California Democrat lawmakers killed two bills meant to protect girls sports Tuesday despite pressure on Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom to limit girls and women’s sports in the state to biological females.   Just this week, the state of Maine lost education funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for violating federal law and President Donald Trump’s executive orders by continuing to allow males in female-only sports. If California does not comply, it could face similar penalties. Assembly Bill 89, introduced by Republican Assemblywoman Kate Sanchez, would amend the California Education Code to bar male students from girls interscholastic teams. Assembly Bill 844, introduced by Republican Assemblyman Bill Essayli, would amend the code to require that participation in sex-segregated school programs, athletic programs, and facility use be based on a student’s biological sex rather than his or her gender identity. The change would apply to K-12 programs and postsecondary education.   Both bills failed 6-2 along party lines in the Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, and Tourism after hours of debate and public comment. Democrat Assemblyman Christopher Ward, the chair of the committee, opposed both pieces of legislation and called on his fellow committee members to do the same.  “I don’t think anybody should be gender-policing women and girls. … I do see this bill, AB 844, as an opportunity to invade individuals’ right to privacy, to run a fowl some of our nondiscrimination laws in the state. And really and importantly, it would decimate some of the public safety and well-being of all women,” Ward said before the vote for Essayli’s bill.   The legislation would have brought California in line with federal law under Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex in educational programs and activities that receive federal funding. Trump issued his executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” in January, mandating that Title IX must be interpreted according to biological sex rather than the sex that someone chooses to identify as.   “The vast majority of Californians and Americans agree: Keep boys out of girls sports,” Essayli said in a statement on X after the vote. “Assembly Democrats are radically out of touch with commonsense Californians, and the voters will hold them accountable to restore justice and fairness in girls sports.”   Essayli resigned from the Assembly hours later after Trump tapped him to be the next U.S. attorney in Los Angeles.   The legislation came before the Assembly as the California Interscholastic Federation, the governing body for school sports in the state, and San Jose State University undergo an ongoing investigation from the federal government into their compliance with Title IX.  U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon issued a letter March 27 to Newsom, pressuring him to support the legislation and take a stand for women’s sports after he admitted on his “This is Gavin Newsom” podcast that the inclusion of males in women’s sports is “deeply unfair.”    “As secretary of education, I am officially asking you to inform this department whether you will remind schools in California to comply with federal law by protecting sex-separated spaces and activities,” McMahon said in the letter, in which she explicitly urged the governor to support Essayli’s bill.   Newsom told The Sacramento Bee Wednesday he did not pay attention to the committee hearing for the legislation. When asked if state law should restrict transgender athletes from playing in women’s sports, he did not give a direct answer.   “These kids just want to survive,” Newsom told CBS Sacramento in response to the question. “And so, the question you’re asking is the question we’ve been asking ourselves for months and haven’t been able to answer. What is that? How can you make this fair? And I haven’t been able to figure it out.”  Erin Friday, a registered Democrat who wrote AB 844 with her team from the Protect Kids California initiative, said the courts will decide the issue of protecting girls sports in California if legislators do not act. She said she expects the federal government to freeze federal education funding in California as it did earlier this week in the state of Maine.  “The same thing is going to happen in California,” Friday said. “I can guarantee it.”  The post California Democrats Kill Bills to Protect Girls Sports, Despite Pressure on Newsom appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Senate Republicans voted to repeal a Biden administration regulation pertaining to walk-in freezers and coolers Thursday, in a move they say will save small-business owners money. The resolution, H.J. Res. 24, passed 53-42 on a straight party-line vote. The Congressional Review Act resolution eliminates then-President Joe Biden’s 2024 limits on the energy use of walk-in coolers, which are used by many small businesses. It had passed the House 203-182 on March 27 on a mostly party-line vote. Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla., who introduced the regulation on the House side, argued that the energy-efficiency standards were a source of financial strain for owners of pharmacies, stores, and restaurants, while providing little benefit.  ICYMI: Yesterday, the House passed my resolution, H.J.Res 24, which removes burdensome regulations on walk-in coolers and freezers. While this may seem small, it carries a one billion dollar price tag.Watch ? pic.twitter.com/UnSrHGbIwD— Rep. Stephanie Bice (@RepBice) March 28, 2025 “[The Department of Energy] estimates that the rule would carry a minimum price tag of nearly $1 billion, with minimal energy-usage reduction,” said Bice on the House floor in March. “This action [of repealing the rule] aligns with our broader commitment to roll back burdensome regulations that stifle economic growth and infringe upon individual freedoms,” she said. After the vote, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., applauded the resolution, calling it an “Easy ‘yes’ vote,” and fellow Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford also applauded it on X But Democrats have argued the rule is a waste of time. Rep. Sarah McBride, R-Del., the first transgender member of Congress, posted on X, “the absurdity never ends in a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.”  If you're wondering what the House of Representatives is voting on later today, it's legislation to repeal energy efficiency rules for commercial fridges and freezers that actually save small businesses and consumers money. The absurdity never ends. pic.twitter.com/XduNV36aUI— Congresswoman Sarah McBride (@Rep_McBride) March 27, 2025 Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., shouted, “You think that the American people voted for you to waste our time on refrigeration standards?” when the resolution was debated in the House. The economy is in chaos, the Defense Department is trying to cover up leaking war plans in a group chat, and Trump and Elon Musk are dismantling vital programs….and what is the GOP using precious Floor time on this week?Repealing refrigerator efficiency standards.That’s… pic.twitter.com/xMhgqnyDVN— Rep. Melanie Stansbury (@Rep_Stansbury) March 26, 2025 The resolution is another step in a broader Republican effort to undo a number of Biden administration regulations. Another example is the Natural Gas Tax Repeal Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump on March 17. The post Senate Follows House in Killing Biden Reg Imposing Curbs on Energy Use of Walk-In Coolers appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights under President Joe Biden held multiple stakeholder meetings with leftist groups—including the Human Rights Campaign—while attempting to finalize its pro-transgender Title IX rules, new documents show. Between April 2023, when the civil rights office released its first draft of rules, and April 2024, when it released the rules that would be finalized in August, the office convened quarterly meetings with leaders of left-leaning groups that support gender ideology, according to documents obtained by Protect the Public’s Trust and exclusively given to The Daily Signal. The administration faced heavy pushback and delayed the rules. While the department scrapped the rules on Jan. 31 under President Donald Trump, the meetings shed light on which organizations influenced the process. “It’s not surprising that the Biden Department of Education’s Title IX re-write was so controversial that even they had to walk back parts of it when considering the outside special interests they looked to for advice,” Michael Chamberlain, director of the nonprofit Protect the Public’s Trust, told The Daily Signal in a statement Thursday. “Nor is it surprising considering the concierge-level service the department gave to teachers unions while it completely botched an effort to set up a parent engagement effort.” “Rather, it seems par for the course for an administration that outsourced policy to powerful allied special interests at agencies such as State, Justice, EPA, Interior, and any number of others that made the rules that governed the lives of the American public,” Chamberlain added. Protect the Public’s Trust obtained documents in 2023 showing that teachers unions—which also lean left—enjoyed immense access to the Department of Education even while the department scrapped its effort to engage with parents. Protect the Public’s Trust requested records under the Freedom of Information Act showing communications between certain outside organizations and key figures at the Office for Civil Rights, including its director, Catherine Lhamon, regarding Title IX. The new records included documents showing quarterly meetings involving left-leaning activist groups and the civil rights office. The first meeting, on May 12, 2023, included Maya Wiley, president and CEO at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; Damon Hewitt, president and executive director at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP; Melanie Willingham-Jaggers, executive director at the LGBTQ activist group GLSEN; Louise Melling, director of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Center for Liberty at the ACLU; Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign; and Janai Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. (GLSEN originally stood for “Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network.”) PPT FOIA 2023-05-12 Meeting OCRDownload Each of these organizations supports gender ideology, the belief that a person’s internal sense of gender overrides his or her biological sex such that society must kowtow to the demands of a small minority. Critics note that this ideology allows men who claim to identify as female to compete in women’s sports; allows men to access women’s spaces like bathrooms, changing rooms, shelters, and prisons; and encourages kids to undergo experimental medical interventions that may leave them stunted, scarred, and infertile. Most also support critical race theory (the notion that America is systemically racist against black people and for white people), climate alarmism (the belief that humans burning fossil fuels will bring about global disaster), and the preference for technocratic government. Many of these groups came up in my research for my book, “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.” The book exposes how far-left activist groups, bankrolled by the Left’s dark money network, infiltrated and advised the federal government under Biden, using the bureaucracy to force their ideology on the American people. Former staff at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law went on to high positions in Biden’s Justice Department, such as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke. An ACLU immigration staffer helped advise Biden’s transition team on the Department of Homeland Security. The Human Rights Campaign, which uses a “Corporate Equality Index” to pressure companies to adopt pro-trans policies, released a “Blueprint for Positive Change” in 2020, and the Biden administration implemented at least 75% of it—including the Title IX rewrite. Another quarterly meeting, on Aug. 11, 2023, included some of the same names but also involved Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center. The National Women’s Law Center supports gender ideology and opposes efforts to prevent men from competing in women’s sports. PPT FOIA 20230811 Title IXDownload The Dec. 6, 2023 meeting included most of the same people, with one new addition: Denise Stile Marshall, CEO of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, an organization focused on helping children with disabilities. PPT FOIA 20231209 Title IX MeetingDownload The March 7, 2024 meeting included most of the same people, with the addition of Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League. The National Urban League, like most of the other organizations on the list, advocates for gender ideology, climate alarmism, and critical race theory. None of these meetings included conservative organizations or parental rights groups, which grew as a response to the mask mandates and school closures of the COVID-19 pandemic. The involvement of these far-left groups only further illustrates how woke nonprofits directed policy in the Biden administration. The post EXCLUSIVE: Biden Department of Education Met With Far-Left Groups While Discussing Pro-Trans Title IX Rewrite appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Boston Municipal Court Judge Mark Summerville must have flunked Constitutional Law 101 from whatever law school he managed to graduate from. He apparently doesn’t realize that he can’t go after federal agents for enforcing federal immigration law.    Summerville held an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent named Brian Sullivan in contempt for detaining an illegal alien charged by local authorities with lying on a driver’s license application. The judge even ordered the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office to investigate the ICE agent for “obstruction of justice.”  The alien, who was going under the alias of Wilson Martell-Lebron in Summerville’s courtroom, is actually a Dominican named Juan Carlos Baez with prior drug convictions who is illegally in the country. ICE picked Baez up as he was leaving the municipal court.  A Constitutional Law Tutorial for the Judge  Since you, Judge Summerville don’t seem to understand basic constitutional law, here is an explainer.  The Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the U.S. Constitution provides that the Constitution and all federal laws “shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby” no matter what their state laws or state constitutions may provide “to the Contrary.” That means state court judges like you, Summerville. It means that federal immigration laws override state laws that would prevent enforcement of those federal laws.  And local DA’s prosecuting federal agents under state law for carrying out their duties under federal law? You can’t do that, judge. If you hadn’t skipped class, you would have no doubt read the seminal U.S. Supreme Court case on this issue, In re Neagle (1890).   In that case, a local sheriff in California tried to prosecute for murder a deputy U.S. Marshal who was protecting U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Field from an assassination attempt by a disgruntled former member of the California state supreme court, who was unhappy over court rulings that went against his wife.    You would expect to see this kind of unbelievable plot in a Hollywood movie, which is why the case is so well known.  The key point: The U.S. Supreme Court said that federal officers and agents who are acting within the scope of their federal authority and carrying out their duty to enforce federal law are immune from prosecution by state and local prosecutors. That means you, judge, as well as the Suffolk County District Attorney.  A “Disturbing Case”? Check Out the Case of Your Colleague You, judge, are quoted as saying what ICE did was “a disturbing case” and “a case of obstruction of justice.” Really? How ironic. Here’s a suggestion. Review the federal criminal indictment in 2019 of your colleague, Massachusetts state court Judge Shelley M. Richmond, for obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and obstructing a federal proceeding.  She was indicted for helping an illegal alien who was also in her courtroom on local charges avoid being taken into custody by a waiting federal agent on a federal immigration detainer warrant. She instructed her bailiff to release the alien through the backdoor of the courthouse so the alien would not encounter the waiting federal agent in the courthouse lobby—after ordering the agent out of her courtroom.    The only reason Richmond did not go to trial was because she accepted a generous plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department. Justice dismissed the federal charges conditioned on her submitting herself to the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct for her misbehavior.   Lesson concluded, your Honor. You will be tested.  Punishing ICE Agents for Doing Their Job is What’s “Disturbing”  Federal agents carrying out their duties to detain illegal aliens under federal immigration law are immune from punishment or prosecution by judges and local prosecutors who want to obstruct such enforcement. But local judges and other local officials, including law enforcement officials, are not immune from federal prosecution for violating federal laws that prohibit concealing, harboring, transporting, or taking other actions intended to protect aliens illegally in the United States.  Summerville is correct when he says this is a disturbing case. But what is disturbing is his attempt to punish an ICE agent for doing his job and his attempt to order the local DA to go after that agent. The only individual involved in this “disturbing case” who is trying to “obstruct justice” as the judge claims, is the judge himself.  He should have learned all this in law school.  The post Boston Judge Mark Summerville Should Go Back to Law School  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Top Republican House leaders have formally requested that ActBlue, one of the Democratic Party’s largest political action committees, turn over documents related to its governance and operations.  In a letter dated April 2 to ActBlue President and Chief Executive Officer Regina Wallace-Jones, the chairmen of the House committees on the Judiciary, Oversight and Government Reform, and Administration requested documents and testimony from two employees of the organization. The names of the employees whose testimony was requested were redacted in the version of the letter that was made public. A source familiar with the investigation told The Daily Signal, “We expect ActBlue employees to participate in the transcribed interviews and submit the required documents.” The source explained, “If they fail to comply, all options are on the table.” An ActBlue spokesperson told The Daily Signal, “As we have historically done, ActBlue will continue to respond to requests from the House committees.” In their letter, the committee chairs said that they were seeking “to investigate ActBlue’s fraud-prevention policies and practices, which may allow bad actors to make fraudulent political donations, including from foreign sources.”  ActBlue is one of the largest fundraisers for the Democratic Party, and claims to have raised more than $16.7 billion for Democrats since it was founded in 2004. Prior to the recent turmoil in leadership, it was a widely trusted source for liberal giving.  ActBlue has come under increasing scrutiny since it announced a wave of departures of top staff in February. The resignations included the organization’s highest-ranking legal officer, the chief revenue officer, and the assistant research director.  ActBlue has received donations from some of the Democratic Party’s most important fundraisers, including thousands of dollars from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. The Daily Signal has previously reported that the group may have received millions of dollars through fraudulent donations, according to testimony from some elderly Americans. One such individual, a retired Yale University professor, testified in a signed affidavit that he believed the donations in his name did not reflect his actual donation frequency or dollar amount. ActBlue charges a 3.95% processing fee on donations to it.  The organization also reportedly locked out Zain Ahmad, the last remaining member of the group’s general counsel’s office as of Feb. 26, from his email and other internal platforms. The letter from the House chairmen highlighted the organization’s actions toward Ahmad, who has been put on leave, and noted that ActBlue’s union reportedly told the group’s board that “those of us who work with our legal team in our day-to-day do not have clear direction on how to proceed with our work in their absence.” The House letter noted that fraudulent political donations “could amount to interstate criminal conduct,” citing a legal case that resulted in a Chinese national’s criminal conviction for improper donations. To that end, the letter requested that ActBlue provide information to explain who among its staff is responsible for federal law compliance. It also asked for documentation and communications related to alleged misconduct and staff resignations, specifically in regard to former ActBlue Vice President for Customer Service Alyssa Twomey and members of the ActBlue’s office of the general counsel.  The letter’s deadline for the requested information is April 16.  The post House Panels Press Probe of ActBlue Campaign Fundraising Operations appeared first on The Daily Signal.