Post Politics Now Schumer reelected as Senate majority leader; Murray to ascend to president pro tem

Because of this year’s midterms, Democrats are now in better shape in state government than at any point since the 2010 election — for a couple of reasons.

As Aaron Blake writes, the battle for state legislative seats was almost a complete wash.

Republicans gained about two dozen seats from 6,000 that were contested — a shift of less than one half of 1 percent. But despite Republicans winning slightly more seats overall, it was Democrats who were able to flip chambers. They took over four: both chambers in Michigan, and the state Houses in both Minnesota and Pennsylvania …

They did lose a trifecta in Nevada, but they also took a trifecta from the GOP by winning the Arizona governor’s race. Democrats also won reelection in crucial governor’s contests in Kansas and Wisconsin, which deprived Republicans of potential trifectas.

So while Republicans controlled 23 states to Democrats’ 14 before the election, the split will now be more narrowly in the GOP’s favor: 22-17.

That’s the best split Democrats have seen since before the 2010 election. That was the last time Democrats controlled a majority of states, by a 16-9 margin.

Read more on what this means for parties and policies here.

Prosecutors have urged a federal judge to hold Donald Trump’s office in contempt of court for failing to fully comply with a May subpoena to return all classified documents in his possession, according to people familiar with the matter — a sign of how contentious the private talks have become over whether the former president still holds any secret papers.

As Spencer S. Hsu, Josh Dawsey, Jacqueline Alemany, Devlin Barrett and Rosalind S. Helderman report:

In recent days, Justice Department lawyers have asked U.S. District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell to hold Trump’s office in contempt, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sealed court proceedings. But the judge has not yet held a hearing or ruled on the request, they said …

One of the key areas of disagreement centers on the Trump legal team’s repeated refusal to designate a custodian of records to sign a document attesting that all classified materials have been returned to the federal government, according to two of these people. The Justice Department has repeatedly sought an unequivocal sworn written assurance from Trump’s team that all such documents have been returned, and Trump’s team has been unwilling to designate a custodian of records to sign such a statement while also giving assurances that they have handed documents back...

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said the former president’s lawyers “continue to be cooperative and transparent.” He added: “This is a political witch hunt unlike anything like this country has ever seen.”

As our colleagues write, the government’s request for a finding of contempt underscores the fundamental distrust that has existed since the spring between the government trying to retrieve sensitive documents and a former president whose responses have proved untrustworthy.

The White House took to Twitter for a bit of a victory lap on Thursday.

“The national average price of a gallon of gas is now $3.33,” it wrote — “a decline of $1.69 since its peak in June.”

As Philip Bump writes, it’s perfectly fine to celebrate victories when you get them. It is true that gas prices being lower is better for U.S. bank accounts than gas prices being higher.

But, but, but: It would be nice to move past this moment in which isolated gas price figures are used as cudgels on the left and the right.

A new Congress will be sworn in next month. But before all the pageantry comes office business. Literally.

One of the biggest transition tasks for new lawmakers in the House is the office assignment lottery. Last week, in a moment of levity and bipartisanship, members of both parties watched and cheered as they blindly took numbers from a box that would determine the order in which they’ll get to pick their real estate within the Capitol complex.

Take a look:

Rep.-elect Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), the first member of the Gen Z generation elected to Congress, said Thursday that a company in Washington rejected his application to rent an apartment because of his bad credit score.

As Azi Paybarah reports, Frost declined to identify the building, the size of debt or credit score, but said the building where his application was rejected was in the Navy Yard neighborhood, which is just over a mile from the U.S. Capitol.

“I was excited because I had finally found a place that made sense for me, that was in my price range,” Frost said in an interview. Before applying, he said he disclosed “that my credit was bad. I told the guy my whole situation and he said ‘apply, you’re going to be fine.’”

A specific act tucked within the American Rescue Plan — the $2 trillion legislation meant to help the country recover from the pandemic’s effects — is being put to use to prevent drastic cuts to the pension benefits of more than 350,000 union workers and retirees.

The Biden administration announced Thursday the approval of $36 billion for the Central States Pension Fund. The protection of hundreds of thousands of union workers’ benefits represents what President Biden called the “single largest approval of funds” from the provision known as the Butch Lewis Act, which was named for the Ohio union leader and pension advocate.

President Biden on Thursday hailed House passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, saying Congress had “restored a measure of security to millions of marriages and families” amid uncertainty created by the Supreme Court.

Democrats have warned since June that federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages, as well as other rights, could be at risk after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which for nearly 50 years had guaranteed the right to an abortion in the United States.

“Today, Congress took a critical step to ensure that Americans have the right to marry the person they love,” Biden said in his statement. “The House’s bipartisan passage of the Respect for Marriage Act — by a significant margin — will give peace of mind to millions of LGBTQI+ and interracial couples who are now guaranteed the rights and protections to which they and their children are entitled.”

The House on Thursday passed legislation that would federally protect same-sex marriages and interracial couples in a 258-169 vote, clearing the way for President Biden’s signature. The Senate passed the bill in a bipartisan vote on Nov. 29.

Thirty-nine House Republicans joined all Democrats in support of the Respect for Marriage Act, a vote that was required after the Senate included bipartisan amendments to ease some Republicans’ concerns about religious liberty. Forty-seven House Republicans had supported an earlier version of the bill in July.