TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Two-term Republican U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner is not running for reelection this year in his GOP-leaning eastern Kansas district so that he can spend more time with his four young children, he announced Thursday.

LaTurner is among nearly two dozen Republicans in the U.S. House who are not running again or seeking another office.

“The unrepeatable season of life we are in, where our kids are still young and at home, is something I want to be more present for,” LaTurner said.

LaTurner’s announcement leaves Republicans with no declared candidates in a district he likely would have had little trouble winning again. While the district includes Democratic strongholds in the state capital of Topeka and northern Kansas City, they’re offset by rural areas that heavily favored former President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020.

LaTurner, 36, has put on hold what seemed a promising long-term political career, saying also that he wouldn’t seek any office in 2026. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly is term-limited and Republicans had mentioned LaTurner as a possible candidate for the job that year.

He worked for U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins when he won a state Senate seat in 2012 at age 24, and he became Kansas’ youngest-ever state treasurer at 29 when then-GOP Gov. Sam Brownback appointed him to fill a vacancy.

LaTurner’s statement mentioned “the current dysfunction on Capitol Hill,” with the narrow Republican majority in the House and a threat from the hard-right to topple Speaker Mike Johnson, but he also said he’s optimistic about the nation’s future. Instead, he said, serving in Congress has taken a toll on him, his wife, Suzanne, and their children.

“I am hopeful that in another season of life, with new experiences and perspectives, I can contribute in some small way and advocate for the issues I care most about,” his statement Thursday said.

While Republicans have represented the 2nd District in 27 of the past 30 years, Democrats have waged aggressive campaigns since Jenkins decided not to seek reelection in 2018. One Democrat, former teacher Eli Woody IV, has filed to run in November.

In the 2020 primary, LaTurner handily defeated Republican Steve Watkins and won the November election by almost 15 percentage points. In 2022, LaTurner won his general election race by a slightly wider margin.

In June 2022, the congressman beefed up security at his home and Topeka office out of concern for his family’s safety after a man left a threatening voicemail after hours that said, “I will kill you.”

The man, Chase Neill, is now serving a sentence of nearly four years in prison after being convicted in federal court of one count of threating a U.S. official. LaTurner testified at the trial, and Neill, representing himself, cross-examined him personally.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate advanced legislation Thursday that would reauthorize a key U.S. surveillance tool as lawmakers and the Biden administration rushed to tamp down fresh concerns about the program violating Americans’ civil liberties.

The bipartisan legislation would reform and extend a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act known as Section 702, which U.S. officials say is vital to preventing terrorism, catching spies and disrupting cyberattacks. A bill renewing the program passed the House last week after a dramatic showdown on the floor over whether the FBI should be restricted from using the program to search for Americans’ data.

But the same concerns that nearly derailed the bill in the House are flaring again in the Senate, with both progressives and conservative lawmakers agitating for further changes. It’s a dynamic that could ultimately jeopardize the bill’s passage in the upper chamber, though supporters remain optimistic that the program will be reauthorized without much deal.

The Biden administration has spent the week on Capitol Hill providing classified briefings to senators on the crucial role they say the spy program plays in protecting national security. Officials warn that some of the changes being proposed to the tool could handicap the FBI’s efforts to thwart threats to the U.S.

Opponents remain unfazed and have demanded that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer allow votes on amendments to the legislation that would seek to address what they see as civil liberty loopholes in the bill.

“The administration is making the case that if there’s any changes, it’s going to jeopardize the program,” Democratic Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont said Thursday. “That’s asking a lot of the Senate to basically abdicate its responsibility.”

The legislation in its current form has the backing of not only the Biden administration but also the leaders of the national security committees in Congress, who have urged detractors to accept the mild reforms to the program. Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the changes being proposed by the various groups are “unnecessary” and would “destroy the purpose” of the program.

“If certain amendments like that were to pass, the bill would go back to the House and I just don’t know what posture the House is going to be in to be able to take up legislation because we’ve got so much going on,” Rubio said.

Though the spy program is technically set to expire Friday, the Biden administration has said it expects its authority to collect intelligence to remain operational for at least another year, thanks to an opinion earlier this month from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which receives surveillance applications.

Still, officials say that court approval shouldn’t be a substitute for congressional authorization, especially since communications companies could cease cooperation with the government if the program is allowed to lapse.

Overall skepticism of the government’s spy powers has grown dramatically in recent years, particularly on the right. Republicans clashed for months over what a legislative overhaul of the FISA surveillance program should look like, creating divisions that spilled onto the House floor last week as 19 Republicans broke with their party to prevent the bill from coming up for a vote.

In the end, House Speaker Mike Johnson managed to appease some critics of the reauthorization bill by shortening the extension of the program from five years to two years.

First authorized in 2008, the spy tool has been renewed several times since then as U.S. officials see it as crucial in disrupting terror attacks, cyber intrusions and foreign espionage. It has also produced intelligence that the U.S. has relied on for specific operations.

But the administration’s efforts to secure reauthorization of the program have repeatedly encountered fierce, and bipartisan, pushback, with Democrats like Sen. Ron Wyden who have long championed civil liberties aligning with Republican supporters of former President Donald Trump, who in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday stated incorrectly that Section 702 had been used to spy on his presidential campaign.

A specific area of concern for lawmakers is the FBI’s use of the vast intelligence repository to search for information about Americans and others in the U.S. Though the surveillance program only targets non-Americans in other countries, it also collects communications of Americans when they are in contact with those targeted foreigners.

In the past year, U.S. officials have revealed a series of abuses and mistakes by FBI analysts in improperly querying the intelligence repository for information about Americans or others in the U.S., including about a member of Congress and participants in the racial justice protests of 2020 and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

NEW YORK (AP) — The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money trial ordered the media on Thursday not to report on where potential jurors have worked and to be careful about revealing information about those who will sit in judgment of the former president.

Judge Juan Merchan acted after one juror was dismissed when she expressed concerns about being “outed” for her role in the case after details about her became publicly known.

The actions pointed to the difficulties involved in trying to maintain anonymity for jurors in a case that has sparked wide interest and heated opinions, while lawyers need to sift through as much information as possible in a public courtroom to determine who to choose.

Despite the setback, 12 jurors were seated by the end of Thursday for the historic trial over a $130,000 hush money payment shortly before the 2016 election to porn actor Stormy Daniels to prevent her from making public her claims of a sexual meeting with Trump years earlier. Trump has denied the encounter.

The dismissed juror told Merchan she had friends, colleagues and family members contacting her to ask whether she was on the case. “I don’t believe at this point I can be fair and unbiased and let the outside influences not affect my decision-making in the courtroom,” she said.

Merchan directed reporters not to report it when potential jurors told the court their specific workplaces, past or present. That put journalists in the difficult position of not reporting something they heard in open court, and some media organizations were considering whether to protest having that onus placed on them.

Even if that specific information wasn’t released, there was some concern that enough information about potential jurors would get out that people might be able to identify them anyway.

As an example of what is getting out there, Politico on Thursday identified one potential juror as “a woman who lives in Manhattan and works as an asset manager.” She grew up in England and Hong Kong and lives with a self-employed boyfriend.

Another potential juror was identified as “an attorney for a large media company who lives in Gramercy Park.”

On Fox News Channel Wednesday night, host Jesse Watters did a segment with a jury consultant, revealing details about people who had been seated on the jury and questioning whether some were “stealth liberals” who would be out to convict Trump.

“This nurse scares me if I’m Trump,” he said. “She’s from the Upper East Side, master’s degree, not married, no kids, lives with her fiance and gets her news from The New York Times and CNN.”

Besides his order about employment history, Merchan said he was asking the media to “simply apply common sense and refrain from writing about anything that has to do, for example, with physical descriptions.”

He said “there was really no need” for the media to mention one widely-reported tidbit that a juror speaks with an Irish accent.

Anonymous juries have long existed, particularly in terrorism and mob-related cases or when there is a history of jury tampering. They have been ordered more frequently in the last two decades with the rising influence of social media and the anonymous hate speech that is sometimes associated with it. Usually courtroom artists are told they aren’t permitted to draw the face of any juror in their sketches; New York courts do not permit video coverage of trials.

During the Trump defamation trial in Manhattan federal court earlier this year, jurors had heightened protection of their identities by a security-conscious judge who routinely did not allow anyone in his courtroom to have a cellphone, even if it was shut off. Jurors were driven to and from the courthouse by the U.S. Marshals Service and were sequestered from the public during trial breaks.

When asked general questions about themselves during jury selection in that case, prospective jurors often gave vague answers that would have made it nearly impossible to determine much about them.

After the ruling in that case, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered the anonymous jury not to disclose the identities of any of the people they served with, and advised jurors not to disclose their service. So far, none have come forward publicly.

New York criminal defense lawyer Ron Kuby said New York state law requires trial attorneys be provided the names of jurors, even when they are otherwise anonymous. However, he said, the right can be overridden by the need to protect jurors’ safety.

As for the media, he said the judge can’t control what is reported but he can severely restrict what reporters see and hear if necessary.

“There are actions the judge could take. Courts have extraordinary powers to protect jurors from tampering and intimidation. It is really where a court’s power is at its peak,” Kuby said.

He said the ability of lawyers at Trump’s trial to research the social media history of jurors was important.

“Both sides have interest in preventing sleeper jurors who have their own agenda from serving on the jury,” he said.

Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor who is president of the West Coast Trial Lawyers, said the difficulty at the Trump trial is weeding out people with extreme viewpoints.

“Everyone in the entire country knows who Donald Trump is,” Rahmani said. “Some think he’s a criminal traitor and insurrectionist. Others think he’s a hero. You don’t have a lot of people in the middle.”

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Associated Press writers Michael R. Sisak and Jake Offenhartz contributed to this report.

DENVER (AP) — Artificial intelligence is helping decide which Americans get the job interview, the apartment, even medical care, but the first major proposals to reign in bias in AI decision making are facing headwinds from every direction.

Lawmakers working on these bills, in states including Colorado, Connecticut and Texas, are coming together Thursday to argue the case for their proposals as civil rights-oriented groups and the industry play tug-of-war with core components of the legislation.

Organizations including labor unions and consumer advocacy groups are pulling for more transparency from companies and greater legal recourse for citizens to sue over AI discrimination. The industry is offering tentative support but digging in its heels over those accountability measures.

The bipartisan lawmakers caught in the middle — including those from Alaska, Georgia and Virginia — have been working on AI legislation together in the face of federal inaction. The goal of the press conference is to highlight their work across states and stakeholders, reinforcing the importance of collaboration and compromise in this first step in regulation.

The lawmakers include Connecticut’s Democratic state Sen. James Maroney, Colorado’s Democratic Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez and Alaska’s Republican Sen. Shelley Hughes.

“At this point, we don’t have confidence in the federal government to pass anything quickly. And we do see there is a need for regulation,” said Maroney. “It’s important that industry advocates, government and academia work together to get the best possible regulations and legislation.”

The lawmakers argue the bills are a first step that can be built on going forward.

While over 400 AI-related bills are being debated this year in statehouses nationwide, most target one industry or just a piece of the technology — such as deepfakes used in elections or to make pornographic images.

The biggest bills this team of lawmakers has put forward offer a broad framework for oversight, particularly around one of the technology’s most perverse dilemmas: AI discrimination. Examples include an AI that failed to accurately assess Black medical patients and another that downgraded women’s resumes as it filtered job applications.

Still, up to 83% of employers use algorithms to help in hiring, according to estimates from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

If nothing is done, there will almost always be bias in these AI systems, explained Suresh Venkatasubramanian, a Brown University computer and data science professor who’s teaching a class on mitigating bias in the design of these algorithms.

“You have to do something explicit to not be biased in the first place,” he said.

These proposals, mainly in Colorado and Connecticut, are complex, but the core thrust is that companies would be required to perform “impact assessments” for certain AI systems. Those reports would include descriptions of how AI figures into a decision, the data collected and an analysis of the risks of discrimination, along with an explanation of the company’s safeguards.

The contention is mainly who gets to see those reports. Greater access to information on the AI systems, such as the impact assessments, means greater accountability and safety for the public. But companies worry it also raises the risk of lawsuits and the revelation of trade secrets.

Under bills in Colorado, Connecticut and California, the company wouldn’t have to routinely submit impact assessments to the government. The onus would also largely land on companies to disclose to the attorney general if they found discrimination — a government or independent organization wouldn’t be testing these AI systems for bias.

Labor unions and academics worry that over reliance on companies self-reporting imperils the public or government’s ability to catching AI discrimination before it’s done harm.

“It’s already hard when you have these huge companies with billions of dollars,” said Kjersten Forseth, who represents the Colorado’s AFL-CIO, a federation of labor unions that opposes Colorado’s bill. “Essentially you are giving them an extra boot to push down on a worker or consumer.”

Tech companies say greater transparency will reveal trade secrets in a now hyper-competitive market. David Edmonson, of TechNet, a bipartisan network of technology CEOs and senior executives that lobbies on AI bills, said in a statement that the organization works with lawmakers to “ensure any legislation addresses AI’s risk while allowing innovation to flourish.”

The California Chamber of Commerce opposes that state’s bill, concerned that impact assessments could be made public in litigation.

Another contentious component of the bills is who can file a lawsuit under the legislation, which the bills generally limit to state attorney generals and other public attorneys not citizens.

After a provision in California’s bill that allowed citizens to sue was stripped out, Workday, a finance and HR software company, endorsed the proposal. Workday argues that civil actions from citizens would leave the decisions up to judges, many of whom are not tech experts, and could result in inconsistent approach to regulation.

“We can’t stop AI from being woven into our daily lives, so obviously government has to step in at some point, but it also makes sense that the industry themselves wants a good environment to thrive,” said Chandler Morse, vice president of public policy and corporate affairs at Workday.

Sorelle Friedler, a professor who focuses on AI bias at Haverford College, pushes back.

“That’s generally how American society asserts our rights, is by suing,” said Friedler.

Sen. Maroney of Connecticut said there’s been pushback in articles that claim he and Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Texas, have been “pedaling industry-written bills” despite all of the money being spent by the industry to lobby against the legislation.

Maroney pointed out one industry group, Consumer Technology Association, has taken out ads and built a website, urging lawmakers to defeat the legislation.

“I believe that we are on the right path. We’ve worked together with people from industry, from academia, from civil society,” he said.

“Everyone wants to feel safe, and we’re creating regulations that will allow for safe and trustworthy AI,” he added.

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Associated Press reporters Trân Nguyễn contributed from Sacramento, California, Becky Bohrer contributed from Juneau, Alaska, Susan Haigh contributed from Hartford, Connecticut.

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Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — An attorney has been added to the special prosecution team that is pursuing an involuntary manslaughter charge against actor Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the Western movie “Rust,” court officials confirmed Thursday.

The district attorney for Santa Fe has appointed Erlinda Johnson as special prosecutor to the Baldwin case, which is scheduled for trail in July. She was sworn in Tuesday.

Baldwin has pleaded not guilty to an involuntary manslaughter charge in the shooting of Halyna Hutchins during an October 2021 rehearsal at a movie-set ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe.

Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer for “Rust,” was pointing a gun at Hutchins during rehearsal when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.

Johnson’s experience as a criminal defense and personal injury attorney include representing former New Mexico secretary of state Dianna Duran, who resigned from elected office in 2015 amid revelations she used campaign funds to fuel a gambling addiction. Duran received a 30-day jail sentence after pleading guilty to embezzlement and money laundering charges.

Johnson previously worked as a federal prosecutor on drug enforcement and organized crime investigations after serving as assistant district attorney in the Albuquerque area.

Prosecutors are turning their full attention to Baldwin after a judge on Monday sentenced movie weapons supervisor Hannah Gutierrez-Reed to the maximum 18 months in prison at a state penitentiary on an involuntary manslaughter conviction in the death of Hutchins.

Prosecutors blamed Gutierrez-Reed for unwittingly bringing live ammunition onto the set of “Rust,” where it was expressly prohibited, and for failing to follow basic gun safety protocols. She was convicted in March at a jury trial.

Defense attorneys for Baldwin are urging the judge to dismiss a grand jury indictment against their client, accusing prosecutors of “unfairly stacking the deck” in grand jury proceedings that diverted attention away from exculpatory evidence and witnesses.

Special prosecutors deny those accusations and accuse Baldwin of “shameless” attempts to escape culpability, highlighting contradictions in Baldwin’s statements to law enforcement, workplace safety regulators and the public in a televised interview.

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — The man accused of starting a fire outside independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Vermont office earlier this month will remain detained pending further legal proceedings, a federal judge ordered Thursday.

Shant Michael Soghomonian was indicted by a grand jury on a charge of maliciously damaging or attempting to damage and destroy by fire a building used in interstate commerce, according to the indictment filed with the court. Soghomonian, 35, has not yet been arraigned.

Surveillance video shows the man throwing a liquid April 5 at the bottom of a door opening into Sanders’ third-floor office in Burlington and setting it on fire with a lighter, according to an affidavit filed by a special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The motive remains unclear, and Sanders was not in the office at the time.

Seven employees working in the office were able to get out unharmed. The building’s interior suffered damage from the fire and water sprinklers.

Soghomonian, who was previously from Northridge, California, had been staying at a South Burlington hotel for nearly two months and was spotted outside Sanders’ office the day before and the day of the fire, according to the special agent’s report.

Prosecutors argued that Soghomonian is a danger to the community and a flight risk and should remain detained. A phone message was left with his public defender and was not immediately returned.

By Dietrich Knauth

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Florida jury on Thursday concluded that Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder talc product did not cause the ovarian cancer of a Florida woman who died in 2019.

The lawsuit was brought by family members of Patricia Matthey, a Sarasota County resident who used Johnson’s baby powder daily from 1965 until August 2016, when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, according to her family’s lawsuit.

J&J’s Worldwide Vice President of Litigation Erik Haas said the company was vindicated by the jury’s decision.

“Consistent with decades of scientific research, the jury appropriately found that talc is safe, does not contain asbestos and does not cause cancer, which is the same outcome the company achieved in 16 of 17 ovarian cases tried to date,” Haas said.

Leigh O’Dell, an attorney for the Matthey family, said she respects the jury’s decision, but will remain “undeterred” in future cases against J&J.

“The science supports the association between genital talc use and ovarian cancer, and we will continue to seek justice for the victims of J&J’s neglect and indifference,” O’Dell said.

Before her death, Matthey testified that advertisements for baby powder made her think that she was “dirty and smelly” and that she “needed Johnson’s baby powder to be a good clean person,” according to evidence presented by her family’s attorney Lance Oliver during the trial.

The Matthey family alleged that J&J knew for decades that the talc it mined for use in baby powder could be contaminated with carcinogenic asbestos fibers. J&J suppressed scientific evidence linking talc products to increased cancer risk, according to the complaint.

J&J argued that there was no “conspiracy” to suppress research. Instead, the scientific evidence simply does not support the Matthey family’s claims that its talc products cause cancer, according to J&J.

“This is fundamentally a case about science,” J&J’s attorney Morty Dubin said during opening statements in the trial.

J&J faces more than 50,000 lawsuits over talc, most by women with ovarian cancer, with a minority of the cases involving people with mesothelioma. Asbestos exposure is a known cause of mesothelioma.

J&J has attempted to reach a comprehensive settlement of the talc litigation through bankruptcy, but courts have rejected its two previous attempts.

Haas has said that the company is considering a third bankruptcy filing, and is trying to build more support for a bankruptcy settlement among the plaintiffs that have sued the company.

Haas said on Thursday that J&J will “continue to defend the meritless talc claims in the tort system,” while those negotiations continue.

J&J’s bankruptcy strategy put the talc litigation on hold from 2021 to 2023, but trials have resumed after the latest bankruptcy case was dismissed.

Trials in the talc cases have had a mixed record, with major plaintiff wins including a $2.1 billion judgment in 2021 awarded to 22 women with ovarian cancer.

A New Jersey appeals court in October threw out a $223.7 million verdict against the company, finding the testimony of the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses unsound. The most recent case to go to trial ended in a hung jury on March 5.

J&J has recently settled some cases involving plaintiffs with mesothelioma, but the company has not provided details about the dollar amounts involved or said how many people they covered.

(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York would expand access to booze by allowing movie theaters to sell liquor and continuing to let people buy takeout cocktails from bars and restaurants under a series of measures unveiled Thursday.

The state Assembly passed the measures Thursday, which are part of the larger state budget agreement. The state Senate is expected to follow before it’s sent to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk for signature. The deal was struck between Hochul and leaders of the state Senate and Assembly after a series of closed-door talks.

Movie theaters in New York are only allowed to sell beer and wine, according to the New York State Liquor Authority, but this new legislation would add liquor to the mix.

“Someone should be able to enjoy a cocktail while they watch a movie,” said state Sen. James Skoufis, a Democrat who chairs a legislative committee where state alcohol laws pass through.

The measure comes with guardrails in an attempt to maintain a family-friendly environment at theatres that have licenses to sell booze. People would only be allowed to purchase one alcoholic beverage per transaction, and theaters must stop selling alcohol once the credits start rolling in for the last showing of the day.

New Yorkers would also be allowed to buy takeout cocktails at restaurants and bars for the next five years under another measure part of the state budget. The rule was set to expire next year after the state temporarily authorized the sale of to-go alcoholic drinks during the pandemic.

Skoufis, who supports keeping that measure permanent, said “it provides some short-term certainty for restaurants and businesses doing this.”

Lawmakers in Albany voted Thursday to push the state’s budget deadline again, though they are expected to vote on package of budget bills later in the week. Hochul announced on Monday the framework of a $237 billion budget, about two weeks after the original April 1 deadline.

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Maysoon Khan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Some Democrats are entertaining the prospect of coming to House Speaker Mike Johnson’s rescue should Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., force a vote seeking his ouster, though it will likely depend on his ability to deliver an emergency aid package focused on Ukraine and Israel.

Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York has suggested that Democrats would help Johnson if the speaker faced retribution from within his own party for holding votes on the $95.3 billion package. But he’s also encouraging his colleagues to take a wait-and-see approach to apply maximum leverage.

“Do not box yourself in with a public statement,” Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark, the No. 2-ranking House Democratic leader, told colleagues in a closed-door session Thursday, according to a person familiar with the private remarks.

Still, Johnson’s future been a much discussed topic on Capitol Hill.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., said if the aid package makes it over the finish line, “I think a lot of people are not going to want to punish him for doing the right thing.”

Greene has threatened to try to oust Johnson and warned that advancing funding for Ukraine would help build her case that GOP lawmakers should select a new speaker. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., tweeted this week that he told Johnson during a closed-door Republican conference meeting that he would be co-sponsoring Greene’s motion. Massie suggested Johnson “should pre-announce his resignation” and give Republicans time to select a successor.

The vast majority of Republicans are distancing themselves from Greene’s effort, wary of repeating the chaos the House endured last fall when eight Republicans joined with Democrats in removing then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., from the post. It’s likely that Johnson would not need a large number of Democratic lawmakers to help him remain in the speaker’s office, but it would depend on how many Republicans voted to remove him.

Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., said that if Johnson would put the Senate-passed measure on the floor, “I would do what I had to do to make sure he does not lose his job for that.” Johnson made the decision to take the Senate measure and break it into three separate bills. He’s also added a fourth bill focused on national security priorities.

Breaking up the package into parts gives lawmakers the ability to vote against military assistance to Ukraine or Israel without tanking the entire measure.

Johnson said he has not asked a single Democrat to “get involved in that at all” when asked about a possible motion to vacate.

“I do not spend time walking around thinking about the motion to vacate,” Johnson said. “I have a job to do here and I’m going to do the job, regardless of personal consequences.”

Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., said he would consider voting present during a speaker vote if Johnson allowed the Ukraine aid to be voted on.

“Why in the world would I want to go along with Marjorie Taylor Greene if Mike Johnson just gave us a vote I’ve been advocating for for more than six months?” Boyle said. “I think a number of Democrats would be in the same position — not necessarily a vote for him, but just make clear this is a Republican issue and we’re not going to aid and abet Marjorie Taylor Greene to cause even more chaos.”

“I hope he will have some sort of conversation with Hakeem, but either way, yes, I’m one of those who would save him if we can do Israel, Taiwan, Ukraine and some reasonable border security,” said Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas.

Other Democrats said helping Johnson must come as part of a package deal. They said he shouldn’t expect Democratic support just by putting the Senate-passed package up for a vote. He’ll need to have coordinated with Jeffries as well.

“We’re just not going to go and bail out one of the most conservative Republican speakers in American history. But what Kevin McCarthy failed to do is even entertain a conversation to try to make a deal. Democrats were ready to deal. Kevin McCarthy refused to,” said Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass. “If Speaker Johnson cares about doing the right thing as well as keeping his job, then he ought to make a deal with Democrats.”

Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., said there is a “powerful instinct” among Democrats that it’s not their job to rescue Johnson from the chaos in his party. But he’s willing to help Johnson on the motion to vacate if he were to “do the right thing” on the aid package and coordinate that with Jeffries.

“I will defer to getting things done as opposed to tying myself up in partisan knots, but it’s going to be Hakeem who decides how we act,” Himes said. “We’re not going to let the Republicans sort of chip off a number of us. This will be negotiated with our leadership.”

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, said he’s unlikely to help Johnson and is not sure how long the speaker would be around anyway if he has to rely on Democratic votes to continue on the job.

“I’ve listened to what Mr. Jeffries said and I won’t rule it out, but I’m inclined to vote as I normally would. I am very concerned about how long he’s delayed Ukraine. We count the days. They count the lives lost,” Doggett said.

And then there are scores of Democrats who are in the hard “no” camp.

Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., for example, said there was no way he would vote to keep Johnson as speaker.

“I think his worldview is very dangerous. I think there’s no scenario where I’m going to reward someone like that, who allows this level of chaos to happen in the House.”

And Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., also is a hard no on helping Johnson, calling it a well-intentioned idea that is fundamentally flawed.

“Bad on guns, bad on gays, bad on abortion and bad on voting rights,” Connolly said. “He litigated the overturning of the (2020) election. He didn’t just vote the wrong way. He signed up for a lawsuit. That’s who you want to save? Go home and explain that to Democrats.”

Massie warned that if Democrats help Johnson stay on a speaker, “they would doom him, they won’t save him.”

“It’s not a stable situation if a Republican speaker is speaker only by virtue of Democrats fighting for him,” Massie said.

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Congressional correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Federal officials are pushing back against a judge’s order that would delay the planned closure of a troubled women’s prison in California where inmates suffered sexual abuse by guards, according to court documents.

Following the Bureau of Prison’s sudden announcement Monday that FCI Dublin would be shut down, U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ordered an accounting of the casework for all 605 women held at the main lockup and its adjacent minimum-security camp.

In response, the bureau has filed court papers questioning the authority of the special master appointed by the judge on April 5 to oversee the prison, who’s now tasked with reviewing each inmate’s status.

The judge’s order amounts to “a de facto requirement” for the bureau to keep the prison open, U.S. attorneys wrote in Tuesday’s filing. But plans for the closure and transfer of inmates “cannot be changed on the fly,” especially because the facility faces a “significant lack of health services and severe understaffing,” according to the filing.

“The Court not only lacks jurisdiction to impose such a requirement, but it is also antithetical to the overall objective of safeguarding inmate safety and welfare,” the documents say. “Extensive resources and employee hours have already been invested in the move.”

A painstaking review of each incarcerated woman’s status would “ensure inmates are transferred to the correct location,” the judge wrote in her order Monday. “This includes whether an inmate should be released to a BOP facility, home confinement, or halfway house, or granted a compassionate release.”

It wasn’t clear Thursday how long the process could take.

Advocates have called for inmates to be freed from FCI Dublin, which they say is not only plagued by sexual abuse but also has hazardous mold, asbestos and inadequate health care. They also worry that some of the safety concerns could persist at other women’s prisons.

A 2021 Associated Press investigation exposed a “rape club” culture at the prison where a pattern of abuse and mismanagement went back years, even decades. The Bureau of Prisons repeatedly promised to improve the culture and environment — but the decision to shutter the facility represented an extraordinary acknowledgment that reform efforts have failed.

Groups representing inmates and prison workers alike said the imminent closure shows that the bureau is more interested in avoiding accountability than stemming the problems.

Last August, eight FCI Dublin inmates sued the Bureau of Prisons, alleging the agency had failed to root out sexual abuse at the facility about 21 miles (35 kilometers) east of Oakland. It is one of six women-only federal prisons and the only one west of the Rocky Mountains.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs said inmates continued to face retaliation for reporting abuse, including being put in solitary confinement and having belongings confiscated. They said the civil litigation will continue.

The AP investigation found a culture of abuse and cover-ups that had persisted for years. That reporting led to increased scrutiny from Congress and pledges from the Bureau of Prisons that it would fix problems and change the culture at the prison.

Since 2021, at least eight FCI Dublin employees have been charged with sexually abusing inmates. Five have pleaded guilty. Two were convicted at trial, including the former warden, Ray Garcia. Another case is pending.