Free Republic

Come January, Republicans will control all three branches of government, but with only 52 Republicans in the Senate. That will not give them the 60 needed to break a Democrat filibuster. Appearing on various Sunday talk shows, Schumer was asked if Senate Democrats will filibuster Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, whoever it may be. “I would hope first and foremost that President Trump nominates a mainstream nominee capable of getting bipartisan support,” Schumer told Fox News Sunday.“If he does, then we’ll give it just a very, very thorough vetting, but we won’t ipso facto say no. If it’s out of the...

Senator Charles Schumer received praise from President-Elect Donald Trump in a tweet Sunday. In the tweet posted just after 9:00 a.m. Trump said Schumer, "has the ability to get things done." Schumer was recently selected to be the Minority Leader in the Senate, replacing U.S. Senator for Nevada Harry Reid. Trump also added that he and Schumer have always had a good relationship.

Editor’s note: During an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, Sen. Chuck Schumer declared, “We’re not going to help [Trump] build his wall.” Schumer was one of the Democrats to support construction of a wall in 2006. **SNIP** Then-Sens. Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton were among the 26 Democrats who approved the bill. Supporters also included Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is set to take over leadership of the Senate for Democrats in 2016. Other Democrats in the Senate who voted for the wall in 2006 are Sens. Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio—then in the House), Tom...

Senate Minority Leader-elect Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told “Fox News Sunday” that he would oppose efforts to build a wall and pressed for comprehensive immigration instead, saying “this idea of a wall, we already passed.” “And this idea of a wall, we already passed — John McCain and Chuck Schumer, bipartisan, an immigration bill that was comprehensive, that did a lot and was much tougher on the border than a wall would be,” Schumer said, referring to the failed immigration bill put forth by the Gang of Eight. …

Wednesday on MSNBC, while discussing President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said despite the Republican Senate leadership insisting they won’t giving Garland a hearing, they “will crack” and have a hearing and a vote. Schumer said, “Well, we’ve seen the ice beginning to crack, Chris. Today, six Republican senators said they would meet with Judge Garland, including Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH). Before today, no one was going to meet with him. That’s the first step, and I think the...

Congress is set to drop a $2,000 H-1B visa fee mostly paid by India-based IT services providers. It's a move being met with incredulity by H-1B critics, but relief by the Indian offshore industry. The fee, adopted in 2010, was sought by U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who chaired the Senate immigration subcommittee when Democrats were in power. Schumer described the overseas firms as "multinational temp agencies" that undercut U.S. wages. The fee expires on Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year and there's is no immediate effort in Congress to extend it. The fee raises between $70...

Every several years or so a legislator is called upon to cast a momentous vote in which the stakes are high and both sides of the issue are vociferous in their views. Over the years, I have learned that the best way to treat such decisions is to study the issue carefully, hear the full, unfiltered explanation of those for and against, and then, without regard to pressure, politics or party, make a decision solely based on the merits. I have spent the last three weeks doing just that: carefully studying the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, reading and re-reading...

Chuck Schumer is getting an earful from opponents of the Iran nuclear deal. More than 10,000 phone calls have flooded his office line the past two weeks, organized by a group looking to kill the deal. Another group has dropped seven figures on TV in New York City to pressure Schumer and other lawmakers to vote against the plan. The powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee has put its muscle behind an effort to lobby the New Yorker against it. And Dov Hikind, a state assemblyman from Brooklyn, was arrested for disorderly conduct while protesting the deal outside Schumer’s office....

One unfortunate day in the future, America will again have a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate. And when that day happens, conservatives had better start digging foxholes, because their worst nightmare will be the majority leader. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, the former hyper-partisan majority leader (and present minority leader) announced yesterday that he will retire at the end of his term in 2017. He named Chuck Schumer, D-New York, as his heir apparent. As a Westerner from a blue state that could flip to red at any time, Reid was forced to take account of libertarian views. Nevada is,...

At a time when Ferguson, Missouri, has been under siege, the president unilaterally brought millions of illegal immigrants "out of the shadows," the so-called Islamic State beheaded another American, an architect of Obamacare admitted the law was conceived and birthed in deception, and the secretary of defense was unceremoniously dumped, it's no wonder that a speech by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. -- the Tuesday before Thanksgiving -- didn't get the coverage it deserved. But for political junkies, Schumer's speech at the National Press Club is a marvel to behold. It is at once one of the most impressive acts of...

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York said Tuesday that he and his fellow Democrats made a mistake in pursuing health care legislation that eventually became Obamacare. Bloomberg Politics's Kathleen Hunter has the story: “Unfortunately, Democrats blew the opportunity the American people gave them” in electing Obama and a Democratic Congress in 2008 amid a national recession, Schumer of New York said in a speech in Washington. “We took their mandate and put all our focus on the wrong problem -- health care reform.”Democrats should have addressed issues aiding the middle class to build confidence among voters before turning to the...

Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-New York) comments on Wednesday about Democrats’ misguided focus on health care in President Barack Obama’s first term prompted backlash from top Democrats and left-leaning groups, who accused him of being politically craven. At a speech before the National Press Club in Washington on Tuesday, Schumer said Democrats made a mistake by entering into a fight over health care after they passed the 2009 economic stimulus. His reasoning: Democrats were targeting the uninsured, a population that he said makes up only about 5 percent of registered voters. Only about one-third of the uninsured, he said, are registered...

Democrats made a strategic mistake by passing the Affordable Care Act, Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the third-ranking member of the Senate Democratic leadership, said Tuesday. Schumer says Democrats “blew the opportunity the American people gave them” in the 2008 elections, a Democratic landslide, by focusing on healthcare reform instead of legislation to boost the middle class. “After passing the stimulus, Democrats should have continued to propose middle class-oriented programs and built on the partial success of the stimulus,” he said. He said the plight of uninsured Americans caused by “unfair insurance company practices” needed not be addressed but it wasn’t...

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, stumbled Tuesday over basic American history, crediting Thomas Jefferson for authorship of the Bill of Rights during a debate over the First Amendment and campaign finance. “I think if Thomas Jefferson were looking down, the author of the Bill of Rights, on what’s being proposed here, he’d agree with it. He would agree that the First Amendment cannot be absolute,” Mr. Schumer said. While Jefferson is deemed the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, he was not intimately involved in the writing of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, which is...

Dear Commissioner Shulman: We write to inquire if the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") is investigating or intends to investigate whether groups designated as "social welfare" organizations, and thus receiving tax and other advantages under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), 26 U.S.C. 501(c)4), are improperly engaged in a substantial or even a predominant amount of campaign activity.... Signed, Michael F. Bennet, U.S. Senator Al Franken, U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, U.S. Senator Tom Udall, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Senator

CHUCK SCHUMER CALL ON IRS TO CRACK DOWN ON TEA PARTY FUNDING: ‘REDOUBLE THOSE EFFORTS IMMEDIATELY’ Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that the Internal Revenue Service should be used more aggressively to keep Tea Party funding in check, explaining that this would help “weaken” and “exploit” the conservative movement. Schumer during remarks to the Center for American Progress argued that Tea Party groups have an unfair financial advantage over left-leaning groups because of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, at one point even suggesting that President Barack Obama go around Congress to impose stricter campaign finance laws.

“I think what most Americans want us to do is not repeal Obamacare, which is what our Republican colleagues are focused on, but fix it. The President is working to fix it, we are working in the Senate to fix it, we urge our Republican colleagues to join us in fixing it.” – Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Dec. 22, 2013 **SNIP** The Pinocchio Test Schumer’s comment was carefully worded to suggest that Democrats are working hard to improve the law while being open to Republican ideas. But his remarks leave out a significant...

For Anthony Weiner, the calculation on running for New York mayor is simple — it’s now or never. For Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, it’s complicated. Weiner, the former congressman from Queens who left office amid scandal in 2011, is looking at a comeback this year. He has ties to two of New York’s best-known political figures, neither of whom has spoken publicly about him running. **SNIP** “Weiner’s mayoral jousting will result in reminders to all that he came from Schumer and, by marrying Huma, is wed to the Clintons, something neither Clinton nor Schumer probably want etched forever into...

About 100 people gathered outside Schumer's Manhattan office to praise his work cracking down on guns and vowed to push on despite the defeat of a measure to expand background checks for gun purchases.

I see that universal background check activists, who also favor permanent record retention, are trying to are trying to discredit talk that either of the Schumer bills will create a registry. It does not matter how the current Schumer bills read. If purchase records are kept those records constitute a gun owner registry. Period. Schumer and his cohorts may claim that a list of gun buyers is not a registry. Chucky may even put language in his bills forbidding a registry. But you can bet your life the next time some “must pass” bill hits the Senate, either Schumer or...