Talking about trains

Daniel Desrochers

The U.S. Capitol was consumed by train talk this week.

With rail workers once again on the brink of calling a strike against their employers as they tried to secure additional sick days and more predictable schedules, Congress quickly stepped in to prevent what would cost the economy an estimated $2 billion a day, right around the holiday season when inflation is already high.

In order to do so, both the House and Senate passed a resolution forcing the workers and rail companies to accept a White House-brokered tentative agreement from September that all but four of the 12 major rail unions had voted to accept.

The measure, urged by President Joe Biden, passed both the House and Senate easily with large bipartisan votes. It gives a significant pay raise to the rail workers, but leaves them with just one sick day.

U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, was one of the few people who voted against the measure.

“Today was also a chance for Republicans to stand up for working people and against the DC establishment,” Hawley said. “They missed it. But make no mistake, the people who put on overalls or pick up a shovel or stand on the assembly line every day are worth fighting for. And the Republican Party will have no future without them.”

His stand placed him with unusual bedfellows. Among those who voted no with Hawley were Democratic Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, two of the most progressive members of Congress who have built their reputations (and former presidential bids) on standing up for labor rights.

But his vote is also in line with a larger transition Hawley has said he wants to see in the Republican Party — one in which it moves away from the type of chamber of commerce, pro-business identity that has defined the party since at least the 80s toward one that is focused more on working class voters.

This is a calculated choice. Over the past few decades — and particularly after the candidacy of former President Donald Trump — the Republican Party has come to rely more and more on the votes of white, non-college educated, working class men who live in rural areas.

According to CNN’s exit polls in 2022, Republicans expanded their advantage over Democrats with white voters who don’t have a college degree by 10 percentage points compared to 2018. They expanded their advantage with rural voters by 15 percentage points.

In an op-ed he wrote for the Washington Post, Hawley said the old Republican Party was “dead.”

“They must convince a critical mass of working-class voters that the GOP truly represents their interests and protects their culture,” Hawley wrote.

This type of voter has increasingly become Hawley’s focus over the past few years. He is considered someone who has presidential aspirations — if not in 2024, then potentially down the line — and he has identified conservative, working class voters as his current and future base.

Outside of his train vote, Hawley has been focusing on what he calls a “masculinity crisis” in America. He is writing a book called “Manhood” that will likely expand on his 2021 speech where he said that men have been villainized by “the left” and argued that the economy should be restructured to benefit working class men.

When asked at the Capitol whether his opposition to the rail deal was part of his attempt to remake the Republican Party, Hawley said it was “part of it” before stopping himself.

“Yes, is the short answer,” he said. “I don’t want to over complicate it.”

More from Missouri

Newly appointed Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, the former general counsel to Gov. Mike Parson, gave little indication in his first press conference about what he planned to do once in office. But when The Star asked the former student of Sen. Josh Hawley this week if he would use the office to stand up against the federal government, Bailey took a more aggressive stand.

Here are headlines from across the state:

And across Kansas

Kansas Supreme Court Justice Caleb Stegall said he will stop teaching at the University of Kansas because of how the school of law handled a student uproar over a speaker invited by the school’s Federalist Society. Stegall, the most conservative justice on the Kansas Supreme Court, wrote a letter to the law school dean saying he didn’t feel free and open dialogue was valued on campus.

The latest from Kansas City

In Kansas City …

Have a news tip? Send it along to ddesrochers@kcstar.com

Odds and ends

Pompeo on Trump

In another high-profile stumble since announcing his 2024 presidential campaign, former President Donald Trump drew widespread criticism last week when he had dinner with Ye, a rapper who has recently been condemned for anti-Semitic statements, and Nick Fuentes, an unapologetically anti-Semitic 24-year-old who attended a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. in 2017.

Republicans were quick to denounce Trump’s meeting, and it served as another opportunity for those who are thinking of challenging Trump to create distance from the man who still seems to have a strong hold over the base of the Republican Party.

Some, like former Vice President Mike Pence, called on Trump to apologize for the dinner. But Kansas’ own potential presidential hopeful took a milder approach, posting a condemnation of anti-Semitism on Twitter.

“Anti-Semitism is a cancer,” Pompeo wrote. “As Secretary, I fought to ban funding for anti-Semitic groups that pushed BDS. We stand with the Jewish people in the fight against the world’s oldest bigotry.”

This type of veiled denouncement of Trump appears to be Pompeo’s strategy in this early, jockeying period of his not-yet-officially-running presidential campaign. Shortly after last month’s election, when some Republicans were pointing fingers at Trump for endorsing unelectable candidates in key races, Pompeo criticized Trump by saying he was “tired of losing” in reference to Trump’s famous 2016 line that he would win so much people would get tired of winning.

Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court said Thursday it will take up a case challenging President Joe Biden’s plan to offer student loan debt relief, while leaving in place a temporary order blocking the program.

The court’s hearing a case brought by six states, including Kansas and Missouri, in September. The states alleged that the Biden administration’s plan would cause their states’ student loan servicer to face a financial harm.

The administration’s plan relies on a law passed in the aftermath of 9/11 that allows the executive branch to make changes to student loan programs when the country is in a national emergency. The Biden administration is using its power under the ongoing emergency declaration over COVID-19.

Schmitt and other conservatives have argued against the debt program, which would erase up to $20,000 of some Americans’ debts, saying it meant bailing out people who chose to go to expensive colleges. Some conservatives have made arguments that the debt forgiveness would contribute to inflation, though many economists say it is unlikely to make a big difference.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in February 2023 to determine whether Biden overstepped his authority.

Marshall’s Town Halls

Sen. Roger Marshall on Thursday celebrated the fact that he’s held a town hall event in all of Kansas’ 105 counties in his first two years as a U.S. Senator.

A Kansas senator trying to visit every county in the state has become a bit of a tradition; Sen. Jerry Moran has also built his brand on holding town halls in every county. In his press release, Marshall didn’t credit Moran with the idea. Instead he attributed it to advice he once received from former Sen. Bob Dole.

“The very first time I met Senator Bob Dole he told me, ‘Go out and listen to the people of Kansas – they will give you the answer,’” Marshall said. “That’s exactly what we did.”

Happy Friday

Here’s an article by our colleagues in North Carolina about secrecy in the state’s poultry industry. It’s officially the holiday season, have some hot chocolate. Spotify told me the song I’ve listened to most this year is Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters by Elton John.

Enjoy your weekend.

Daniel Desrochers is the Star’s Washington, D.C. Correspondent
Daniel Desrochers is the Star’s Washington, D.C. Correspondent

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