative wish-lists on the presidential field. Fair Fight Action, the voting rights movement born out of last year’s contentious governor’s race in Georgia, has asked candidates to make election rights and voter suppression a more central theme of their pitch. Common Defense, a collection of anti-war veterans, is circling a pledge among Democratic candidates to end what they call the “forever war” waged by the United States since 2001, which has already been signed by Warren and Sanders.

Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, who helps lead Women Donors Network, a collective that funds grassroots organizations nationally, said that voters want politicians whose policies meet the present crisis. And she said candidates who resist will be penalized at the ballot box.

“The path to electability is through boldness right now,” she said. “It’s not just a litmus test for conversation; it’s actually going to show up in who is able to pass through these primary battles.”

Like Buttigieg in Philadelphia, candidates are often addressing these issues in response to questions, during town-hall style forums and interviews, rather than pushing the policies themselves.

“It’s all on the table, baby,” Warren said Friday when asked about the filibuster at a rally in New York.

The House progressive caucus may take the emergence of new issues even further. It recently acknowledged that it was considering new rules that would require its nearly 100 members to vote together on key issues for the group — a move aimed at increasing its power. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., who serves as co-chairman with Jayapal, said the House progressives also hope to host presidential candidates during their annual summit this fall.

“Actions speak stronger than words, and there are people running on progressive issues who are not who you think of as progressives, because they realize that’s what people want,” Pocan said.

“But the devil’s in the details,” he said, “and it’s our job to now put meat on the bones of these issues.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/us/politics/reparations-court-packing-filibuster-2020-democrats.html" id="3c2fc3f3-5aa5-37a3-ae4a-420472f8cbea">The New York Times</a>.

It was a made-for-social-media moment for Pete Buttigieg.

For 2020 Democrats, Once-Fringe Issues Emerge as Part of the Debate

Mayor Pete Buttigieg disagreed, firmly saying “no” about whether he concurred with Sanders. “Part of the punishment when you were convicted of a crime and you’re incarcerated is you lose certain rights, you lose your freedom,” said Buttigieg, who supported restoring voting rights after people serve their sentences.

Sen. Kamala Harris was more tentative on voting rights for people currently in prison or on death row, saying, “I think we should have that conversation.” She also backed giving the vote to the formerly incarcerated.

Their remarks Monday night came in response to questions at a marathon series of Democratic presidential town halls on CNN before an audience of college students in New Hampshire. While five candidates in all faced dozens of questions, Sanders’ answer to the voting rights question yielded the biggest news of the night and drew attacks from the Republican National Committee and others on the right.

The question of impeaching President Donald Trump also came up repeatedly, and the answers underscored how Democratic candidates are gaming out their responses to the special counsel’s report.

Warren gave the sharpest response in favor of impeaching Trump, and Harris was blunter on the issue than she had been in previous comments. “I believe Congress should take the steps toward impeachment,” she said.

By contrast, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Sanders and Buttigieg avoided taking aggressive stands on impeachment.

“If the House brings the impeachment proceedings before us, we will deal with them,” Klobuchar said. She added later: “What I will say is there are very disturbing things that would lead you to believe there’s obstruction of justice.”

Warren, speaking after Klobuchar, insisted that Democrats could not ignore evidence that Trump tried to halt or derail the special counsel’s investigation.

“There is no political inconvenience exception to the United States Constitution,” Warren said, referring to the concern among many Democratic leaders that trying to impeach Trump would only fail the Republican-led Senate and strengthen the president.

Sanders said, “There has got to be a thorough investigation” by House Democrats of Trump, and added that he wished that Republican senators had “the guts” to take action against the president.

“We’ll see where it goes,” he said.

Buttigieg said he believed the president had “made pretty clear he deserves impeachment,” but added, “I’m going to leave it to the House and Senate to figure that out.”

The town hall-style forums at Saint Anselm College were a chance for college students to question Democratic candidates. (Warren and Klobuchar did not weigh in on voting rights because they spoke before Sanders.) Here are some of the highlights for each candidate.

Sanders backs voting rights for Boston bomber and rapists

Sanders said he believed that people in jail, even “terrible people” like the Boston Marathon bomber and sex assault offenders, should have the right to vote, a view that is likely to draw rebukes from both Republicans and some Democrats alike.

“I think the right to vote is inherent to our democracy. Yes, even for terrible people,” he said. “Because once you start chipping away, and you say, ‘Well that guy committed a terrible crime, not going to let him vote. Well that person did that, not going to let that person vote,’ you’re running down a slippery slope.”

“I believe that people commit crimes, they pay the price,” he added. “When they get out of jail, I believe they certainly should have a right to vote. But I do believe that even if they are in jail they are paying their price to society but that should not take away their inherent American right to participate in our democracy.”

Sanders stood by his answer even after Chris Cuomo, the CNN host and moderator, gave him a chance to walk it back. He said he knew he would get hit with attack ads over it.

“I think I have written many 30-second opposition ads throughout my life,” Sanders said. “This will be just another one.”

Asked how he would reconcile his notion of democratic socialism with the failures of socialism in countries like the Soviet Union, Sanders was indignant.

“Is it your assumption that I supported or believe in authoritarian communism that existed in the Soviet Union?” he asked. “I don’t and never have and I opposed it. I believe in a vigorous democracy.”

He added: “What do I mean when I talk about democratic socialism? It certainly is not the authoritarian communism that existed in the Soviet Union and in other communist countries.”

It is among the questions that many voters across the country have about Sanders’ ideology, and one that Sanders advisers know he will have to answer if he hopes to win the Democratic nomination.

Harris sees ‘a lot of good evidence’ on obstruction

Harris took a new step on impeachment Monday night, joining other Democrats in supporting efforts to start that process against Trump.

“It is very clear there is a lot of good evidence pointing to obstruction,” said Harris, a former prosecutor and California attorney general, before calling on Congress to take steps toward impeachment.

She had previously said that the behavior of Trump’s administration was troubling but had stopped short of calling for the president’s ouster.

Harris has also emphasized that she wanted Mueller to testify on Capitol Hill, saying “Congress needs to see the full, unredacted Mueller report and all of the investigation’s underlying evidence.”

Harris, who is a member of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, became a political star for her pointed questioning of other key members of Trump’s orbit, including former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

On gun control, Harris announced that, as president, she would sign an executive order mandating background checks for customers of any firearms dealer who sells more than five guns a year. She would also include new regulation of gun manufacturers that could result in revoked licenses or prosecution.

Klobuchar touts ‘purple state’ success and asks for a cheer

Klobuchar also highlighted her political successes in Minnesota, citing her electoral record there as proof that she can win back votes in heartland states that helped deliver Trump the presidency.

“I am someone that runs in a purple state,” she said.

“Every single time I have run,” she added, “I have won every single congressional district in my state, including Michele Bachmann’s.”

When the audience remained silent, she said, “That’s when you guys are supposed to cheer, OK?” Some students laughed and cheered while others appeared unmoved.

Klobuchar also answered questions on race relations, education, climate change, health care and the cost of higher education during the town hall.

“I wish I could staple a free college diploma under every one of your chairs,” she said in response to a question about why she does not support tuition-free or debt-free college policies. (Warren on Monday proposed a $1.25 trillion plan to eliminate undergraduate tuition at public colleges and cancel loan debt for many students.)

Warren takes a knee

Warren has a well-earned reputation as a policy wonk, but on Monday night she talked about the sexism she has faced in politics, drawing in audience members with a personal anecdote that had nothing to do with her plans for government.

Asked by a student about sexist criticism of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and what lessons she learned from it, Warren noted that sexism in politics did not start two years ago, but rather has faced women in politics for decades. Then she recounted her 2012 Senate race against Scott Brown, then the Republican senator in Massachusetts, during which Warren’s personal appearance and likability were scrutinized in news coverage and among some voters.

In response, Warren said she made it a priority to connect with young women on the trail.

“I’m going to be in this race, and I’m going to make something count every day,” Warren recalled thinking.

Then she got down on one knee to demonstrate how she talked to young girls on a regular basis: “I’d usually get down, I’m a teacher, and I would say, ‘Hi, my name is Elizabeth and I’m running for Senate because that’s what girls do.’” Warren also said she asked them to pinkie promise to run for Senate one day.

The crowd cheered as Warren got up, and she concluded by saying, “That’s how I’m going to become the first woman elected president.”

Buttigieg talks about race and South Bend

Buttigieg acknowledged that he had not been sufficiently sensitive to the concerns of people of color early in his mayoral term, including in his 2012 decision to fire South Bend’s first black police chief, Darryl Boykins.

A student asked Buttigieg about Boykins’ dismissal, which came amid an investigation into allegations that Boykins had improperly recorded the telephone calls of several officers. One police employee alleged that the recordings captured officers using racist language and discussing potentially illegal behavior.

Asked what the tapes contained, Buttigieg replied, “I don’t know,” and explained that a state judge was still deciding whether they could be disclosed. He said he dismissed Boykins in part because the chief had not informed Buttigieg promptly that he was facing an investigation.

But Buttigieg conceded he had been “slow to understand how much anguish” was involved in African-Americans’ reaction to Boykins’ ouster. “It was about whether communities of color trust that police departments have their best interests at heart,” Buttigieg said.

Prodded about the dismal representation of black officers on the city force, Buttigieg listed other steps the city had taken to improve race relations, including bias training for public employees.

On a separate subject, Buttigieg stressed his more moderate instincts on the subject of college affordability. Invoking the “six-figure student debt” shared by himself and his husband, Chasten, Buttigieg said he found Warren’s plan to forgive student debt “pretty appealing,” but questioned whether it should help relatively affluent people.

For people making more than $200,000, he said, “Maybe you’re at the point where we could ask you to take care of that.”

Near the end of the five-hour marathon, Buttigieg was asked to respond to Richard Grenell, the United States ambassador to Germany, who has sharply criticized Buttigieg for questioning the moral authority of evangelicals like Vice President Mike Pence. Both Buttigieg, a devoted Episcopalian and Grenell are gay.

“I’m not a master fisherman, but I know bait when I see it, and I’m not going to take it,” Buttigieg said, drawing extended applause from the audience.

This article originally appeared in <a id="e8ec4efd-cee9-3383-a860-7a3d620c9753" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/us/politics/cnn-town-halls.html">The New York Times</a>.

At CNN Town Halls, Sanders Backs Voting Rights for People Now in Jail

Sen. Bernie Sanders backed voting rights for “terrible people” now in jail, including the Boston Marathon bomber and those convicted of sexual assault, saying that “the right to vote is inherent to our democracy.”

At CNN town halls, Sanders backs voting rights for people now in jail

<h1>It was a made-for-social-media moment for Pete Buttigieg.</h1>

This article originally appeared in <a id="9c3a6714-f18e-4628-a387-4d09ad4a413e" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/us/politics/reparations-court-packing-filibuster-2020-democrats.html">The New York Times</a>.

Reparations, Court-Packing: Once-Fringe Issues Take Hold in Democratic Primary Race

The inquiry elicited titters from the politics-hungry crowd that appeared surprised by the question. But not from Buttigieg.

Reparations, court-packing: Once-fringe issues take hold in Democratic primary race

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Sydney Ember and Astead W. Herndon

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For 2020 Democrats, Once-Fringe Issues Emerge as Part of the Debate

At CNN town halls, Sanders backs voting rights for people now in jail

Reparations, court-packing: Once-fringe issues take hold in Democratic primary race