Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: Federal judge cuts citizenship question from census as future battles loom — Gillibrand launches exploratory committee — Women made up majority of Democratic small-dollar donors in midterms
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2019 09:05:50 -0600
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01/16/2019 10:00 AM EDT
        
By ZACH MONTELLARO ([email-masked]; @ZachMontellaro)

        
Editor's Note: This edition of Morning Score is published weekdays at 10 a.m. POLITICO Pro Campaigns subscribers hold exclusive early access to the newsletter each morning at 6 a.m. To learn more about POLITICO Pro's comprehensive policy intelligence coverage, policy tools and services, click here.
          QUICK FIX         
- A federal court axed a census question on citizenship, but the battle - which could affect 2021 House apportionment - is likely to continue.

- Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is the latest candidate to officially get into the 2020 campaign, launching her exploratory committee on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert."

- Women are the engine of the small-donor Democratic machine: An analysis from The Center for Public Integrity found that 60 percent of Democratic donors to federal candidates were women.

Good Wednesday morning. I spent the entire day on the Hill Tuesday and didn't get lost once. Email me your congratulations at [email-masked] or DM me at @ZachMontellaro. 

Email the great Campaign Pro team at [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], and [email-masked]. Follow them on Twitter: @PoliticoScott, @DanielStrauss4, @JamesArkin and @lbarronlopez.

Days until the 2019 election: 293

Days until the 2020 election: 657
          THE TOPLINES         
THE APPORTIONMENT BATTLE - A major development in the battle over House apportionment in 2021 (yes, we're talking about it already) happened Tuesday, when a federal judge ordered that a question about citizenship must be removed from the census.

U.S. District Judge Jesse "Furman ripped [Commerce Secretary Wilbur] Ross' decision-making process in adding the question, saying in his 277-page opinion that Ross' move to ask for citizenship status for the first time in nearly 60 years committed 'egregious' violations of a law structured to allow for judicial and congressional review of the actions taken by federal agencies," POLITICO's Caitlin Oprysko wrote. Furman did write, however, that the challengers failed to prove that the question was intended to discriminate against noncitizens.

The census is the baseline for reapportioning House seats every 10 years, and critics of the citizenship question said have said it would lead to a mass undercounting of people. "It's a big deal to get this question knocked off," Dale Ho, the director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, told Score. "It is a win for equal representation." The ACLU was one of the groups challenging the question in New York, in one of a handful of lawsuits across the country. Citing data from the Census Bureau (which recommended against including the question), Ho said as many as 6.5 million people could go uncounted if the question was added - close to the population of Tennessee.

Defenders of the citizenship question were not happy with the ruling. Hans von Spakovsky, who leads the Heritage Foundation's Election Law Reform Initiative, said Furman was "selective in his evidence" when deciding the case. He also argued that collecting the citizenship data is crucial at a time when immigration is such a prominent topic: "How can you have an informed debate if you don't have accurate data?"

One thing everyone agrees on: This fight isn't over. Both Ho and Furman said the government could ask for an expedited appeal to a circuit court - or the Supreme Court could directly take up the case because of its importance. Ho declined to prognosticate on how the high court would ultimately rule, but he said "it's a very conservative court, I don't think that's a secret." For his part, von Spakovsky said he was "hopeful" the Supreme Court would decide his way. But things must move fast: Census forms are supposed to go to the printers on June 30.
          IN THE TRENCHES         
PRESIDENTIAL BIG BOARD - Gillibrand is the latest Democrat to take a formal step toward a 2020 run, launching her exploratory committee on "The Late Show" Tuesday night. Her path to victory revolves around energizing women voters. "But she's already experienced first-hand a polarizing reaction to her advocacy for women in the Senate, garnering passionate praise and long-lasting criticism when she called for former Sen. Al Franken's (D-Minn.) resignation in 2017," POLITICO's Elena Schneider writes.

- On immigration and other major policy positions, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke's "default stance is to call for a debate," The Washington Post's Jenna Johnson writes. "It's an approach that puts off specifics that might define him or narrow his appeal in a presidential race - but O'Rourke says he is being open-minded, as he wishes more politicians would be."

- Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown launched a "Dignity of Work" tour with stops in his home state of Ohio as well as Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, starting Jan. 30. The bill will be footed by Brown's PAC, BuzzFeed News' Henry Gomez reported. Meanwhile, California Rep. Eric Swalwell will be in South Carolina on Jan. 19

- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has added top talent from the DNC and DSCC to her campaign, POLITICO's Natasha Korecki and Alex Thompson reported.

- Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he'll decide this month or next if he'll run, per the AP's Rob Gillies.

- Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams are coveted endorsements for presidential hopefuls. But for now, both told POLITICO's Marc Caputo and Daniel Strauss they intend to remain neutral.

NC-09, CONTINUED - House Democrats are keeping a close watch on the disputed election. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), chair of the Administration Committee, sent a letter to the state elections board telling it to "preserve and protect" evidence, Campaign Pro's Laura Barr&oacute;n-L&oacute;pez reported. 

THE DEM MONEY MACHINE - If Democrats continue to rake in small-dollar donations in 2020, it will likely be driven by women. Female donors were 60 percent of the contributors to federal candidates through the fundraising platform ActBlue during the midterms, according to CPI's Carrie Levine and Sarah Kleiner.

THE DEMOCRATIC BASE - Black voters make up a powerful constituency within the Democratic coalition, and any white presidential hopeful needs to be able "to electrify" that voting bloc, BuzzFeed News' Darren Sands writes. "The challenge for white candidates is that apathy, especially with younger voters who are more issue-oriented voters, is present," Antjuan Seawright, a South Carolina-based Democratic strategist, told Sands.

- Several national organizations, including the DNC and EMILY's List, have ditched their affiliation with the national Women's March after several of its co-founders didn't explicitly denounce Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has repeatedly voiced anti-Semitic views, Haaretz's Allison Kaplan Sommer reported.

FIRST IN SCORE - ENDORSEMENT CORNER - EMILY's List endorsed 25 Democratic female freshmen, getting an early jump on their 2020 reelection battles. Many of the women are in competitive, battleground seats, including Reps. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa), Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas), Kendra Horn (D-Okla.) and Xochitl Torres Small (D-N.M.).

FIRST IN SCORE - UP NEXT - Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century will release a memo today calling Maine Sen. Susan Collins the "most vulnerable" Republican incumbent in 2020, Campaign Pro's James Arkin scoops. The memo argues that Collins' votes to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and pass Republicans' tax bill last year have undermined her reputation as a bipartisan centrist in her home state. Collins won her last reelection race easily, with close to 70 percent of the vote, but the Bridge memo argues that "a newly energized and increasingly blue Maine electorate will be much less favorable."

- Former GOP Rep. John Fleming is mulling a run for Louisiana governor, LaPolitics' Mitch Rabalais and Jeremy Alford report.

- 314 Action, a PAC pushing for more elected officials with STEM backgrounds, launched a bid to draft gun control advocate and former astronaut Mark Kelly into the Arizona Senate race.

NOT WANTED - The No. 3 House Republican is encouraging Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) to resign. "I think he should find another line of work," Rep. Liz Cheney said Tuesday. POLITICO's John Bresnahan and Sarah Ferris report how King's most recent racist comments were the straw that broke the camel's back for the GOP. The editorial boards of the Des Moines Register and the Sioux City Journal have also called on him to resign.

ENFRANCHISEMENT WATCH - Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds proposed a state constitutional amendment to restore felons' voting rights, the Des Moines Register's Brianne Pfannenstiel reported.

HOWDY, PARTNER - Public Opinion Strategies, the GOP polling firm, named George Nassar a partner. Nassar had been a vice president since 2017, when he joined the firm after two cycles as an NRCC regional political director. 

CODA - 'NOT THE ONION' HEADLINE OF THE DAY: "Arizona to buy back its state Capitol," from The Hill.
    
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