Daily Archives: April 4, 2022

By JUAN GARCIA DE PAREDES

BALLOTPEDIA VIA THE CENTER SQUARE

Nineteen candidates are running in the Republican primary for governor of Oregon on May 17, 2022. Incumbent Kate Brown (D) is term-limited and cannot run for re-election.

Christine Drazan, Bud Pierce, and Stan Pulliam have led in fundraising and media coverage.

All three candidates have highlighted education and public safety as critical issues for their campaigns. On education, Mr. Pierce said he would set up a non-political oversight board to look after education in the state, and Ms. Drazan said she would make the superintendent of public instruction a statewide position that she argues would be accountable to voters. Mr. Pulliam said the state should empower parents and local boards. On public safety, Ms. Drazan said she would increase funding for state troopers, while Mr. Pulliam said he would triple the size of the Oregon State Police and temporarily deploy them in Portland. Mr. Pierce said he would work with federal, state, and local authorities to better public safety.

Ms. Drazan and Mr. Pierce have said there is a homelessness crisis in the state. To tackle it, Ms. Drazan said that she would address addiction, mental health, and affordability, which she said are the root causes of homelessness. Mr. Pierce said he would address those same issues by building more affordable housing and public shelters with services to tackle addiction and mental health.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Pulliam has also focused on economic growth, saying, weve got to stand up for our local small business owners and ignite the economic sector in this state.

Mr. Pierce is an oncologist who ran as the Republican nominee in the 2016 special election to finish the term of former Gov. John Kitzhaber (D). Gov. Brown, who replaced Kitzhaber after he resigned in February 2015, defeated Mr. Pierce and three other candidates in that election.

Ms. Drazan represented District 39 in the Oregon House of Representatives from 2019 until she resigned on Jan. 31, 2022. She was elected House Minority Leader in September 2019 and served in that position until Nov. 30, 2021, when she stepped down.

Mr. Pulliam is an insurance executive who has served as the mayor of Sandy, Oregon, since 2019.

Oregons last five governors have been Democrats, and as of March 2022, three independent election forecasters considered the general election as Likely or Lean Democratic. The last Republican to win the governorship in Oregon was Victor Atiyeh, who served from 1979 to 1987.

Also running in the primary are Raymond Baldwin, Bridget Barton, Court Boice, David Burch, Reed Christensen, Jessica Gomez, Nick Hess, Tim McCloud, Kerry McQuisten, Brandon Merritt, John Presco, Amber Richardson, Bill Sizemore, Stefan Strek, Marc Thielman, Bob Tiernan.

Go here to see the original:

Nineteen candidates are running in the Republican primary on May 17 for governor of Oregon - Santa Barbara News-Press

To bring you these under-the-radar political notes from the US

The extraordinarily tragic war in Ukraine has side-lined political news out of Washington and the US.

Here are a few items worth paying attention to in these very confronting times:

The text messages were included in Meadows provision of his phone records to the House Select Committee on the January 6 insurrection.

Meadows cooperated for a time with the Select Committee, and then ceased providing materials of record. Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, who co-wrote PERIL on Trumps last year in office, broke the story for the Washington Post:

Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, repeatedly pressed White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in a series of urgent text exchanges in the critical weeks after the vote, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News.

Between Virginia Thomas, who goes by Ginni, and President Donald Trumps top aide during a period when Trump and his allies were vowing to go to the Supreme Court in an effort to negate the election results.

On Nov. 10, after news organizations had projected Joe Biden the winner based on state vote totals, Thomas wrote to Meadows: Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!You are the leader, with him, who is standing for Americas constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.

Ms Thomas has every right to speak her mind on any issue. But these texts reveal she was a player in advising Meadows on Trumps strategy to stop the steal.

Those machinations would find their way to the Supreme Court, where her husband would and did rule on Trump lawsuits to throw out the election. Justice Thomas did not recuse himself from those cases.

Will the House Committee subpoena Ms Thomas to testify on what she did and whether she worked with her husband? Will Justice Thomas take unilateral steps to recuse himself from any further participation in Trump-related cases before the Supreme Court? Public hearings on all the Select Committees work will occur in the next few weeks. They will be explosive.

If Trump-backed candidates win, and if Republicans take control of the House or Senate or both, Trump will claim credit for the Republican wave and further boost his prospects for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Rep. Mel Brooks of Alabama was a huge Trump backer. He appeared onstage at the rally January 6 that helped incite the Trump mob to attack the Capitol. Trump endorsed Brooks for his run at the open Senate seat in Alabama. But Brooks has been polling badly, and Trump pulled his endorsement last week. Brooks is angry, and went public on what Trump expected him to do in return for the endorsement:

This is shocking stuff. First, the only way Biden can be removed as president is by impeachment, and that will not happen.

Second, there is no way that Brooks or anyone else can put Trump back into the White House only the American people can do that. Third, there are no special elections in the United States for the presidency. What this episode shows is how Trump is increasingly fixated on 2020, more than he is in looking beyond the 2024 election and this obsession of Trumps is becoming a bigger issue for many rank-and-file Republicans.

Politico is reporting:

Republicans lead the generic ballot by 4 points.Biden won these battleground seats by an average of 5.5 points. In these districts, 75% of swing voters say Democrats are out of touchor condescending. About two-thirds say Democrats are spending too much money in Washington. Bidens net approval rating in these districts is -15.About 40% of voters in these seats approve of the job Biden is doing as president, while 55% disapprove.Among independent voters, his net approval is -32 a 34-point swing since February 2021 from a group that often dictates which party holds the House majority.And among Hispanic voters, his net approval is -10,a drop of 31 points in the same time frame. Economic concerns substantially advantage the GOP.Voters who identified jobs/the economy as their No. 1 concern favor Republicans by 20 points on the generic ballot. Among those who put cost of living at the top, Republicans are at a 24-point advantage.

Continuing Republican pressure on what they believe are the killer issues for them in November: inflation, gasoline prices, crime in the cities, immigration at the southern border, what woke progressives are teaching children in schools, especially on racial issues, transgender sports, new laws to restrict abortion. Republicans firmly believe these hot button issues will drive their voters to the polls and President Bidens approval remains well under 50%.

It looks like Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor who was John McCains incendiary vice-presidential running mate in 2008, and who famously said she could see Russia from her backyard, is positioning to run. Heres what she told Sean Hannity on Fox last week:

Im going to throw my hat in the ring because we need people that have cajones. We need people like Donald Trump who has nothing to lose like me. We got nothing to lose and no more of this vanilla milquetoast namby-pamby wussy pussy stuff

Whether her pre-formal-entry stunting is enough to scare off other challengers and whether she still has strong appeal in the state. The special election is likely to be held well before November.

Which is a good note on which to bring this special edition to a close.

Read more:

Palin proves how powerful Trumpism is in the Republican Party | ticker VIEWS - ticker NEWS

LANSING, MI Gov. Gretchen Whitmer vetoed Republican-approved legislation Friday that would have required Michigan voters who havent voted since 2000 or are listed with a placeholder birth date to send identifying information to their local clerks to make sure their registration isnt canceled.

Read more: Some registered voters would need to confirm identities under Senate-passed bills

Whitmer said in a statement that House Bills 4127 and 4128 would burden clerks and voters while increasing costs to Michigan residents. They would not advance the goal of improving Michigan elections, she said.

HB 4127 would require the Secretary of State to send a return card to a city or township clerk on which an elector with an unknown date of birth in the qualified voter file could verify his or her date of birth.

For each registered voter who had been assigned a placeholder birth date on the qualified voter file because his or her actual date of birth was unknown, the SOS, within 90 days after the bills effective date, would have to mail a prepaid, pre-addressed postcard to the appropriate local clerk on which the voter could verify the date of birth by signing their name.

If returning the return postcard by mail, a voter must attach a copy of his or her original birth certificate, current drivers license or current state identification card as proof of his or her date of birth.

HB 4128 would require voters who havent voted since the 2000 general election to provide their current address to maintain their registration. The Secretary of State would have to send a notice containing a statement indicating they have not voted since 2000.

Voters would need to sign and return the postcard with identification.

After receiving the postcard from a voter, local clerks would have to compare the signature on the return postcard to the signature for that elector on the qualified voter file.

The bill would have also required clerks to compare the signature of a voter on the postcard to the signature for that voter on the qualified voter file, and identify that registration record as challenged if the signature.

According the Secretary of State, Michigans qualified voter file currently contains an estimated 600 registered voters with placeholder birthdays and an additional 304,300 registered electors who have not voted since the 2000 general November election. The bill package would bring an estimated cost per mailing of $0.32 per parcel, which would add an additional $100,000 in mailing costs for the Department, according to Senate Fiscal Agency report.

The Democratic governor said Friday she would be proud to sign common-sense election reforms that do any of the following: improve access to the ballot for military families by allowing active-duty Michiganders and spouses serving overseas to vote electronically, remove barriers to voting absentee by establishing a permanent absent voter list and expedite election returns by allowing sufficient time for preprocessing of absentee ballots.

These measures would collectively enhance access to the vote and ensure the orderly administration of our election system, Whitmer said.

Read more: Whitmer vetoes election bills she says perpetuated Big Lie

Changes to the states election laws have been proposed and vetoed since last year as Republican lawmakers continue their effort to tighten elections following the 2020 election, when President Trump and others made false allegations that the 2020 November election was compromised by fraud.

Whitmer has made it clear she would use her executive power to oppose any GOP-led election bills.

The governors latest veto comes as Republican activists ramp up their efforts to collect more than 340,047 signatures for the Secure MI Vote ballot initiative.

Under the proposed law, which would bypass the governors veto should Republican lawmakers choose to adopt it, voters who show up on election day without an ID would have to use a provisional ballot that wouldnt count until that person proves their identity with their local clerks office. Voters would get six days to do so.

Read more: What to know about a petition going around that could change Michigan election law

Secure MI Votes petition would also prohibit election officials from sending out absentee ballot applications without a specific request from a voter.

Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson Benson did just that ahead of the November 2020 election, mailing absentee applications to every registered voter, drawing criticism from Republicans who claim without evidence doing so increases opportunities for fraud.

The secretary of states efforts in 2020 benefited college students and young people the most, voting rights advocates like Nancy Wang of Voters Not Politicians said at the time.

Benson said last week that her office has not made any decisions regarding the mailing of absentee ballots to voters who did not request them.

I think its important to note there were some very unique factors in 2020, the least of which was the pandemic and the recognition that a number of citizens would be encountering this new right to vote absentee for the first time. That was the first time series of statewide where that right was in place after the 2018 election, Benson said, adding that a lot of those factors arent present this year.

READ MORE FROM MLIVE:

Democrats challenge easier to vote pitch in Senate GOP election package

Whitmer vetoes election bills she says perpetuated Big Lie

View original post here:

Whitmer vetoes Republican election bills aimed at voiding registration for certain voters - MLive.com

Republican activists seek drivers attention as they work to register voters to their party at a gas station in Garden Grove. REUTERS/Mike Blake

A half-dozen mostly young Republican activists stood gamely outside of a Chevron station at a busy Orange Countyintersection, jumping up and down and holding a big sign reading, Gastoo high? Register Republican.

The demonstration in Garden Grove this week drew beeps of support, and was successful in getting a few motorists to pull over to talk aboutgasprices.

The Republican Party says the SouthernCaliforniavoter registration effort is one of many it is holding outsidegasstations across the country to woo frustrated independents and voters who supported President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in the 2020 elections.

Republicans are widely expected to gain a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and perhaps even in the Senate in midterm congressional elections in November. Voter displeasure at highgasprices might help get them there.

In addition to turning out its deeply conservative base, the party wants to win back moderates who fled the dramatic turns and right-wing nationalism of former President Donald Trump, as well as gain new supporters.

But the response at the busy intersection in Garden Grove, which is in a highly competitive Republican-leaning congressional district, shows it is not an easy trick to pull off.

Four people stopped to fill out forms at the groups table. One said he was homeless but could use his parents address. Three were already registered as Republicans, while one was an independent.

Thegasis so high because of Biden and the Biden administration, said Ernie Nueva, 69, who pulled over when he saw the group.

Nueva says it now costs $100 to fill the tank on his Nissan Titan V8 truck up from $60 before the latest spike drove fuel prices to nearly $7 per gallon in parts ofCalifornia. A lifelong Democrat, he voted twice for Trump and last year changed his voter registration to Republican.

David Wakefield also blames Biden for high gas prices, saying that the United States needs to become more self-sufficient, producing more fuel. He is considering canceling a planned driving vacation later this month to see friends and family in NorthernCalifornia, Idaho and Utah.

But he also is already a reliable Republican voter.

Its a great issue in the short run, but its not clear how its going to hold up in November, said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at theCal State Los Angeles.

In recent years, U.S. voters have been driven to the polls more by cultural and social division, rather than other public policy issues, Sonenshein said. While the highgasprices are certainly not good for Democrats, they may not prove powerful enough to drive turnout or lead voters to switch parties.

The cost of fuel might also come back down before the election, weakening Republicans argument, he said.

Economists say prices started to rise as travel and economic activity picked up after pandemic lockdowns eased, both in the United States and worldwide leading to fears of tighter global oil supply.

Those trends worsened when Russias invasion of Ukraine shook world petroleum markets. But the party in power generally is blamed for economic woes, and Biden and the Democrats are already becoming the focus of anger by some consumers.

The Republican National Committee has conducted similar registration drives at service stations inCaliforniaand other states, including Arizona, North Carolina and Florida.

RNC spokesperson Mike Joyce said the registration drives atgasstations had been successful, drawing in voters of all political stripes who are angry aboutgasoline prices.

The RNC did not give data showing how many new voters had signed up during these events, except to say that the number was in the thousands.Majorities are won in the margins and with every new voter registered, we are one step closer to finally retiring Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer for good, said RNC Spokesperson Emma Vaughn, referring to the Democratic U.S. House speaker and Senate majority leader.

At the Chevron in Orange County, scores of motorists loudly honked their support for the tiny group during the nearly four-hour demonstration.

David Duprat, 38, a passenger in a car that wasgassing up, feels every penny of the increase ingasprices. He drives to the construction sites where he works and lives on a tight budget while also trying to help his mother.

He doesnt blame Biden for highgasprices, but overall, he feels that Democratic policies have contributed to the high cost of living inCalifornia. He has never voted before, but plans to do so in November as a Republican.

I really, really want to make sure my voice is heard, he said.

Motorist Benjamin Kohn, a liberal Democrat, is also feeling the rise ingasprices. But he thinks both parties are pushing black-and-white interpretations of events that are more nuanced.

He has no intention of switching sides over gas prices, and on his way out of the Chevron he honked his horn like many of the other passing motorists. Then he stuck his head out the window of his minivan.

Its complicated, he yelled, and drove away.

The rest is here:

At OC Gas Station Republicans Woo Voters Angry Over High Gas Price - Times of San Diego

On Thursday, in a dim conference room in the bowels of a Washington, D.C., hotel, about 150 conservatives gathered for a day of group therapy. They had all been traumatized by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which had left them questioning their assumptions about the world. But Vladimir Putins war of aggression wasnt what confounded them most; for these conservatives, a mix of D.C. professionals and college students leavened with a handful of older cranks, the hawkish response to Russian aggression by most elected Republicans was the real problem.

The conference, Up From Chaos, was a summit of all the wings of the right that would prefer a more hands-off American response to Russias invasion of Ukraine. The organizers were The American Conservative, the paleoconservative publication founded by Pat Buchanan; and American Moment, a newer organization that tries to sell the next generation of the right on its version of national conservatism. We were acutely worried that the seven years of foreign-policy gains that we made [since Donald Trump launched his campaign] were going to go away, Saurabh Sharma, one of the conferences organizers, told me.

Anne Applebaum: Ukraine must win

The event wasnt a Putin apologia like those found in some corners of the right. Instead, the phrase of the day seemed to be Putin is bad, but The attendees, who included paleocons, libertarians, and hard-core MAGA acolytes, offered variations on that tune according to their policy preferences: Putin is bad, but we dont want a nuclear war. Putin is bad, but why should we trust the American foreign-policy establishment? Putin is bad, but the media is in thrall to the U.S. intelligence apparatus. The broad consensus: Putin is bad, but why is that our problem?

This is not an ism-based movement. There is a specific policy outcome motivating the type of factions we brought here today, which is that we dont want another war, Sharma said. And people have their own isms that they bring to the table. The result was a conference of the right where Tulsi Gabbard was invited but figures such as Ted Cruz were absent.

In fact, Cruz was the target of a jab onstage from a fellow Republican senator, Rand Paul, who suggested that the Texans advocacy for sanctions on Russian energy was simply intended to boost the bottom line of the energy industry in his home state. President Joe Biden, though, received some praise for his comparatively restrained response to the crisis. Saagar Enjeti, a conservative pundit and podcaster, went so far as to say that Bidens 79-year-old ailing heart may be the only thing standing in between us and World War III.

The most common object of the attendees ire was not the Democrats, but instead the traditional enemy of the isolationist right, neoconservatives. Time and time again, speakers mocked foreign-policy hawks and criticized Republicans who had supported the Iraq War. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was the target of repeated scorn. Perhaps the biggest applause line of the entire conference was delivered by the Ohio Senate candidate J. D. Vance, who mocked the intelligence of Bill Kristol, the neoconservative pundit and Never Trumper. Donald Trumps greatest foreign-policy triumph was not so much any of his decisions, but rather that he broke the neocon Republican orthodoxy, Dan Bishop, a second-term representative from North Carolina, told the crowd.

Still, a sense that neocons and foreign-policy elites were winning seemed to permeate the room. For a D.C. conclave, the gathering featured few boldface names. Of the four elected officials who spoke, Rand Paul and Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky are best known for being libertarian gadflies, while Bishop and Representative Matt Rosendale of Montana are backbenchers who are relatively new to Washington. Vance, who hasnt even been elected to any office and may never be, gave what might have been the most high-profile speech. (Unusually for a speaker at a Washington conference, Vance hung around as an attendee after his speech, sitting quietly in the back as the fellow Peter Thiel ally David Sacks, a wealthy Silicon Valley entrepreneur, addressed the crowd).

Tom Nichols: The moral collapse of J. D. Vance

The first time that Ive ever actually had donors push back against all the crazy things that I say over the course of my Senate campaign is on this Russia-Ukraine thing, Vance said. The craziest idea Ive had in the last year and a half is that we should not be involved in a nuclear war with Russia.

Sharma framed skepticism of the U.S. response as a test of political courage for the few on the right who were still willing to stand up for a more sober foreign policy where the rubber meets the road. It is a test that few on the right are passing so far. Even Trump has expressed openness toward more aggressive action against Russia in some public statements about the conflict. (He has also praised Putin as a genius.)

The challenge for the isolationist wing of the right is finding more allies. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is one of the most popular political figures in the United States, and the Russian army is falling back from the outskirts of Kiev. It seems, at least for the time being, that the hawkish response to the invasion of Ukraine has succeeded. The war in Europe, and the fight over the future of the Republican Partys foreign policy, are likely to be long. But for now, the rights isolationists are on their own.

View original post here:

The 'Putin Is Bad, But' Republicans - The Atlantic

Ron DeSantis. Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock

Suddenly the American right is fairly exploding with accusations of sexual "grooming" against its political opponents.

Christina Pushaw, the spokesperson for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, used the term last month to defend the so-called "Don't Say Gay" bill. "If you're against the Anti-Grooming Bill," she tweeted, "you are probably a groomer or at least you don't denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children." Rod Dreher, who writes at The American Conservative, has in recent days lobbed the term at "pervy" Disney for its (belated) opposition to the new law, and labeled Democrats the "party of child mutilators & kidnappers." And MAGA outlet American Greatness on Monday printed a broadside against "Groomer Fragility."

"It's not a very nice word, to be sure," wrote the American Greatness author. "But the right must decide: Do we prefer to play nice with perverts who are very sexually interested in our children? Or do we prefer to stand up for the innocence of childhood against societal forces that seek to mutilate little kids for political gain?"

It's hard to know how much of this is sincere hysteria and how much is ugly, McCarthyist politics. Mostly the latter, probably: In its normal usage, "groomer" suggests a sexual predator, carefully prepping their prey for assault. But Dreher who has long been obsessively shrill about the rise of gay and trans identities in American culture says that's not really what he means.

"I think it is coming to have a somewhat broader meaning: an adult who wants to separate children from a normative sexual and gender identity, to inspire confusion in them, and to turn them against their parents and all the normative traditions and institutions in society," he wrote last week. "It may not specifically be to groom them for sexual activity, but it is certainly to groom them to take on a sexual/gender identity at odds with the norm."

Story continues

Maybe maybe that's what he means. Most Americans will hear the term, though, and understand it to mean something much more violent than "encouraging kids to question their sexuality and the church."

That misunderstanding is almost certainly intended. Accusations of pedophilia and child rape are old hat in today's Republican Party. In 2020, Trump shared a tweet falsely accusing Biden of being a pedophile. Karl Rove reportedly inspired a similar whispering campaign during an Alabama judicial campaign back in the 1990s. Sometimes the ugliness is overt, as during the QAnon conspiracy theorizing that led, in part, to the Jan. 6 insurrection. And sometimes it's a bit more subtle, as with Republicans accusing Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson of being lenient on child predators.

Those accusations and rumors were untrue, unfair, and ugly, and just another piece of performative politics. The point isn't to protect children. It's to weaponize concerns about their safety in the service of conservative political power.

7 brutally funny cartoons about Will Smith's Oscars slap

Russia threatens to end cooperation at International Space Station unless 'illegal sanctions' are lifted

How did Russia's oligarchs become so powerful?

Go here to see the original:

Why are Republicans so concerned about 'grooming'? - Yahoo News

SACRAMENTO After the governor of Texas ordered state agencies to investigate parents for child abuse if they provide certain medical treatments to their transgender children, California lawmakers proposed a law making the state a refuge for transgender youths and their families.

When Idaho proposed a ban on abortions that empowers relatives to sue anyone who helps terminate a pregnancy after six weeks, nearby Oregon approved $15 million to help cover the abortion expenses of patients from out-of-state.

As Republican activists aggressively pursue conservative social policies in state legislatures across the country, liberal states are taking defensive actions. Spurred by a U.S. Supreme Court that is expected to soon upend an array of longstanding rights, including the constitutional right to abortion, left-leaning lawmakers from Washington to Vermont have begun to expand access to abortion, bolster voting rights and denounce laws in conservative states targeting L.G.B.T.Q. minors.

The flurry of action, particularly in the West, is intensifying already marked differences between life in liberal- and conservative-led parts of the country. And its a sign of the consequences when state governments are controlled increasingly by single parties. Control of legislative chambers is split between parties now in two states Minnesota and Virginia compared with 15 states 30 years ago.

Were further and further polarizing and fragmenting, so that blue states and red states are becoming not only a little different but radically different, said Jon Michaels, a law professor who studies government at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Americans have been sorting into opposing partisan camps for at least a generation, choosing more and more to live among like-minded neighbors, while legislatures, through gerrymandering, are reinforcing their states political identities by solidifying one-party rule.

As states become more red or blue, its politically easier for them to pass legislation, said Ryan D. Enos, a Harvard political scientist who studies partisan segregation. Does that create a feedback loop where more sorting happens? Thats the part we dont know yet.

With some 30 legislatures in Republican hands, conservative lawmakers, working in many cases with shared legislative language, have begun to enact a tsunami of restrictions that for years were blocked by Democrats and moderate Republicans at the federal level. A recent wave of anti-abortion bills, for instance, has been the largest since the landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade.

Similar moves have recently been aimed at L.G.B.T.Q. protections and voting rights. In Florida and Texas, teams of election police have been created to crack down on the rare crime of voter fraud, fallout from former President Donald J. Trumps specious claims after he lost the 2020 presidential election.

Carrying concealed guns without a permit is now legal in nearly half of the country. Bounty laws enforced not by governments, which can be sued in federal court, but by rewards to private citizens for filing lawsuits have proliferated on issues from classroom speech to vaccination since the U.S. Supreme Court declined to strike down the legal tactic in Texas.

The moves, in an election year, have raised questions about the extent to which they are performative, as opposed to substantial. Some Republican bills are bold at first glance but vaguely worded. Some appear designed largely to energize base voters.

Many, however, send a strong cultural message. And divisions will widen further, said Peverill Squire, an expert on state legislatures at the University of Missouri, if the Supreme Court hands more power over to the states on issues like abortion and voting, as it did when it said in 2019 that partisan gerrymandering was beyond federal jurisdiction.

Some legal analysts also say the anticipated rollback of abortion rights could throw a host of other privacy rights into state-level turmoil, from contraception to health care. Meanwhile, entrenched partisanship, which has already hobbled federal decision making, could block attempts to impose strong national standards in Congress.

Were potentially entering a new era of state-centered policymaking, said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a professor of public policy and political science at the University of California, Riverside. We may be heading into a future where you could have conservative states and progressive states deciding they are better off pushing their own visions of what government should be.

In recent weeks, several states including Colorado and Vermont have moved to codify a right to abortion. More Maryland and Washington, for example have expanded access or legal protection in anticipation of out-of-state patients.

But no state has been as aggressive as California in shoring up alternatives to the Republican legislation.

One package of pending California bills would expand access to California abortions and protect abortion providers from out-of-state legal action. Another proposal would thwart enforcement of out-of-state court judgments removing children from the custody of parents who get them gender-affirming health services.

Yet another would enforce a ban on ghost guns and assault weapons with a California version of Texas recent six-week ban on abortion, featuring $10,000 bounties to encourage lawsuits from private citizens against anyone who sells, distributes or manufactures those types of firearms.

In a State of the State address last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom took more than a half-dozen swipes at Florida and Texas, comparing Californias expanded sick leave, family leave and Medicaid coverage during the pandemic with the higher Covid-19 death rates in the two Republican-led states, and alluding to states where theyre banning books and where you can sue your history teacher for teaching history.

After Disney World employees protested the corporations initial reluctance to condemn the Florida bill that opponents call Dont Say Gay, Mr. Newsom suggested Disney cancel the relocation of some 2,000 West Coast positions to a new Florida campus, saying on Twitter that the door is open to bring those jobs back to California the state that actually represents the values of your workers.

Dan Schnur, a former Republican strategist who teaches political science now at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley, said that without strong Republican opposition, Mr. Newsom has been using the governors of Texas and Florida as straw men.

Its an effective way of strengthening himself at home and elevating his name in Democratic presidential conversations, Mr. Schnur said.

Conservatives in and outside California have criticized the governor for stoking division.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is a Republican presidential contender, noted in an email that Disneyland was closed three times longer than Disney World during the pandemic, and that hundreds of thousands of Americans moved to Florida between April 2020 and July 2021 while hundreds of thousands left California. Mr. Newsom, she wrote, is doing a better job as a U-Haul salesman.

Politicians in California do not have veto power over legislation passed in Florida, the spokeswoman, Christina Pushaw, added. Gov. Newsom should focus on solving the problems in his own state.

The office of Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas who, in 2018, ran on the slogan Dont California My Texas did not respond to emails and calls requesting comment.

In an interview, Mr. Newsom noted that California has been grappling for decades with the cultural and demographic changes that are only now hitting other parts of the country, including early battles over such issues as gay rights and immigration. Im very concerned broadly about whats happening and whether or not its fully understood by the majority, not just of the American people but people within my own party, he said.

We are not going to sit back and neutrally watch the progress of the 20th century get erased, he added, decrying the zest for demonization and an anti-democratic tilt in recent policies to restrict voting and L.G.B.T.Q. protections.

If you say nothing, youre complicit, Mr. Newsom said. You have to take these guys on and push back.

Californias stance has broad implications. Although U.S. census figures showed stalled growth in the state in 2020, its population of nearly 40 million is the nations largest, encompassing one in nine U.S. residents.

In a world in which the federal government has abdicated some of its core responsibility, states like California have to figure out what their responsibilities are, said Mr. Michaels, the U.C.L.A. professor. The hard question is: Where does it end?

For example, he noted, the fallout could mean that federal rights that generations have taken for granted could become available only to those who can afford to uproot their lives and move to the states that guarantee them.

Its easy for Governor Newsom to tell struggling Alabamians, I feel your pain, but then what? Come rent a studio apartment in San Francisco for $4,000 a month?

Violet Augustine, 37, an artist, art teacher and single parent in Dallas, worries about the limits of interstate refuge. For months, she said, she considered moving away from Texas with her transgender daughter, a kindergartner, to a state where she doesnt constantly fear for their safety. When Mr. Abbott and Texas attorney general directed the state to investigate parents with transgender children for possible child abuse, her plan solidified.

An appeal on GoFundMe has raised some $23,000, and she recently made a visit to Los Angeles, staying at a hotel in the heart of the citys Koreatown and meeting with leaders of a community group that describes itself as radically inclusive of L.G.B.T.Q. families.

The city itself just felt like a safe haven, Ms. Augustine said. But, she added, her $60,000 salary, which allows her to rent a house in Texas, would scarcely cover a California apartment: Were going to have to downsize.

Michael Wines contributed reporting.

Follow this link:

New Laws Moves Blue and Red States Further Apart - The New York Times

When the U.S. House in January 2021 voted to impeach Donald Trump for an unprecedented second time on charges that he incited the insurrection at the Capitol, Reps. Jeff Van Drew and Chris Smith voted with most of their party in opposition.

When the House in June voted to form a Democratic-run congressional committee to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, riot after Senate Republicans blocked an independent bipartisan panel, Van Drew and Smith again voted with most of their party against it.

But when it came to Bidens $1 trillion infrastructure law, both Smith and Van Drew bucked their leadership and voted yes.

The two New Jersey congressmen again were among the 10 House Republicans least likely to vote with a majority of their party against a majority of Democrats, according to CQ Roll Calls annual vote studies.

Van Drew ranked fifth, defying the Republicans 19% of the time. Smith was sixth with 18%.

Both Republican representatives said they were doing just that: Representing their constituents.

I vote my district and I vote my state, said Smith, R-4th Dist. Thats what its all about.

Van Drew, who switched to the GOP after voting against impeaching Trump the first time, also was among the top dissenters when he was a member of the Democratic caucus.

Im always trying to vote whats really best for my people, my district, Van Drew said. Theres a lot of uniqueness to South Jersey. Whats most important is not representing a party. Its not representing the leadership. Whats most important is representing good conservative values and the people of our district and state and nation.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., who represents Bucks County just across the Delaware River from New Jersey, voted with his party the least: 66% He was followed by Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., with 72%; Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., 76%, and Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., 79%. Katko, Kinzinger and Upton all voted to impeach Trump.

A year earlier, Smith and Van Drew were ranked second and third right after Fitzpatrick.

Smiths and Van Drews support of the infrastructure bill drew condemnation as traitors from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

Smith, but not Van Drew, broke with his party and voted in February 2021 to strip Greene of her committee assignments for reportedly endorsing executing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and embracing the QAnon conspiracy theory that the Anti-Defamation League said contains marked undertones of anti-Semitism and xenophobia.

And Trump called for Republicans to challenge Smith for his partys nomination this year, even as he endorsed Van Drew when the congressman held a fundraiser at the former presidents Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

Smith and Van Drew also were among the 10 Republicans who most backed President Joe Biden, supporting him 40% of the time, according to the CQ Roll Call studies.

On the Democratic side, the New Jersey lawmakers in both the House and Senate voted with a majority of their party against a majority of Republicans more than 95% of the time. And they all supported fellow Democrat Biden at least 98% of the time.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him at @JDSalant.

Start your day with the latest from Trenton, D.C. and your town. Get the N.J. Politics newsletter now.

See the original post here:

N.J. Republicans wouldnt buck Trump but they defy GOP more than most - NJ.com

A circuit judge on Thursday found the Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Republican, in contempt of court for refusing to turn over documents relating to the state's recount of the 2020 presidential election.

"Robin Vos had delegated the search for contractors' records to an employee who did nothing more than send one vague email to one contractor," wrote Dane County Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn. "Putting aside for the moment the impropriety of making a contractor responsible for a records request Robin Vos did not tell [sic] that contractor which records to produce, did not ask any of the other contractors to produce records, and did not even review the records ultimately received. Still worse, the Assembly did nothing at all."

Bailey-Rihn has ordered Vos to release the materials within fourteen days or pay a daily fine of $1,000 any time after that, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Bailey-Rihn established that, if the documents aren't provided, Vos must provide an explanation.

RELATED: Trump campaign avoids $8M bill by limiting Wisconsin recount to cities with large Black populations

Wednesday's ruling stems from an inquiry Vos launched back in May off the back of Donald Trump's baseless claims of election fraud. According to The Washington Post, Vos' sham audit, which has a taxpayer-funded budget of $700,000, has enlisted the help of retired police officers and an attorney. Thus far, Vos has also subpoenaed scores of election officials across the state in metropolitan areas like Green Bay, Racine and Milwaukee.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

In October, nonpartisan watchdog American Oversight filed a lawsuit against Vos and the Wisconsin State Assembly demanding that the judge release records detailing the investigation a request that Bailey-Rihn has now affirmed.

"Speaker Vos and the Assembly have had ample opportunity to comply with the court's order and produce records," Bailey-Rihn wrote.

RELATED: Dear Wisconsin: If Trump wants a recount, make him pay up front

Still, Bailey-Rihn's ruling only deals with one of three suits filed by American Oversight.

Vos, for his part, has suggested that Bailey-Rihn's ruling is part of a politically-motivated smear campaign.

"It's a liberal judge in Dane County trying to make us look bad. I don't know about you, but when you have deleted emails, how do you get deleted emails back if they're from Gmail?" he said, according to Madison.com. "We already have an expert saying they can't be done. You have a judge who's focused on making a name for herself, and that's all she's doing."

Thus far, no substantive evidence has emerged to justify the Vos' recount, for which he is being paid $11,000 a month. President Biden defeated Trump by a margin of 21,000 votes in Wisconsin, a result that a conservative law firm confirmed in December after a ten-month review of the election.

RELATED: "Crazy conspiracy theory": Wisconsin GOP investigator pushes illegal effort to "decertify" election

The ruling against the GOP speaker comes amid another outrage over the Republican takeover of the state's Natural Resources Board, which, like Vos' sham audit, is benefiting from a highly partisan State Assembly willing to defy the norms of good government.

On Friday, the Wisconsin State Journal editorial board called on Fred Prehn to resign from the Natural Resources Board over his refusal to step down eleven months after his term expired. Prehn will theoretically be able to continue serving until his replacement is confirmed by the State Assembly, whose Republican caucus is indefinitely delaying the transition.

"Prehn seems to think he can serve for life, like an emperor," the Wisconsin State Journal editorial board wrote. "If that's true, then good government in Wisconsin is further eroded along with the public's ability to hold government officials accountable."

Read more:

The Republican takeover of Wisconsin: GOP officials defy the courts and the voters - Salon