THIS WEEK IN POLITICS: FEBRUARY 22, 2019

MONDAY FEB. 18, 2019: STATES FILE LAWSUIT TO STOP DECLARED NATIONAL EMERGENCY

California Attorney General, Xavier Becerra, filed a lawsuit against Pres. Trump’s declared national emergency for the border wall. Fifteen other states eventually joined California in the lawsuit, with those states being: Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Maryland, Illinois, Maine, Hawaii, New Jersey, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Virginia and New Mexico. Some legal experts argue that fighting the national emergency declared could be challenging, because the “National Emergencies Act” allows the President to invoke certain statutory authority. The House Democrats are also fighting this decision, by putting together a joint resolution, which will be voted on next Tuesday and then possibly headed to the Senate. Since actions like those are possible to be taken by lawmakers, White House adviser Stephen Miller indicated that Trump would cast the first veto of his presidency if lawmakers attempted to stop the national emergency.

TUESDAY FEB. 19, 2019: BERNIE SANDERS ANNOUNCES 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, after his loss in the 2016 primaries for the Presidential Election, announced Tuesday morning that he will be running for the Presidential seat once more in 2020. Despite criticism received by some in the Democratic party, Sen. Sanders currently has a stronger Democratic support than he did four years ago, at the 2016 election. In the first 24 hours of his campaign launching, he was able to raise $6 million, surpassing the amount raised by other candidates in the first 24 hours of their campaign. The highest amount previously raised in the 2020 presidential race was by Senator Kamala Harris, with $1.5 million in 24 hours.

WEDNESDAY FEB. 20, 2019: COMPLETION OF SPECIAL COUNSEL ROBERT MUELLER’S INVESTIGATION AS EARLY AS NEXT WEEK

Robert Mueller was appointed to investigate whether there were links or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. Attorney General Bill Barr is planning to announce the completion of this almost two-year investigation as early as next week, but the timing of this announcement is subject to change.

THURSDAY FEB. 21, 2019: NEW HOUSE ELECTION ORDERED IN NORTH CAROLINA

A new U.S. House election was announced in the ninth district of North Carolina on Thursday, after filed claims of voter fraud. There was testimony that an absentee ballot scheme had occurred, in order to sway the election results in favor of the Republican candidate, Mark Harris. By the results, it showed that Harris had 61% of the absentee ballots, even though Republicans in Bladen county accounted for just 19% of them. This remains the only undecided house election since these past midterms, and a new one with new candidates will be active soon. The 2018 Democratic candidate, Dan McCready, has relaunched his campaign for the new elections. The 2018 Republican candidate Mark Harris, whose campaign was the basis of the fraud allegations, has not relaunched a campaign yet since he’s been suffering from health problems. Harris’s run may be unclear yet, but many Republicans have been considering of running for the U.S. House seat in the ninth district of North Carolina.

FRIDAY FEB. 22, 2019: TRUMP ADMINISTRATION BLOCKS FUNDS FOR PLANNED PARENTHOOD AND OTHER PROVIDERS

The Trump administration has announced that it will block Title X health care providers, such as Planned Parenthood, from referring patients for abortion. This will also block such providers from receiving federal family planning money( Title X funding) if they do provide or refer patients for abortions.This would dismantle the Title X program, which helps people with lower incomes to have access to essential reproductive health care, making this rule unjust and biased since majority of patients in the Title X program identify as people of color.