WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is asking major U.S. automakers and their workers’ union to reach an agreement that takes “every possible step to avoid painful plant closings” as the sector transitions to electric vehicles.

The president has not yet been by the United Auto Workers as he seeks reelection, despite his broad support from organized labor going into the 2024 campaign. The UAW represents 146,000 workers at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, which are commonly known as the big three automakers. The workers’ contracts expire at 11:59 p.m. Sept. 14.

Biden said in a statement Monday that as the market moves away from gasoline-powered vehicles, the auto industry still must provide “good jobs that can support a family” and ensure that “transitions are fair and look to retool, reboot, and rehire in the same factories and communities at comparable wages, while giving existing workers the first shot to fill those jobs.”

“The UAW helped create the American middle class and as we move forward in this transition to new technologies, the UAW deserves a contract that sustains the middle class,” Biden said.

Shawn Fain, president of the union, has asked for an end to different wage tiers among workers. He is also seeking double-digit pay raises and restoration of cost-of-living pay, defined benefit pensions for all workers, and restoring retiree health coverage. The union has proposed a 32-hour workweek, instead of the conventional 40.

Facing the risk of a potential strike, automakers have said they face development costs as the industry shifts to EVs and spend billions of dollars constructing battery plants.

Josh Boak, The Associated Press

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ATLANTA (AP) — Prosecutors in Atlanta who have been investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies illegally meddled in the 2020 election in Georgia have begun presenting their case to a grand jury.

Former Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan, who had been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury, said as she left the Fulton County courthouse late Monday morning that she had been questioned for about 40 minutes. News outlets reported that former Democratic state Rep. Bee Nguyen and Gabriel Sterling, a top official in the secretary of state’s office, were seen arriving at the courthouse earlier Monday.

For two and a-half years, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating actions taken by Trump and others in their efforts to overturn his narrow loss in Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden. Barriers and street closures around the courthouse in downtown Atlanta, as well as statements made by Willis, had indicated that a presentation to a grand jury was likely to begin this week.

Nguyen and Jordan both attended legislative hearings in December 2020 during which former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and others made false claims of widespread election fraud in Georgia. Trump lawyer John Eastman also appeared during at least one of those hearings and said the election had not been held in compliance with Georgia law and that lawmakers should appoint a new slate of electors.

Sterling and his boss, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — both Republicans — forcefully pushed back against allegations of widespread problems with Georgia’s election.

Trump famously called Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, and suggested the state’s top elections official could help “find” the votes Trump needed to beat Biden. It was the release of a recording of that phone call that prompted Willis to open her investigation about a month later.

Kate Brumback, The Associated Press

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorneys for Hunter Biden are pushing to keep part of a plea deal they reached with the prosecutor whose new status as special counsel intensified the tax investigation into the president’s son ahead of the 2024 election.

Biden’s attorney argued in court documents late Sunday that an agreement sparing him prosecution on a felony gun charge still is in place even though the plea agreement on misdemeanor tax offenses largely unraveled during a court appearance last month.

His lawyer argues the Justice Department decided to “renege” on its end of the deal on tax charges. The agreement on the gun charge also contains an immunity clause against federal prosecutions for some other potential crimes.

Biden plans to abide by the terms of that agreement, including not using drugs or alcohol, attorney Christopher Clark said in court filings. He said prosecutors invited them to begin plea negotiations in May, “largely dictated” the language of the agreement and signed it, so should also be bound by it.

It’s unclear whether prosecutors agree that the gun agreement remains valid. U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika ordered them to respond by Tuesday. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

The two-part deal on tax and gun charges was supposed to have largely wrapped up the long-running investigation run by Delaware U.S. attorney David Weiss. But it hit the skids after a judge raised questions about its terms and appeared to have fallen apart completely when prosecutors said the case was instead headed toward trial in court papers Friday.

Prosecutors revealed the impasse as Attorney General Merrick Garland named Weiss as special counsel, a status that confers broad powers to investigate and report out his findings.

The government said plea negotiations had broken down and filed to dismiss the tax charges against Hunter Biden in Delaware and indicated they could charge him instead in another court, like Washington D.C., or California.

Hunter Biden’s history of drug use and financial dealings have trailed his father’s political career and Republicans are pursuing their own congressional investigations into nearly every facet of Hunter Biden’s business dealings, including foreign payments.

Republicans also denounced the plea agreement in the Hunter Biden case as a “sweetheart deal.” It had called for him to plead guilty to failing to pay taxes on over $1.5 million in income in both 2017 and 2018, and get probation rather than jail on the misdemeanor counts. A separate agreement was to spare him prosecution on the felony crime of being a drug user in possession of a gun in 2018.

The surprise appointment about Weiss as special counsel raised fresh questions about the case. Garland said Weiss had asked to be named special counsel.

It comes against the backdrop of the Justice Department’s unprecedented indictments against former President Donald Trump, who is President Joe Biden’s chief rival in next year’s election.

The cases differ significantly: Trump has been indicted and is awaiting trial in two separate cases brought by special prosecutor Jack Smith. One is over Trump’s refusal to turn over classified documents stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate. The other involves charges of fraud and conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In the case of Hunter Biden, prosecutors have not made any accusations or charges against the president in probing the affairs of his son. House Republicans have been trying to connect Hunter Biden’s work to his father, but have not been able to produce evidence to show any wrongdoing.

Lindsay Whitehurst, The Associated Press

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NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump is assailing the federal judge overseeing the election conspiracy case against him, days after she warned him not to make inflammatory statements about the case.

The former president made posts Monday on his social media network calling U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan “highly partisan” and “ VERY BIASED & UNFAIR!” because of her past comments in a separate case overseeing the sentencing of one of the defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Chutkan in a hearing Friday imposed a protective order in the case limiting what evidence handed over by prosecutors the former president and his legal team can publicly disclose. She warned Trump’s lawyers that his defense should be mounted in the courtroom and “not on the internet.”

Trump posted about the case online anyway, firing off about the judge.

A spokesperson for special counsel Jack Smith declined to comment Monday.

Prosecutors sought the protective order after calling attention to another earlier post on Trump’s social media platform, in which he said he would be “coming after” those who “go after” him. The prosecutors said improper of sharing evidence could have a “harmful chilling effect on witnesses.”

Chutkan said that if anyone makes “inflammatory” statements about the case, she would be inclined to move more quickly to trial to prevent any intimidation of witnesses or contamination of the jury pool.

The judge agreed with Trump’s defense team on a looser version of a protective order barring the public release only of materials deemed sensitive, like grand jury material. But prosecutors consider most of the evidence in the case to be sensitive, and she largely sided with the government on what will get that label and protections.

Protective orders are standard in criminal cases to protect the disclosure of sensitive information that could impact the trial.

In his social media post Monday, Trump quoted from remarks Chutkan made in a 2022 sentencing hearing for Christine Priola, an Ohio woman who pleaded guilty last year to obstructing Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory – one of the same charges Trump is facing.

“The people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant; not to the ideals of this country, and not to the principles of democracy,” Chutkan said, according to a transcript of the October 2022 hearing. “It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”

Prosecutors with special counsel Smith’s team have asked the judge to set a Jan. 2 trial date, which is less than two weeks before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses. That prompted other angry posts online from Trump last week.

Trump and his lawyers claimed prosecutors’ proposed protective order that sought to prevent the public release of all evidence they provide the defense would violate his First Amendment rights of free speech. And the Republican has vowed to keep talking about the case— and his other legal challenges —as he campaigns again for the White House.

Trump spoke about the case while he was campaigning at the Iowa State Fair over the weekend, declining to tell reporters whether he would comply with the protective order. He said, “The whole thing is a fake — it was put out by Biden, because they can’t win an election the fair way.”

ITrump, in another post Monday, wrote of Chutkan: “She obviously wants me behind bars. VERY BIASED & UNFAIR!”

Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, was confirmed to the bench with Republican support in a 95-0 vote in the Senate in 2014.

She has been one of the toughest punishers of rioters who stormed the Capitol. federal judges in Washington have sentenced nearly 600 defendants for their roles in the attack, which was fueled by Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by fraud.

The case cited in Trump’s post, however, is one where Chutkan actually imposed a sentence that was lighter than prosecutors sought. She sentenced Priola to 15 months in prison. Federal prosecutors had asked for 18 months.

___

Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston, Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington and Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

Michelle L. Price, The Associated Press

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RENO, Nev. (AP) — Republicans in Nevada could have two chances next year to decide who they want to be their party’s presidential nominee. The catch: Only one will count.

The Nevada GOP is insisting on holding its own caucus despite a new state law calling for a primary election, a move critics say is designed to benefit former President Donald Trump. The competing contests are likely to confuse some and require GOP campaigns to spend extra time and money educating voters in one of the earliest states to cast ballots for the presidential nomination.

The results in the GOP primary are unlikely to matter because the state Republican Party has said it will use its party-run caucus to determine which candidate will receive the state’s delegates to the Republican National Convention. An official caucus date has not yet been set but is expected to be around the same time as the Feb. 6 primary, which falls after the Iowa caucus and primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

“I do believe it’s going to create confusion among the voters,” said Tami Rae Spero, the state’s longest-serving county clerk who is based in rural Humboldt County, which leans heavily Republican.

Spero said she already is preparing a voter-education strategy that will include interviews with local news outlets and social media posts, although she’s not quite sure how to explain that the primary results may not matter in nominating a Republican presidential candidate.

It’s not the first time states and political parties have proposed dueling nominating methods. In 2016, Washington state spent $9 million on a meaningless primary after the state Democratic Party held its own caucus to determine a nominee and Trump’s Republican challengers had all dropped out by the time voters were scheduled to cast ballots.

Some state parties have even relied on multiple contests. For years, the “Texas Two-Step” featured both a caucus and presidential primary to divide delegates before it was discontinued before the 2016 election. A similar strategy is likely to play out next year in Michigan, one of several states where the Republican Party is controlled by Trump allies who have altered delegate rules in ways seen as favorable to the former president.

In Nevada, caucuses had been the preferred method until state Democrats pushed through a law in 2021 moving to a primary, a system that tends to get higher rates of voter participation. Primaries allow early voting and mail voting while using polling places that are familiar to voters.

A caucus has traditionally been limited to in-person participation, although parties experimented with alternative voting methods during the COVID-19 pandemic. While primaries are run by local election officials and paid for by the state, political parties are responsible for planning and administering caucuses.

With primaries, campaigns can rely more on TV ads to generate support. For a caucus, campaigns must organize their backers locally — from Las Vegas and Reno to Nevada’s far-flung rural communities.

Nevada Republicans had sought to block the primary, but a state judge last month denied the request. State Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald said the Nevada GOP is considering other options to eliminate the presidential primary, including appealing the case to the Nevada Supreme Court.

McDonald has long been friendly with Trump and was among those who signed certificates falsely stating Trump had won Nevada in 2020. In a recent interview, he criticized Democrats for failing to consider Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s proposal to implement a voter ID requirement and said the party-run caucus was a “more pure process for the electorate to be involved in.”

“They have that opportunity to come and voice their opinions about their candidate, and also to hear about the other candidates,” he said.

Critics from both parties have said caucuses make it harder for many people to vote, particularly those who don’t have the time to spend hours debating their picks, work irregular hours or have limited English skills. Some said the tight-knit settings are ripe environments for groups to exert political pressure or even intimidate their opponents — although McDonald said caucus ballots will be private.

The Nevada attorney general’s office made similar points when arguing on behalf of the state’s top election official to defend the 2021 law in court.

Former Nevada GOP chair Amy Tarkanian, who helped organize the party’s 2012 caucus, cited a number of problems with a caucus system, including voters who are unable to participate or who can’t stay throughout the drawn-out process.

“We left a caucus for a good reason,” she said. “It was confusing.”

A frequent critic of the state party she once ran, she said she was disappointed to see Nevada pushing a nominating process that appears to benefit Trump.

McDonald said he has spoken to Trump’s campaign about the party’s effort to stop the primary, but said the team did not express a preference for one over the other. Trump’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Zachary Moyle, a GOP strategist who was the state party’s executive director from 2006 to 2009, said a primary system is better organized. He said caucuses can be confusing for voters, especially those who are not as active, and have less stringent rules against electioneering.

While running then-Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s 2016 presidential campaign in Nevada, Moyle said GOP voters told him that many of those who were working the caucuses had hats, buttons and shirts supporting Trump. He called that an example of “indirect voter intimidation” that is a byproduct of a state party rather than election officials running the nominating process.

Still, Moyle cautioned against blaming the party for intentionally tailoring the election process to favor Trump.

While caucuses may have lower turnout and benefit the former president because of his campaign’s experience in 2016, he said the state party may have other interests in mind. The party runs the caucus, puts on its own events and decides how much each candidate must pay to be on the ballot.

“It’s the ability to be able to control the process, but it’s also a money process,” he said.

As the Nevada GOP considers its next steps to block the state-run primary, McDonald has helped lead an effort to educate conservative voters about the caucus, including media appearances, text notifications and community outreach.

Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an expert in the presidential nominating system, said a caucus ultimately boils down to the candidates themselves and how well they are able to organize and turn out supporters.

“It sounds like it would be massively confusing to the voters, but in practice it isn’t,” she said. “It’s in the interest of every single candidate to make sure voters know how to participate.”

___

Cassidy reported from Atlanta.

___

Stern is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a program that places journalists in local newsrooms. Follow Stern on Twitter: @gabestern326.

Gabe Stern And Christina A. Cassidy, The Associated Press

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Democrats are teaming up with the Biden administration and a progressive advocacy group to turn policy efforts to curb “ junk fees ” into a political rallying cry, betting that a small but potentially potent kitchen table issue will resonate with voters.

President Joe Biden promised in this year’s State of the Union address to target unexpected fees tacked on to things like plane and concert tickets, hotel rooms, hospital and cellphone bills and housing transactions. He’s since worked with major businesses to see that pricing is more transparent about all fees.

More than a dozen House Democrats around the country plan to hold events organized with help from the Progressive Change Institute to promote the administration’s effort to curb junk fees. Events have already happened in suburban Detroit, Philadelphia, central New Jersey and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Similar efforts are planned in coming weeks in Pittsburgh, New York and Las Vegas, as well as in Wisconsin, Ohio and North Carolina. Still others are in the works.

“Hidden and deceptive junk fees cost Americans billions of dollars every year,” said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic House leader. “House Democrats will continue to work with President Biden to fight these excessive fees, hold corporations accountable and lower costs for families across the country.”

Rep. Elissa Slotkin a swing-district Michigan Democrat who is now running for the Senate, is planning an event in a few weeks and said “the administration’s initiative to eliminate junk fees will put money back in peoples’ pockets.”

Fellow Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib referred to seat assignment fees in saying she was “taken aback to see airlines charging more for you to sit next to your child” during an event last week at a health center outside Detroit with Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell.

The push is part of “ Bidenomics,” the president’s effort to stimulate the economy by increasing social spending in ways he says can strengthen the middle class. It could ease the sting of inflation, which has moderated in recent months but remains high. But it may also help Biden bridge the gap between an economy that many metrics show is strong — with low unemployment rates and wages rising — and polling suggesting that many Americans don’t view that as a positive for Democrats.

“We’ve got to be in a position to show people what we’ve done,” Biden said at a fundraiser last week for his 2024 reelection campaign in New Mexico, referring to public perceptions on the economy. He added: “It doesn’t show. It takes time for people to realize why that’s there.”

The Biden administration has used executive action to try to limit ticketing and medical fees, and used federal agencies to try to curb unexpected chargers in banking, airlines and other sectors. The president also announced in June that company executives meeting with him at the White House, including from Live Nation Entertainment, the parent company of Ticketmaster, and SeatGeek, had agreed to disclose more ticketing fees up front so consumers have a better idea of final pricing as they comparison shop.

House Democrats have introduced legislation to crack down on unexpected fees and, at their events, some are seeking to localize the issue, inviting people to speak about their experiences of being forced to pay them.

One such story comes from Joe Pfister, a 36-year-old paralegal. He had been looking to buy a home for a year and a half and went for a tour of the Brooklyn co-op he eventually bought on the day before New York shut in the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. But he wasn’t expecting thousands of dollars in additional fees that came later from the mortgage lender, real estate agent and co-op company.

“They just kind of sprang up one at a time, and you just had to keep paying to move your application forward,” said Pfister, whose unexpected charges included more than $400 worth of questionnaire fees, $200 in COVID-19 cleaning fees and a $750 move-in deposit. “You were kind of on the ride and you couldn’t get off.”

The Progressive Change Institute’s political arm, the Progress Change Campaign Committee, was closely allied with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign, which was built around championing consumer protections and promoting progressive causes through economic populism. Combating unexpected fees could be an extension of that theme, with appeals for progressives but also for moderate Democrats and swing voters.

“Fighting surprise junk fees is super popular and bipartisan with the public because everyone hates these abusive extra costs,” said Adam Green, the Progressive Change Institute co-founder.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party’s House campaign arm, says its members are spending the August recess trumpeting the economic impact of Biden-championed legislation promoting domestic microchip production and the Inflation Reduction Act, which advanced green energy and drastically increased federal social spending. But some lawmakers, including in competitive districts, are pointing to quelling junk fees as a pocketbook issue that voters will feel more immediately than data points about the larger economy.

“Bidenomics is about growing the middle class, which is why President Biden is spearheading the fight against junk fees that are unjustly raising costs,” said Kevin Munoz, a spokesperson for Biden’s reelection campaign.

The White House sees the effort as an example of good governance with bipartisan benefits. Consumer Reports conducted a 2018 survey that found that at least 85% of Americans have experienced a hidden or unexpected fee for a service in the previous two years.

Still, some Republicans dismiss the issue as a distraction that won’t have a lasting impact. “Dumpster fires polled better with the American people than Bidenomics, so extreme Democrats threw it in the garbage to talk about ‘junk fees’ because they know Biden’s economy is trash,” quipped Will Reinert, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the GOP’s House campaign arm.

Republican South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who is now running for president, told Fox News Radio in February: “Having fee control, income control, price control, it sounds more like socialism than free markets and capitalism.”

The Biden administration says industry groups have embraced greater transparency on fees, believing they can give consumers comparing prices a more accurate picture of costs — as long as they apply to everyone. But capping such fees is a different matter and could cause some pushback, it acknowledges.

“I think most people experience at least one kind of junk fee each month,” said Bharat Ramamurti, deputy director for the White House’s National Economic Council and a former top economic adviser to Warren. “Across party lines, there’s broad support for addressing these fees, either eliminating them or disclosing them up front so that people can shop with full transparency.”

Pfister predicted that combating hidden fees would get voters’ attention.

“I think this is very much a working class issue,” he said. “This is, I think, a good tactic for Democrats to take to show that they are on the side of everyday people — that they don’t respond to monied interests only and that they’re doing something to protect consumers.”

Will Weissert, The Associated Press

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Even President Joe Biden has some regrets about the name of the Inflation Reduction Act: As the giant law turns 1 on Wednesday, it’s increasingly clear that immediately curbing prices wasn’t the point.

While price increases have cooled over the past year — the inflation rate has dropped from 9% to 3.2% — most economists say little to none of the drop came from the law.

“I can’t think of any mechanism by which it would have brought down inflation to date,” said Harvard University economist Jason Furman, who added that the law could eventually help to lower electricity bills.

Alex Arnon, an economic and budget analyst for the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model, offers a similar assessment.

“We can say with pretty strong confidence that it was mostly other factors that have brought inflation down,’’ he said. “The IRA has just not been a significant factor.’’

That shouldn’t come as a surprise.

When the Inflation Reduction Act was proposed, the Congressional Budget Office said its impact on inflation would be “negligible.”

So why the name? It may ultimately help to hold down prices in the future — and it fit the politics of the moment.

.The law was proposed shortly after the American public learned that consumer prices were climbing upward at the fastest pace in four decades. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York had been holding private talks about Biden’s agenda and put forth the name Inflation Reduction Act once they had a deal. Biden pledged at the time that it would “reduce inflationary pressures.”

The law is now at the core of Biden’s pitch to voters going into the 2024 presidential campaign. But with inflation less of a pressing concern, the president is putting more emphasis on its provisions aimed at combating climate change, creating jobs and lowering people’s health care bills.

“I wish I hadn’t called it that because it has less to do with reducing inflation than it has to do with providing alternatives that generate economic growth,” Biden said Thursday at a fundraiser in Utah, adding that he still believes that with the law “we’re literally reducing the cost of people being able to meet their basic needs.”

While the law may not have crimped inflation over the past year, it could well do more in that regard going forward, since it just now is starting to be implemented. Along with the CHIPS Act, there are also signs that the Inflation Reduction Act helped to stimulate roughly $500 billion in corporate announcements to invest in new factories. This has potentially helped to strengthen the job market despite efforts to bring down the inflation that many economists believed would pull the United States into a recession. That recession — as Biden predicted — has not materialized.

Even though the law did not immediately reduce inflation, it appears to have done little to cause prices to explode upward as Republicans had claimed it would. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said last August that Biden’s agenda would push inflation upward, only to have the rate fall over the past year.

“They’ll raise inflation higher,” McCarthy told Fox News in an interview. “They’ll spend more money, which brought us into this problem. “

Biden, on his three-state western swing this past week, emphasized to donors and voters how the law addresses climate change and promotes the creation of jobs as the economy moves toward renewable energy.

“It has nothing to do with inflation,” Biden said at a New Mexico fundraiser. “It has to do with the $368 billion, the single-largest investment in climate change anywhere in the world, anywhere. No one has ever, ever spent that. And it’s beginning to take hold.”

If it wasn’t the IRA that deserves the credit, what did cause inflation to tumble?

Economists are listing three big reasons:

—Oil and gasoline prices fell from last year’s peak. Gas prices had spiked 60% in June 2022 from a year earlier, caused in large part by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But gas prices steadily fell until this January, when they began to climb without having returned to their earlier peak.

—The Fed aggressively raised its benchmark interest rate, which made it more expensive to borrow and slowed demand that had been pushing up prices. The Fed’s rapid hikes have nearly doubled average mortgage rates, pushing down existing home sales. Home prices have also declined slightly in the past year, which can put downward pressure on rental costs. Other interest-rate sensitive industries, particularly autos, have also seen prices fall after sharp increases during the pandemic.

—The supply chain kinks that caused shortages coming out of the pandemic got unsnarled. A measure of supply chain difficulties constructed by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has fallen below even pre-pandemic levels as shipping costs have declined.

Republican lawmakers and some economists blamed last year’s high inflation on the administration’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief as being excessive, yet any impact of that on inflation also appears to have now waned.

“The big moves in inflation are primarily global shocks,” said Kristin Forbes, an economist at MIT and a former member of the Bank of England’s interest-rate setting committee. “Those are the primary drivers, but not the only ones. What the Fed has done has also contributed, without a doubt.”

Biden administration officials have said that their actions contributed to lower inflation. By releasing oil from the U.S. strategic reserve, they say, they reduced the financial pain at the gas pump. The administration also created a task force to improve U.S. port activity and supply chains. The White House also stayed quiet on Fed rate hikes, giving the central bank the independence to work without political pressure.

Biden has been careful not to declare an outright victory against inflation, as it’s still higher than the Fed’s 2% target. But the White House says the cost savings from the Inflation Reduction Act are coming as the law is getting enacted.

Tax credits will reduce the cost of installing rooftop solar panels by 30%, which will in turn lower monthly electricity bills. Tax credits also make it more affordable to install a heat pump to control a home’s central air, possibly trimming energy bills by $1,000 annually. There are other tax credits for energy efficient doors and windows as well as new insulation.

Electric utilities using the tax credits for renewable energy will pass roughly $8.2 billion in savings to their customers. People can defray the costs of buying a new electric vehicle with a $7,500 tax credit.

The law also has measures related to health care. Biden has often said in speeches that Medicare recipients will have the monthly cost of their insulin capped at $35. Starting in 2025, there will be a $2,000 limit on out-of-pocket prescription drugs that will save 19 million people on Medicare an average of $400 annually. The CBO estimated that people enrolled in Medicare Part D, which involves prescription drugs, will have their personal costs lowered by $25 billion in 2031.

Taken together, the law could help protect the U.S. economy against the rising oil costs and broken supply chains that triggered the most recent bout of high inflation.

“The IRA will be a big plus for the economy in the long-run as it reduces the economy’s reliance on fossil fuels,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “It will make the economy less vulnerable to spiking oil prices, which have contributed to nearly every recession since World War II.’’

___

Associated Press writers Christopher Rugaber and Fatima Hussein contributed to this report.

Josh Boak And Paul Wiseman, The Associated Press

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — After Ohio voters repealed a law pushed by Republicans that would have limited unions’ collective bargaining rights in 2011, then-GOP Gov. John Kasich was contrite.

“I’ve heard their voices, I understand their decision and, frankly, I respect what people have to say in an effort like this,” he told reporters after the defeat.

The tone from Ohio Republicans was much different this past week after voters resoundingly rejected their attempt to impose hurdles on passing amendments to the state constitution — a proposal that would have made it much more difficult to pass an abortion rights measure in November.

During an election night news conference, Republican Senate President Matt Huffman vowed to use the powers of his legislative supermajority to bring the issue back soon, variously blaming out-of-state dark money, unsupportive fellow Republicans, a lack of time and the issue’s complexity for its failure.

He never mentioned respecting the will of the 57% of Ohio voters across both Democratic and Republican counties who voted “no” on the Republican proposal.

The striking contrast illustrates an increasing antagonism among elected Republicans across the country toward the nation’s purest form of direct democracy — the citizen-initiated ballot measure — as it threatens their lock on power in states where they control the legislature.

Historically, attempts to undercut the citizen ballot initiative process have come from both parties, said Daniel A. Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida.

“It has to do with which party is in monopolistic control of state legislatures and the governorship,” he said. “When you have that monopoly of power, you want to restrict the voice of a statewide electorate that might go against your efforts to control the process.”

According to a recent report by the nonpartisan Fairness Project, Ohio and five other states where Republicans control the legislature — Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Missouri and North Dakota — have either passed, attempted to pass or are currently working to pass expanded supermajority requirements for voters to approve statewide ballot measures.

At least six states, including Ohio, have sought to increase the number of counties where signatures must be gathered.

The group found that at least six of the 24 states that allow ballot initiatives have prohibited out-of-state petition circulators and nine have prohibited paid circulators altogether, the group reports.

Eighteen states have required circulators to swear oaths that they’ve seen every signature put to paper. Arkansas has imposed background checks on circulators. South Dakota has dictated such a large font size on petitions that it makes circulating them cumbersome.

Sarah Walker, policy and legal advocacy director for the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, said Republicans in Ohio and elsewhere are restricting the ballot initiative process in an era of renewed populism that’s not going their way. She said conservatives had no interest in amending the ballot initiative process when they were winning campaigns in the 1990s and early 2000s.

“Since then, you’ve seen left-leaning organizations really developing their organizational skills and starting to win,” she said. “The reason given for restricting the ballot initiative is often to insulate the state from outside special interests. But if lawmakers are interested in limiting that, there are things they can do legislatively to restrict those groups, and I don’t see them having any interest in doing that.”

Aggressive stances by Republican supermajorities at the Ohio Statehouse — including supporting one of the nation’s most stringent abortion bans, refusing to pass many of a GOP governor’s proposed gun control measures in the face of a deadly mass shooting, and repeatedly producing unconstitutional political maps — have motivated would-be reformers.

That prompted an influential mix of Republican politicians, anti-abortion and gun rights organizations and business interests in the state to push forward with Tuesday’s failed amendment, which would have raised the threshold for passing future constitutional changes from a simple majority to a 60% supermajority.

Another example is Missouri, where Republicans plan to try again to raise the threshold to amend that state’s constitution during the legislative session that begins in 2024 — after earlier efforts have failed.

Those plans come in a state where state lawmakers refused to fund a Medicaid expansion approved by voters until forced to by a court order, and where voters enshrined marijuana in the constitution last fall after lawmakers failed to. An abortion rights question is headed to Missouri’s 2024 ballot.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose is among Republicans in the state who cast Issue 1 as a fight against out-of-state special interests, although both sides of the campaign were heavily funded by such groups.

He called the $20 million special election “only one battle in a long war.”

“Unfortunately,” he said, “we were dramatically outspent by dark money billionaires from California to New York, and the giant ‘for sale’ sign still hangs on Ohio’s constitution,” said LaRose, who is running for U.S. Senate in 2024.

Fairness Project Executive Director Kelly Hall said Ohio Republicans’ promise to come back with another attempt to restrict the initiative process “says more about representational democracy than it does about direct democracy.”

She rejected the narrative that out-of-state special interests are using the avenue of direct democracy to force unpopular policies into state constitutions, arguing corporate influence is far greater on state lawmakers.

“The least out-of-state venue is direct democracy, because then millions of Ohioans are participating, not just the several dozen who are receiving campaign contributions from corporate PACs, who are receiving perks and meetings and around-the-clock influence from corporate PACs,” she said.

“Ballot measures enable issues that matter to working families to actually get on the agenda in a state, rather than the agenda being set by those who can afford lobbyists and campaign contributions.”

Julie Carr Smyth, The Associated Press

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon is developing plans to restructure the National Guard in Washington, D.C., in a move to address problems highlighted by the chaotic response to the Jan. 6 riot and safety breaches during the 2020 protests over the murder of George Floyd, The Associated Press has learned.

The changes under discussion would transfer the District of Columbia’s aviation units, which came under sharp criticism during the protests when a helicopter flew dangerously low over a crowd. In exchange, the district would get more military police, which is often the city’s most significant need, as it grapples with crowd control and large public events.

Several current and former officials familiar with the talks spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. They said no final decisions have been made.

A key sticking point is who would be in control of the D.C. Guard — a politically divisive question that gets to the heart of what has been an ongoing, turbulent issue. Across the country, governors control their National Guard units and can make decisions on deploying them to local disasters and other needs. But D.C. is not a state, so the president is in charge but gives that authority to the defense secretary, who generally delegates it to the Army secretary.

According to officials, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is weighing two options: maintaining the current system or handing control to U.S. Northern Command, which is in charge of homeland defense.

Senior officials have argued in favor of Northern Command, which would take control out of the hands of political appointees in Washington who may be at odds with the D.C. government, and giving it to nonpartisan military commanders who already oversee homeland defense. Others, however, believe the decision-making should remain at the Pentagon, mirroring the civilian control that governors have on their troops.

The overall goal, officials said, is not to decrease the size of the district’s Guard, but reform it and ensure it has the units, equipment and training to do the missions it routinely faces. The proposal to shift the aviation forces is largely an Army decision. It would move the D.C. Air Guard wing and its aircraft to the Maryland Guard, and the Army aviation unit, with its helicopters, to Virginia’s Guard.

An Army official added that a review of the D.C. Guard examined its ability to provide rapid response, mission command and coordination with other forces when needed over the past four years. The review, which led to the recommendations, involved the District Guard and Army leaders.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office did not respond to a request for comment Friday on the proposed changes.

But Bowser and other local officials have long claimed that the mayor’s office should have sole authority to deploy the local guard, arguing that the D.C. mayor has the responsibilities of any governor without the extra authorities or tools.

When faced with a potential security event, the mayor of D.C. has to go to the Pentagon — usually the Army secretary — to request National Guard assistance. That was true during the violent protests in the city over the killing of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in 2020, and later as an angry mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to overturn the election of Joe Biden as president.

As the Jan. 6 riot was unfolding, city leaders were making frantic calls to Army leaders, asking them to send Guard troops to the Capitol where police and security were being overrun. City leaders complained heatedly about delays in the response as the Pentagon considered Bowser’s National Guard request. City police ended up reinforcing the Capitol Police.

Army leaders, in response, said the district was demanding help but not providing the details and information necessary to determine what forces were needed and how they would be used.

Army officials were concerned about taking the Guard troops who were arrayed around the city doing traffic duty and sending them into a riot, because they were not prepared and didn’t have appropriate gear. And they criticized the city for repeatedly insisting it would not need security help when asked by federal authorities in the days leading up to Jan. 6.

The swirling confusion spurred congressional hearings and accusations that political considerations influenced the Trump administration’s response to the unrest in the Democratic-majority city. Defense officials rejected those charges, and blamed the city.

Within the Pentagon, however, there are broader concerns that D.C. is too quick to seek National Guard troops to augment law enforcement shortfalls in the city that should be handled by police. In recent days, a city council member suggested the D.C. Guard might be needed to help battle spiking local crime.

The restructuring is an effort to smooth out the process and avoid communications problems if another crisis erupts.

An Army investigation in April 2021 sharply criticized the D.C. Guard, saying troops lacked clear guidance and didn’t fully understand how to use helicopters appropriately during the civil unrest in June 2020.

The probe was triggered by widespread objections, including from Congress, after one of the D.C. Guard helicopters hovered low enough over protesters near the Capitol One Arena to create a deafening noise and spray protesters with rotor wash. There were also concerns that the Guard used a medivac helicopter — with medical markings — to make such a “show of force” against the crowds gathered to protest Floyd’s death.

The report found that the use of medical helicopters was appropriate because it was an emergency, but the episode raised worries among defense leaders about the need for improved planning, training and oversight of the D.C. Guard’s use of aviation and calls for a stricter approval process.

_____

Associated Press writer Ashraf Khalil contributed to this report.

Lolita C. Baldor, The Associated Press

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VAIL, Iowa (AP) — Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy was more than 40 minutes into a town hall in rural Iowa when a woman in the crowd posed a pointed question. Or perhaps it was a suggestion.

“I know you want to be president,” she said. “But would you consider being Trump’s vice president?”

The query drew light laughter from attendees and a lengthy response from Ramaswamy. (The short answer: No.)

It also highlighted the central challenge facing the wealthy entrepreneur, who has risen from little-known newcomer to as high as third in some Republican primary polls since joining the race nearly six months ago. While voters are increasingly interested in Ramaswamy, it’s former President Donald Trump who continues to be many conservatives’ favorite.

With the first Republican primary debate in just over a week and the leadoff Iowa caucus five months away, he is delicately working to convince more voters that he could be their nominee and — as much as he says he respects Trump — would be a better 2024 candidate and president.

“The debate will be important, but I think also just continuing on the trajectory we’ve been on,” Ramaswamy said after the town hall held in a cavernous welding company workshed in Vail, Iowa. He returns to Iowa on Saturday for the Iowa State Fair, a rite of passage for presidential candidates.

Ramaswamy described the months leading up to the first debate as “just the pre-season.”

“So we’re entering the regular season of this and I’m coming in with a running start,” he said. “That’s the way I look at it.”

He says his strategy heading into the debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is “speak the truth,” pointing to a banner emblazoned with the word “TRUTH” that serves as his backdrop and has become a campaign theme. The word — in all capital letters and a font and that resembles Trump campaign signage — is emblazoned on placards, T-shirts and stickers.

Ramaswamy says he and others cannot trust the government because the government doesn’t tell the truth. It was what motivated him, he says, to travel to the courthouse where Trump was to appear on charges earlier this month to announce he is suing the Justice Department and seeking all records the department has with information about why Trump was indicted.

Though such a lawsuit is unlikely to be successful before any GOP primary votes are cast, it was a move that struck a balance between defending Trump and drawing positive attention to his own candidacy, at least among the Republican primary electorate.

“That’s what this campaign is already all about, speaking the hard truths, the truth that you might speak at the dinner table, but you don’t feel free to speak in public,” Ramaswamy told the Iowa audience. If he is elected, he said, people will speak those truths again, such as “God is real” and “reverse racism is racism.”

Having just turned 38, Ramaswamy is the youngest person to be a major Republican presidential candidate. Born in Ohio to immigrant parents from India, he earned a biology degree from Harvard University and then finished Yale Law School.

He made his fortune after starting a biotech company, last year founded an asset management firm and is the author of several books, including “Woke, Inc.” His books helped Ramaswamy gain exposure in conservative circles, including on Fox News, as a critic of “ESG,” or looking not just at profit in investments, but also at environmental, social and governance issues, such as a company’s policies on climate. He bemoans that the United States has become a place full of “victims,” and says the country has lost its purpose and its focus on faith, patriotism, hard work and family.

On the stump, Ramaswamy is able to wax on issues ranging from digital currency to his stance on Israel, the U.S. Constitution and the civil service rules regarding mass layoffs of federal employees — rules he says he understands better than any other candidate. He is proud of not needing a teleprompter, and his mix of policy specifics and smooth delivery has won over some voters.

“He’s a great orator, he has a keen intellect and a lot of knowledge,” said Margarite Goodenow, a retiree from Council Bluffs who said she is so far supporting Ramaswamy over Trump. She described the former president as “too toxic” — a position she held before he was indicted in multiple criminal cases — though Goodenow said she will support Trump if he is the nominee.

Ramaswamy says he can use his deep knowledge to accomplish what Trump couldn’t and his other rivals wouldn’t be able to — laying off 75% of the federal “bureaucracy” in his first term, including 50% in year one.

Some 20,000 members of the FBI would be let go as he dismantles the agency, he said. The remaining 15,000 frontline agents would go to work for what he says are more effective agencies, such as the U.S. Marshals Service, to focus on crimes such as child sex trafficking. He also said that by March 31, 2025, he would station the military along the U.S.-Mexico border — positioned every half-mile — to protect against illegal immigration and drugs like fentanyl entering the country.

Those proposals all brought cheers during his recent Iowa stops.

Kelly and Amy Pieper were among the nearly 200 people — hailing from more than eight counties, according to organizers — who turned out for the Ramaswamy town hall in in the northwest Iowa community of Vail, which has a population of fewer than 400. They liked that Ramaswamy would carry forward many of Trump’s policies, but presents himself as more eloquent and optimistic.

“He gives you a sense of hope, not all doom and gloom,” Kelly Pieper said.

“It’s like he’s got Trump ideals but is a more eloquent version. Not this crazy uncle talking,” his wife, Amy Pieper, added. “That’s what we need.”

Not everyone is convinced he can pull it off, however, even if Iowa has been known to provide some surprises.

For Republicans, Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum lodged an unexpected 2012 victory, though he later lost the GOP primary to Mitt Romney. On the Democratic side, it was then-Sen. Barack Obama whose 2008 defeat of Hillary Clinton threw that nomination battle into question. And in 2020, Pete Buttigieg, whose highest office was mayor of South Bend, Indiana, finished atop the field alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders. Joe Biden later won the nomination and defeated Trump.

That has set up the rare presidential race with a former office holder seeking reelection, making Trump a formidable opponent whose rallies attract thousands more people. Trump’s closest challenger to be Republicans’ nominee so far is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has consistently polled a distant second, with Ramaswamy trailing.

Voters at the Ramaswamy events consistently said they were deciding between the two alternatives to Trump. But like the woman who intimated that Ramaswamy could be Trump’s running mate, Andrew Grove has his doubts about whether the first-time candidate can pull it off.

“His message is on spot. I just don’t know if he has the support to take him over the top, over Trump and DeSantis,” said Grove, 53. He added that DeSantis is “a proven leader” while Ramaswamy has not held public office.

Ramaswamy maintains that he is the only candidate in the GOP field who can deliver the landslide victory that the country needs in 2024 — something akin to Ronald Reagan’s wipeout of his 1984 rival — rather than the kind of tight race the nation saw in 2020. He says he is attracting support from young people and new donors that older candidates are not. Of his roughly 70,000 individual donors, he says, 40% of those making small-dollar contributions are giving to a Republican for the first time.

As for Trump, Ramaswamy responded to the question of being his running mate by speaking warmly of the former president. Ramaswamy was a “hardcore” supporter of the president in 2020, he said, adding that they talk “from time to time,” had dinner together a few years ago and that if he becomes president, Trump probably would be his most useful adviser and mentor.

But he says the America First movement belongs not just to Trump but to “we the people.” And he believes he can be more effective at accomplishing things Trump could not, saying a certain segment of the electorate automatically opposes Trump — through no fault of his own, he said.

“I’m not having that effect on people,” Ramaswamy said.

He noted another key difference as he made his case to top the ticket.

“He’s not the same person he was eight years ago,” Ramaswamy said of Trump.

“I hope certainly and pray that my best days are ahead of me. And I think we might just want a U.S. president whose best days aren’t behind him.”

Sara Burnett, The Associated Press

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