In Maryland, competitive US House race focuses on abortion, economy and immigration

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In Maryland, competitive US House race focuses on abortion, economy and immigration

2024-11-05 16:22 Last Updated At：16:51

FREDERICK, Md. (AP) — In Maryland’s most competitive U.S. House race, voters on Tuesday will decide whether the sprawling 6th Congressional District will flip red after being represented by Democrats for over a decade.

Democrat April McClain Delaney, whose husband previously represented the district, is facing off against conservative Republican Neil Parrott, a former Maryland state lawmaker.

In a diverse district that covers a wide swath of rural western Maryland as well as more affluent liberal suburbs of Washington, D.C., the two candidates are seeking to paint one another as extreme and out of touch.

A mother of four daughters, McClain Delaney has campaigned heavily on issues impacting women, including abortion. She pledged to protect reproductive freedoms in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to end the constitutional right to an abortion and leave such questions to individual states. She said the issue is personal because she once experienced an ectopic pregnancy that could have been fatal if restrictive abortion laws had limited her access to lifesaving medical care.

Parrott, meanwhile, has deflected questions about reproductive rights on the campaign trail. He made his anti-abortion stance clear during 12 years in the Maryland State House, but now, he says it’s “really a non-issue” because he doesn’t believe either political party can get enough congressional votes to regulate abortion nationally — a position similar to that of former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee.

Parrott, 54, has worked to move the conversation to friendlier terrain, emphasizing his commitment to lowering inflation, creating a stronger economy for middle-class families and stopping illegal immigration. He says his opponent — who lives several miles outside the district in an affluent suburb of Washington — is disconnected from the struggles of everyday Americans, including people in the 6th Congressional District.

U.S. House members are only required to live in the state they represent.

McClain Delaney, 60, previously worked in the Biden administration’s Department of Commerce and has focused much of her legal career on protecting children’s online safety. She has used personal funds to bolster her campaign and has received endorsements from big-name Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin. She’s also outspent Parrott by a wide margin, according to AdImpact, which tracks campaign spending.

Parrott is a longtime resident of Hagerstown, a small city in western Maryland surrounded by farmland. A traffic engineer by trade, he said he can relate to people dealing with high grocery bills and unaffordable housing.

In a last-minute attempt to garner more votes before Election Day, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise visited western Maryland on Thursday and held a news conference along with other Republican leaders voicing his support for Parrott and calling the candidate “an engineer who knows how to break the gridlock in Washington.”

Hours later, McClain Delaney appeared in a Washington suburb alongside Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and other state and local officials who spoke about the importance of strengthening Democratic presence in Congress, especially as Republicans try to hold onto a slim House majority.

“Every seat matters,” Raskin, of Maryland’s 8th Congressional District, said at the campaign event.

McClain Delaney argues that she’s more ideologically in line with most 6th District voters than her opponent. She calls herself a “common sense, common ground” candidate. The daughter of an Idaho potato farmer, she says she can get Washington politicians to address the needs of working families.

McClain Delaney has attacked Parrott’s record in the Maryland House of Delegates, saying his positions are extreme, particularly on issues affecting women. She sent out mailers criticizing Parrott for voting against state legislation to eliminate marriage as a defense against prosecution in certain sexual assault cases.

Parrott, in turn, has accused McClain Delaney of taking things out of context. In a recent interview, Parrott said he opposed the marital defense proposal because of its potential to be weaponized in child custody cases. He said he supports the right to abortion in cases of rape, incest and when the mother’s life is at risk.

Tensions between the candidates erupted into a heated exchange during a public forum last month, demonstrating how even down-ballot races are becoming contentious and personal in the current political climate.

“Shame on her,” Parrott said, pointing a finger at McClain Delaney as members of the audience chanted and jeered.

The House seat was vacated by David Trone, who ran for Senate and lost to Angela Alsobrooks in the Democratic primary earlier this year.

The 6th District hasn’t always favored Democrats. It was represented by Republican Roscoe Bartlett for 20 years before McClain Delaney’s husband, John Delaney, won the seat in 2012 following a redistricting that helped Democrats.

Maryland’s congressional delegation is currently all-male, with eight Democrats and one Republican. Three women are vying for open seats this election cycle, when Maryland voters will also consider a constitutional amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.

Boeing factory strike ends as workers vote to accept contract

2024-11-05 16:43 Last Updated At：16:50

SEATTLE (AP) — Factory workers at Boeing voted to accept a contract offer and end their strike after more than seven weeks, clearing the way for the aerospace giant to resume production of its bestselling airliner and generate much-needed cash.

Leaders of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers district in Seattle said 59% of members who cast ballots agreed to approve the company’s fourth formal offer and the third put to a vote. The deal includes a 38% wage increase over four years, and ratification and productivity bonuses.

However, Boeing refused to meet strikers’ demand to restore a company pension plan that was frozen nearly a decade ago.

The contract’s ratification on the eve of Election Day cleared the way for a major U.S. manufacturer and government contractor to restart Pacific Northwest assembly lines that the walkout idled for 53 days.

Bank of America analysts estimated last month that Boeing was losing about $50 million a day during the now-ended strike, which did not affect a nonunion plant in South Carolina where the company makes 787s.

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said in a message to employees that he was pleased to have reached an agreement.

“While the past few months have been difficult for all of us, we are all part of the same team,” Ortberg said. “We will only move forward by listening and working together. There is much work ahead to return to the excellence that made Boeing an iconic company.”

According to the union, the 33,000 workers it represents can return to work as soon as Wednesday or as late as Nov. 12. Ortberg has said it might take “a couple of weeks” to resume production in part because some workers might need retraining.

The average annual pay of Boeing machinists is currently $75,608 and eventually will rise to $119,309 under the new contract, according to the company. The union said the compounded value of the promised pay raise would amount to an increase of more than 43% over the life of the agreement.

“It’s time for us to come together. This is a victory,” IAM District 751 President Jon Holden told members while announcing the tally late Monday. “You stood strong and you stood tall and you won.”

Reactions were mixed even among union members who voted to accept the contract.

Although she voted “yes,” Seattle-based calibration specialist Eep Bolaño said the outcome was “most certainly not a victory.” Bolaño said she and her fellow workers made a wise but infuriating choice to accept the offer.

“We were threatened by a company that was crippled, dying, bleeding on the ground, and us as one of the biggest unions in the country couldn't even extract two-thirds of our demands from them. This is humiliating," she said.

For other workers like William Gardiner, a lab lead in calibration services, the revised offer was a cause for celebration.

“I'm extremely pumped over this vote,” said Gardiner, who has worked for Boeing for 13 years. “We didn't fix everything — that's OK. Overall, it's a very positive contract.”

Union leaders had endorsed the latest proposal, saying they thought they had gotten all they could though negotiations and the strike. Along with the wage increase, the new contract gives each worker a $12,000 ratification bonus and retains a performance bonus the company wanted to eliminate.

“It is time for our members to lock in these gains and confidently declare victory,” the local union district said before the vote. “We believe asking members to stay on strike longer wouldn’t be right as we have achieved so much success.”

President Joe Biden congratulated the machinists and Boeing for coming to an agreement that he said supports fairness in the workplace and improves workers’ ability to retire with dignity. The contract, he said, is important for Boeing’s future as “a critical part of America’s aerospace sector.”

Biden's acting labor secretary, Julie Su, intervened in the negotiations several times, including when Boeing made its latest offer last week.

A continuing strike would have plunged Boeing into further financial peril and uncertainty. Last month, Ortberg announced plans to lay off about 17,000 people and a stock sale to prevent the company’s credit rating from being cut to junk status.

The strike began Sept. 13 with an overwhelming 94.6% rejection of the company's offer to raise pay by 25% over four years — far less than the union’s original demand for 40% wage increases over three years.

Machinists voted down another offer — 35% raises over four years, and still no revival of pensions — on Oct. 23, the same day that Boeing reported a third-quarter loss of more than $6 billion.

The contract rejections reflected bitterness that built up after union concessions and small pay increases over the past decade.

The labor standoff — the first strike by Boeing machinists since an eight-week walkout in 2008 — was the latest setback in a volatile year for the aerospace giant. The 2008 strike lasted eight weeks and cost the company about $100 million daily in deferred revenue. A 1995 strike lasted 10 weeks.

Boeing came under several federal investigations this year after a door plug blew off a 737 Max plane during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. Federal regulators put limits on Boeing airplane production that they said would last until they felt confident about manufacturing safety at the company.

The door-plug incident renewed concerns about the safety of the 737 Max. Two of the planes had crashed less than five months apart in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people. The CEO at the time, whose efforts to fix the company failed, announced in March that he would step down. In July, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud for deceiving regulators who approved the 737 Max.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Monday's vote puts Boeing’s future back on more solid footing.

“Washington is home to the world’s most skilled aerospace workers, and they understandably took a stand for the respect and compensation they deserve,” Inslee said in a statement congratulating the workers.

Koenig reported from Dallas and Schoenbaum from Salt Lake City.