Daily Archives: July 29, 2021

Republicans in Georgias General Assembly have requested a performance review of the top election official in Fulton County, the first step in a possible takeover of the countys electoral process that could give the Republican-led legislature more control over an area with the largest concentration of Democratic voters in the state.

The request, submitted in a letter on Tuesday by State Senator Butch Miller and signed by about two dozen other Republican state senators, calls for a panel review of Richard Barron, the county election director, over what the lawmakers described as a failure to properly perform risk-limiting audits, a process that helps ensure the correct results and security, after the 2020 election.

We do so as a measure of last resort, having failed to adequately assuage the concern that we, as elected officials, have regarding the integrity of the Fulton County elections process, Mr. Miller wrote in the letter.

Fulton County, which includes much of Atlanta, has a record of problems with its elections. Most recently, its June 2020 primary contest was marred by voting machine difficulties that were exacerbated by the small size and poor training of its staff, causing lines to stretch for hours across the county.

But the November general election and the January runoff elections in the county ran relatively smoothly on each Election Day, with few reports of lengthy waits or other complications. There were no legitimate questions about the accuracy of the results in any of the three recent elections. In the presidential race, President Biden carried the county with more than 72 percent of the vote and more than 380,000 votes.

The review process for local election officials is a newly critical element to Georgia elections after state Republicans passed a sweeping new voting law in April. It includes several provisions that lay the groundwork for an extraordinary takeover of election administration by partisan lawmakers.

Under the new law, the State Elections Board is permitted to replace county election board members after a performance review or investigation. But the new law also restructures the state board, stripping the secretary of state of his authority and giving the legislature the ability to appoint members, including the chair.

The letter, which was earlier reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, was signed by three Republican members of the Fulton County delegation in the State Senate. The letters authors said they expected members of Fulton Countys House delegation to join them, which would automatically begin the review.

State Representative Chuck Martin, a Republican member of the Fulton County House delegation, said he supported the request for the performance review. Jan Jones, the speaker pro tempore and another member of the delegation, said that she would send a letter on Friday to the State Elections Board requesting a performance review of Fulton County elections officials, and that it would be signed by four members of the Fulton delegation.

Mine is not with an eye on taking over elections, Mr. Martin said in an interview on Thursday. This just seems to be the only way we can get data to get answers for the people we represent.

Mr. Barron, the Fulton County election director, did not respond to requests for comment.

Democrats quickly denounced the move, warning that it undermined the sanctity of future elections.

After giving themselves unprecedented power under Senate Bill 202, Republicans wasted no time in waging an anti-democratic, partisan power grab, attempting to seize control of elections in Georgias largest county, home to the greatest number of voters of color in the state, said Lauren Groh-Wargo, the chief executive of Fair Fight Action, a Democratic voting rights group based in Georgia. Their partisan efforts risk election subversion.

Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state, supported the review.

I have called repeatedly for change in Fultons elections leadership, so Im glad Republican legislators are joining me in this effort, he said in a statement. After Fultons failures last June, I required Fulton to accept a monitor during the general election and runoffs, and forced the county into a consent agreement to start fixing their management problems.

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Georgia G.O.P. Edges Toward Election Takeover in Fulton County - The New York Times

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Texas Republicans in Congress took on Texas House Democrats on Thursday in a tense, four-hour congressional subcommittee meeting that drilled into the technicalities of voter restriction bills sitting in limbo back in Austin and at times erupted into angry accusations.

U.S. Rep. Pat Fallon, a freshman Republican from Sherman, was particularly fired up. At one point he accused Democratic state Rep. Nicole Collier of Fort Worth of calling her Republican colleagues racist.

She hadnt said her colleagues were racist, Collier said. Theyre uninformed.

Collier was one of three Texas House Democrats who testified before the civil rights and civil liberties subcommittee. She and colleagues Senfronia Thompson of Houston and Diego Bernal of San Antonio took questions from Democratic and Republican members alike explaining and defending their decision to flee to the nations capital and put the Texas Legislatures special session on hold.

Democrats have used their decampment in Washington to call national attention to the ongoing voting rights situation in Texas and to call for federal legislation that could preempt efforts by the state.

During opening remarks, Democratic U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, chair of the subcommittee, said House Bill 3 and Senate Bill 1 in the Texas Legislature were perhaps the most aggressive set of voting restrictions anywhere in the country and a draconian election overhaul.

He closed his remarks by urging Congress to pass the sweeping federal voting legislation known as the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act before it is too late.

The hearing followed a series of meetings between the Texas Democrats and some of the most influential Democrats in the country. But the For the People Act remains at a standstill due to a filibuster backed by the GOP and Democratic senators such as Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Both of those acts, if passed, would restore aspects of the Voting Rights Act that were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013. In particular, the bills would reinstate federal preclearance of voting laws, which gives the federal government the power to vet state laws that could result in discrimination against voters of color.

Other aspects of the For the People Act include curbing partisan gerrymandering, creating nationwide automatic voter registration and allowing voters without ID to vote with a sworn statement of their identity.

Four Texas congressional Republicans who took part in the hearing were joined by one of the statehouse Republicans. State Rep. Travis Clardy, R-Nacogdoches, made a virtual appearance to set the record straight on the Texas bills, saying Democrats were misrepresenting the impacts of the legislation, and rejecting the notion that access to voting would be restricted.

Clardy said that the walkout would not have happened if his Democratic colleagues simply offered to improve the bills through debate and deliberation.

Its time to come home. Enough is enough, youve had your fun, he said.

But Collier pointed toward amendments that House Republicans had rejected and noted that more people had spoken against the bills than in support.

Our backs were against the wall, she said.

Also testifying was Nina Perales, vice president of litigation for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, an organization at the forefront of the voting rights issue in Texas for decades.

The Texas bills invite voter intimidation by poll watchers, she said, disputing Clardys claims. Section 3 of SB 1 and section 4 of HB 3 strip voters of the protections of privacy and security in the polling place, and invite vigilantism by poll watchers.

Texas has a long, well-documented history of discrimination that has touched upon the rights of African Americans and Hispanics to register to vote or to participate otherwise in the electoral process, she said, noting many instances in which federal courts have held that Texas laws discriminated against voters of color.

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, asked Thompson if the proposed restrictions felt like a revival of the Jim Crow era. Thompson said they did.

The Democratic legislators were grilled on their decision to leave Texas.

Now, are each of the three of you aware that you are, in fact, violating Texas law by being here right now and instead of being in Texas during the legislative session? And that it would be in order to arrest you in the state of Texas? asked U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin.

Im ready to be arrested, Thompson retorted. Im not violating the law, and Im representing my constituents.

Im not sure if those laws are constitutional, Bernal added.

A particularly long and heated exchange took place between Fallon and Collier after he asked her to clarify why she felt the Texas bills could affect voters of color.

It will have a disparate impact on people of color, Collier replied.

OK, and thats your view, Fallon said.

In closing, Bernal thanked the subcommittee for allowing him and his colleagues to speak, but acknowledged that little had been accomplished.

Its important to point out that weve exchanged a lot of platitudes here, but we have not had to debate about the actual components of the bill, he said. We can talk back and forth about our sort of hashtag messaging, but we have not had a substantive debate at large about the bill, because when we do, people see that were right.

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Texas House Democrats spar with congressional Republicans over their protest of state voting bills - The Texas Tribune

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) One of the Republican Partys most prominent rising stars is mocking new government recommendations calling for more widespread use of masks to blunt a coronavirus surge.

Did you not get the CDCs memo? Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis joked Wednesday before an almost entirely unmasked audience of activists and lawmakers crammed into an indoor hotel ballroom in Salt Lake City. I dont see you guys complying.

From Texas to South Dakota, Republican leaders responded with hostility and defiance to updated masking guidance from public health officials, who advise that even fully vaccinated people return to wearing masks indoors if they live in areas with high rates of virus transmission. The backlash reopened the culture war over pandemic restrictions just as efforts to persuade unvaccinated Americans to get shots appeared to be making headway.

Egged on by former President Donald Trump, the response reflects deep resistance among many GOP voters to restrictions aimed at containing a virus they feel poses minimal personal threat. The party is also tapping into growing frustration and confusion over ever-shifting rules and guidance.

But the resistance has real implications for a country desperate to emerge from the pandemic. Beyond vaccinations, there are few tools other than mask-wearing and social distancing to contain the spread of the delta variant, which studies have shown to be far more contagious than the original strain.

Many Republican leaders, however, are blocking preventative measures, potentially making it harder to tame virus outbreaks in conservative communities.

At least 18 Republican-led states have moved to prohibit vaccine passports or to ban public entities from requiring proof of vaccination. And some have prohibited schools from requiring any student or teacher to wear a mask or be vaccinated.

In its announcement, the CDC cited troubling new thus far unpublished research that found that fully vaccinated people can spread the delta variant just like the unvaccinated, putting those who havent received the shots or who have compromised immune systems at heightened risk. The CDC also recommended that all teachers, staff and students wear masks inside school buildings, regardless of vaccination status.

The backlash was swift.

We wont go back. We wont mask our children, declared Trump, who routinely cast doubt on the value of mask-wearing and rarely wore one in public while he was in office. Why do Democrats distrust the science?

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson called the new guidance disappointing and concerning and inconsistent with the overwhelming evidence surrounding the efficacy of the vaccines and their proven results.

He, like others, warned that the measure would undermine efforts to encourage vaccine holdouts to get their shots by casting further doubt on the efficacy of approved vaccines, which have been shown to dramatically decrease the risk of death or hospitalization, despite the occurrence of breakthrough cases.

Last week, White House officials reported that vaccination rates were on the rise in some states where COVID-19 cases were soaring, as more Republican leaders implored their constituents to lay lingering doubts aside and get the shots to protect themselves. That includes Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who has pleaded with unvaccinated residents, saying they are the ones letting us down.

This self-inflicted setback encourages skepticism and vaccine hesitancy at a time when the goal is to prevent serious illnesses and deaths from COVID-19 through vaccination, Parson tweeted. This decision only promotes fear & further division among our citizens.

The announcement will unfortunately only diminish confidence in the vaccine and create more challenges for public health officials people who have worked tirelessly to increase vaccination rates, echoed Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who has banned mask and vaccine mandates in his state.

In his Wednesday speech, DeSantis took particular aim at the CDCs call for kids to wear masks in the classroom.

Its not healthy for these students to be sitting there all day, 6-year-old kids in kindergarten covered in masks, he said though there is no evidence that wearing masks is harmful to children older than toddler age.

And in South Dakota, Gov. Kristi Noem called out the CDC for shifting its position on masking AGAIN. She said that those who are worried about the virus can get vaccinated, wear a mask or stay home, but that Changing CDC guidelines dont help ensure the publics trust.

On Capitol Hill, some Republicans were in revolt after the Capitols attending physician sent a memo informing members that masks would again have to be worn inside the House at all times.

The change set off a round robin of insults, with Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calling Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy a moron after McCarthy tweeted, The threat of bringing masks back is not a decision based on science, but a decision conjured up by liberal government officials who want to continue to live in a perpetual pandemic state.

The mandate also prompted an angry confrontation, as Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., verbally assailed Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah, who exited the House chamber and walked past her without a face covering.

Conservatives also forced a vote to adjourn the chamber in protest to the mandate, which was defeated along mostly party lines.

We have a crisis at our border, and were playing footsie with mask mandates in the peoples House, railed Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, the motions sponsor. The American people are fed up. They want to go back to life. They want to go back to business. They want to go back to school without their children being forced to wear masks.

The nation is averaging nearly 62,000 new COVID-19 cases a day, and the vast majority of those hospitalized and dying havent been vaccinated. As of Sunday, 69% of American adults had received one vaccine dose, and 60% had been fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

Last year, early on in the pandemic, public health officials told Americans that masks offered little protection against the virus (and could even increase the risk of infection). The guidance was driven by a lack of knowledge about how the novel virus spread and a desire to save limited mask supplies for medical workers. But the CDC soon changed course and advised Americans to wear masks indoors and outdoors if they were within 6 feet (1.8 meters) of one another.

Then in April of this year, as vaccination rates rose sharply, the agency eased its guidelines, saying fully vaccinated Americans no longer needed to wear masks outdoors unless they were in big crowds of strangers. In May, the guidance was eased further, saying fully vaccinated people could safely stop wearing masks outdoors in crowds and in most indoor settings.

Subsequent CDC guidance said fully vaccinated people no longer needed to wear masks at schools, either.

Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House principal deputy press secretary, on Wednesday defended the changes, saying the CDC did exactly what it was supposed to do.

The CDC has to adapt to the virus, she said, and unfortunately because not enough Americans have stepped up to get vaccinated, they had to provide new guidance to help save lives.

___

Colvin reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix, Alan Fram in Washington, Summer Ballentine in Jefferson City, Mo., and Alexandra Jaffe aboard Air Force One contributed to this report.

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CDC mask guidance met with hostility by leading Republicans - Associated Press

WASHINGTON Republicans have made Americans concerns over rising prices their primary line of attack on President Bidens economic agenda, seeking to derail trillions of dollars in spending programs and tax cuts by warning that they will produce rocketing 1970s-style inflation.

They have seized on the increasing costs of gasoline, used cars, and other goods and services to accuse the president of stoking Bidenflation, first with the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill he signed in March and now with a proposed $3.5 trillion economic bill that Democrats have begun to draft in the Senate.

There are unusually large amounts of uncertainty over the path of inflation in the coming months, given the vagaries around restarting a pandemic-stricken economy. Yet even many economists who worry that high prices will linger longer than analysts initially expected say there is little reason to believe the problem will worsen if Mr. Biden succeeds in his attempts to bolster child care, education, paid leave, low-emission energy and more.

Theres been a lot of fear-mongering concerning inflation, Joseph E. Stiglitz, a liberal economist at Columbia University, said on Tuesday during a conference call to support Mr. Bidens economic plans. But the presidents spending proposals, he said, are almost entirely paid for.

If they are passed as proposed, he added, there is no conceivable way that they would have any significant effect on inflation.

The debate over the effects of the proposals has nothing to do with the current angst over inflation, said Mark Zandi, a Moodys Analytics economist who has modeled Mr. Bidens plans.

Still, rising inflation fears have forced the president and his aides to shift their economic sales pitch to voters. The officials have stressed the potential for his efforts to lower the cost of health care, housing, college and raising children, even as they insist the current bout of inflation is a temporary artifact of the pandemic recession.

The administrations defense has at times jumbled rapid price increases with inflation-dampening efforts that could take years to bear fruit. And officials concede that the president recently overstated his case on a national stage by claiming incorrectly that Mr. Zandi had found his policies would reduce inflation.

The economics of the inflation situation are muddled: The United States has little precedent for the crimped supply chains and padded consumer savings that have emerged from the recession and its aftermath, when large parts of the economy shut down or pulled back temporarily and the federal government sent $5 trillion to people, businesses and local governments to help weather the storm. The economy remains seven million jobs short of its prepandemic total, but employers are struggling to attract workers at the wages they are used to paying.

But the political danger for Mr. Biden, and opportunity for Republicans who have sought to derail his plans, is clear.

The price index that the Federal Reserve uses to track inflation was up nearly 4 percent in May from the previous year, its fastest increase since 2008. Republicans say it is self-evident that more spending would further inflame those increases a new rationale for a longstanding conservative attack on the vast expansion of government programs that Mr. Biden is proposing.

July 29, 2021, 7:29 p.m. ET

Nine out of 10 respondents to a new national poll for The New York Times by the online research firm Momentive, which was previously known as SurveyMonkey, say they have noticed prices going up recently. Seven in 10 worry those increases will persist for an extended period. Half of respondents say that if the increases linger, they will pull back on household spending to compensate.

Administration officials acknowledge that inflation worries are softening consumer confidence, including in the University of Michigans survey of consumer sentiment, even as the economy rebounds from recession with its strongest annual growth rate in decades.

The issue has given Mr. Bidens opponents their clearest and most consistent message to attack an agenda that remains popular in public opinion polls.

Theres no question we have serious inflation right now, Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, told CNNs State of the Union on Sunday. There is a question about how long it lasts. And Im just worried that the risk is high that this is going to be with us for a while. And the Fed has put itself in a position where its going to be behind the curve. You combine that with massively excess spending, and it is a recipe for serious problems.

Some Republicans say a portion of Mr. Bidens spending plans would not drive up prices particularly the bipartisan agreement he and senators are negotiating to invest nearly $600 billion in roads, water pipes, broadband and other physical infrastructure. But the party is unified in criticizing the rest of the presidents proposals in a way that many economists say ignores how they would actually affect the economy.

Some of the proposals would distribute money directly and quickly to American consumers and workers by raising wages for home health care workers, for example, and continuing an expanded tax credit that effectively functions as a monthly stipend to all but the highest-earning parents. But they would also raise taxes on high earners, and much of the spending would create programs that would take time to find their way into the economy, like paid leave, universal prekindergarten and free community college.

Some conservative economists worry that the relatively small slice of immediate payments would risk further heating an already hot economy, driving up prices. The direct payments in the proposals would exacerbate pre-existing inflationary pressures, put additional pressure on the Fed to withdrawal monetary policy support earlier than it had planned, and put at risk the longevity of the recovery, said Michael R. Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Other economists in and outside the administration say those effects would be swamped by the potential of the spending programs like paid leave to reduce inflationary pressure.

The economics of these investments strongly belies the Republican critique because these are investments that will yield faster productivity growth, greater labor supply, the expansion of the economys supply side which very clearly dampens inflationary pressures, not exacerbates them, Jared Bernstein, a member of Mr. Bidens Council of Economic Advisers, said in an interview.

Administration officials pivoted their sales pitch on the presidents agenda last week to emphasize the potential for his plans to reduce prices.

Mr. Bidens agenda is about lowering costs for families across the board, Mike Donilon, a senior adviser at the White House, told reporters. He said officials believed they were in a strong position against Republican attacks on inflation, in part by citing Mr. Zandis recent analysis. The president also referred to that analysis last week during a forum in Ohio on CNN, saying it had found that his proposals would reduce inflation.

The Moodys analysis did not say that; instead, it found that some of Mr. Bidens spending plans could help relieve price pressures several years from now. It specifically cited proposals to build additional affordable housing units nationwide, which could help hold down rents and housing prices and reduce the cost of prescription drugs.

White House officials concede that Mr. Biden overstated the analysis but point to more measured remarks in a speech this month, when he said his plans would enhance our productivity raising wages without raising prices.

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Inflation Is New Battle Line as Republicans and Biden Spar Over Spending - The New York Times

Sarah Huckabee Sanders may not be the White House press secretary anymore, but when an opportunity for some Donald Trump image management presents itself, shes still got it. As the spread of the COVID-19 delta variant and rising caseloads coincides with stagnant vaccination rates and heightened concerns about health misinformation, the Arkansas candidate for governor put her platform to good use in an op-ed Sunday that urged people to get inoculated with the Trump vaccine.

The gubernatorial candidate highlighted how caseloads and hospitalizations are rising exponentially in the state shes running in, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, and cited data about the benefits of getting vaccinated, noting that if getting vaccinated was safe enough for [President Trump and his family], I felt it was safe enough for me. Sanderss persuasion tactics also brought in right-wing talking points politicizing the public health issue, such as through bashing Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Biden administration, as well as scorning liberal media outlets that did not give President Trump and his team the credit they are due.

On the downside, Sanderss rhetoric isnt exactly factual, and it will likely add to mistrust of the current administration. But it will likely resonate with her Republican base, many of whom may be resistant to the idea of getting the COVID vaccine. The urgent need for those holdouts to change their mind has necessitated a certain type of strategic communication. What [holdouts] dont want is to be indoctrinatedtheyre willing to be vaccinated, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie said on ABCs This Week Sunday, noting one of the places where our leaders have fallen down is theyre not explaining the facts to Republicans hesitant or completely unwilling to get the shot. These folks do not respond to being ordered to do those things, he said, noting its a libertarian type of response to perceived government overreach. You have to walk them through the logic of this, he said.

Some Republican officials are increasingly adopting that approach as parts of the party shift their messaging to promote the vaccine, including some lawmakers who have either actively or passively fueled vaccine reluctance, the Associated Press reports. After holding off on getting vaccinated for months, Rep. Steve Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, shared photos of himself receiving his first dose earlier this month and called it safe and effective. The Louisiana congressmans decision comes as his state, where only 36% of eligible residents are fully vaccinated, confronts a delta-fueled surge in hospitalizations and infections.

Even conservative leaders now are having a hard time figuring out how to rein in what had primarily been a propaganda campaign, and they are now realizing their constituencies are particularly vulnerable, Eric Ward, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told the AP. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida whose 2022 reelection campaign merch includes beer koozies that say Dont Fauci My Florida, recently noted that nearly all COVID-19 hospitalizations are among unvaccinated people and affirmed that these vaccines are saving lives. Theres been an overall shift in some corners of Fox Newsa network that has for months amplified misinformation and politicized the shots.

By now, though, it may be too little, too late. Once you are opposed, it is very hard to change that position. And thats whats happening right now, Republican pollster Frank Luntz told the AP. Some officials are now urging constituents to use common sense, as Alabama governor Kay Ivey did last week, though without indicating that shell impose new safety restrictions in her state. These folks are choosing a horrible lifestyle of self-inflicted pain, she said of unvaccinated people. I can encourage you to do something, but I cant make you take care of yourself. Republican Governor Chris Sununu of New Hampshire seemed similarly resigned to his states diminished vaccination rates, telling the AP that there are no new measures to encourage vaccination on the immediate horizon and its folks individual responsibility. If someone hasnt been vaccinated at this point, theyve made that conscious decision not to.

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The Republican Reckoning on COVID Vaccines Has Finally Arrived - Vanity Fair