Appropriators meet as deadline set for Homeland Security deal

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader John Thune set a deadline of next week for resolving the Homeland Security Department funding standoff, as Senate appropriators of both parties held a face-to-face meeting Thursday with White House “border czar” Tom Homan.

Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said the meeting — the first of its kind since the department’s partial shutdown began a month ago — was a “pretty big deal and a recognition that we need to get this resolved.” He also threatened to curtail a scheduled two-week spring recess in early April if there was still no deal by then.

“It needs to get resolved by the end of next week,” Thune told reporters. “I can’t see us taking a break if the government’s still shut down.”

But lawmakers signaled little progress after the roughly 90-minute meeting with Homan adjourned at the Capitol on Thursday afternoon.

“I’m glad that the White House is here, but we’re still a long ways apart,” said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. Asked if both sides were closer to a deal, she said, “No.”

Homan wouldn’t characterize progress from the talks and said lawmakers need to “get the government back open.”

“We’re going to keep having discussions,” Homan told reporters when asked if the White House was willing to make further concessions in bipartisan talks. “That’s all I’m going to say.”

The meeting drew participation from several key moderates who broke ranks to help end the historic partial government shutdown last fall, including Sens. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with Democrats. Neither took questions from reporters afterward, though there hasn’t been any indication yet that a repeat of the caucus defections from last fall is on the table.

—CQ-Roll Call

Indiana candidate with Nazi salute in name removed from ballot

A Republican candidate who filed for U.S. representative in Indiana’s 1st District with the Nazi salute in his ballot name was removed from the ballot late last month when he didn’t show up to a hearing challenging his candidacy.

Richard Benedict Mayers, who has a history of failed campaigns on a white supremacist platform, filed as a Republican candidate for the 1st District and listed his ballot name as Richard Benedict (Sieg Heil) Mayers, according to election records.

Lake County Republican Party Chairman Randy Niemeyer attended the Indiana Election Commission meeting Feb. 25, papers in hand, to present his challenge to Mayers’ candidacy.

After Niemeyer stated his name and title for the record, the board called for Mayers. When neither Mayers nor a representative on his behalf stepped forward, commission member John Westercamp moved to uphold the challenge, which the commission unanimously voted in favor of in a voice vote.

At the start of the meeting, the commission adopted procedures for the challenges, including that if a challenger was not present then the challenge would be dismissed, but if the challenged candidate was not present then the challenge would be upheld.

In an interview with the Post-Tribune, Niemeyer said he filed a challenge against Mayers for not having a record of voting in primary elections in Indiana, which violates Indiana code. The challenge also argued that Mayers’ use of the Nazi salute was an attempt at electioneering and marketing, which also violates Indiana code.

After Mayers filed to be a candidate, Niemeyer issued a statement that he was aware of a candidate “using a blatantly antisemitic nickname.”

“The Lake County Republican Party does not condone or offer any refuge or support to those who seek attention by these means,” Niemeyer said in the January statement. “None of the offices of the Lake County Republican Party, Porter County Republican Party, LaPorte County Republican Party or Indiana GOP First District Committee have ever met the candidate and jointly express our disgust with this filing.”

In January 2002, the Cook County electoral review board removed Mayers as a candidate in the Illinois 9th Congressional District Democratic primary after he did not have enough nominating petition signatures.

At the time, Mayers, who didn’t live within Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, filed 203 signatures and needed 600 to get on the ballot, according to the Evanston Review.

In 2000, Mayers was challenged for three constitutional amendments he filed in Cook County that would’ve banned interracial marriage, prohibit abortion of “healthy white babies” and send Black prisoners “back to western Africa.” The legal challenge to the referendum questions was filed because Mayers didn’t have the required number of signatures, according to WGN Chicago.

—Post-Tribune (Merrillville, Ind.)

California quickly moves to rename Cesar Chavez Day after sex abuse allegations

California is moving quickly to rename Cesar Chavez Day in the wake of sex abuse allegations against the famed labor leader.

The push to redesignate the March 31 holiday as “Farmworkers Day” was announced Thursday by Democratic leaders in the state Legislature.

“California’s farmworker rights movement never has been about one individual. To the survivors who have found the courage to come forward, uplifting the movement’s values of dignity and justice, and demanding accountability, our hearts are with you always,” Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, a Hollister Democrat, and Senate President Pro Tempore Monique Limón, a Santa Barbara Democrat, said in a joint statement.

Some Republicans, too, have expressed a desire to continue honoring the wider farmworker labor movement, even while minimizing Chavez as an individual figure. State Sen. Suzette Martinez Valladares, a Santa Clarita Republican, and Assemblywoman Alexandra Macedo, a Tulare Republican, said Wednesday they were already working on legislation to rename the holiday to “Farmworkers Day.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom indicated support for the effort on social media and during remarks at an unrelated event.

“What Cesar represented was a movement — the farmworkers’ movement, the labor movement — and it’s right to celebrate that movement,” he said. “And so I’m certainly supportive of the direction that many are promoting, including members of the Legislature, and we look forward to moving that along in an expeditious way.”

Calls to purge Chavez from the litany of schools, streets and parks named in his honor came in the hours after the publication of a New York Times investigation detailing disturbing allegations that Chavez sexually assaulted two underage girls in the 1970s, as well as fellow iconic farmworker leader Dolores Huerta in the 1960s.

Huerta, as well as one of the girls, said Chavez raped her.

The claims immediately became a political issue across California and other states, where Chavez has been memorialized in many ways since his death in 1993.

—Los Angeles Times

Zelenskyy, US to resume talks over ending Russia war

KYIV, Ukraine— Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is counting on new talks with the United States starting on Saturday to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of his country, following a break in diplomacy amid the conflict with Iran.

He has received positive signals from the U.S., Zelenskyy said in his evening video message from Kyiv. "There was a pause in negotiations; now it is time to end it."

The group of Ukrainian negotiators responsible for the political part of the talks is already on its way to the U.S., Zelenskyy said.

He has agreed on the approach with the Secretary of the Security Council, Rustem Umerov, his Chief of Staff Kyrylo Budanov and other representatives, he said.

Zelenskyy said the talks with Washington would be a continuation of earlier negotiation formats, and made no mention of Russian representatives.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said on Wednesday that the trilateral negotiations were on hold for the time being. On Thursday, he did not rule out a resumption, provided the U.S. had a date for it.

In a video link-up with the EU summit in Brussels, Zelenskyy said that the starting point for the talks was improving for Russia due to the war in Iran, but worsening for Ukraine, adding this must not be allowed to happen.

—dpa