Daily Archives: December 22, 2021

There is no doubt: Madison Cawthorn is a polarizing figure. No more so than within his own party.

"If Madison Cawthorn is the Republican on the ballot in the 13th (District), I'm not voting for Madison Cawthorn. I will vote for the Democrat," said former state Rep. Charles Jeter, who served in the North Carolina General Assembly from 2012 to 2016.

That is no small statement, considering it came from a Mecklenburg County Republican. Jeter resides in the newly drawn 13th Congressional District, the one Cawthorn has decided to run for next year.

"People will say 'Well, you're going to put Pelosi in charge,'" Jeter said, acknowledging the wrath he is likely to endure from fellow Republicans for speaking out against another party member, especially one so closely aligned with former President Donald Trump.

"Well, you know what? I'd rather have a grown up in the room," Jeter said.

Cawthorn's move to the 13th is a bold one for a 26-year-old freshman congressman, according to Meredith College Political Science Professor David McLennan.

"It's highly unusual for someone to move to a district outside of the one they're serving," McLennan said. "I mean, you don't see incumbents running in different districts very often."

Cawthorn's decision came after the North Carolina General Assembly's Republican majority completed new district maps for the decade. Those maps face legal challenges and are set for trial in state court early next month.

But for now, Cawthorn has filed to run in the 13th, a district that includes part of Mecklenburg County, a major media market, and then, moving west, Gaston, Rutherford, Polk, Burke, McDowell, and most notably, Cleveland County.

Catawba College Political Science Professor Michael Bitzer said Cawthorn's maneuvering was all the more shocking because it seemed to alter the trajectory of state Rep. Tim Moore, the Speaker of the House. Many political observers believed the new 13th District was specially tailored for a congressional run by Moore, a Cleveland County Republican.

But last month, Moore bowed out immediately after Cawthorn announced his bid for the 13th in a video posted on social media.

"We were first in flight, first in freedom and together we will put America first for generations to come," Cawthorn said in his recorded statement.

In that same video, Cawthorn also stated he was switching to the 13th because he was "afraid that another establishment, go-along-to-get-along Republican would prevail there."

That comment did not sit well with Dennis Bailey, a former Cleveland County GOP chairman, who, like many people, saw the slight as aimed at Tim Moore.

"Anybody that thinks he's a 'go-along-to-get-along' doesn't know Tim Moore." Bailey said, in an interview outside a downtown Shelby restaurant where the Cleveland County GOP was holding its Christmas Party.

Bailey said he thinks Cawthorn could be seen as an outsider in a 13th District Republican primary. Cawthorn is from Henderson County, part of what has been redrawn as the 14th Congressional District.

"Carpet baggers don't tend to do well, in my mind," Bailey said. "I don't think you can represent a district that you're not in and from."

Danny Lee Blanton, another attendee of the Cleveland County GOP Christmas Party that night, said he shares Bailey's view.

"If I'm going to vote for him, I want him to live here," Blanton, a Cleveland County School Board member, said of Cawthorn.

There is no requirement that members of congress live in the district they represent, though they typically do. And the new 13th District does include some counties that are in the western North Carolina district Cawthorn currently represents.

Catawba College Political Scientist Michael Bitzer says the "go-along-to-get-along" label couldn't be more inaccurate as applied to Moore. The longtime House Speaker has championed lower corporate and personal income taxes and opposed the expansion of Medicaid coverage.

"He has adhered to the Republican ideological orthodoxy of social conservatism, economic conservatism," Bitzer said of Moore.

Cawthorn has said he wasn't speaking about any particular politician when he used the "go-along-to-get-along" phrase.

But policy is beside the point when it comes to Cawthorn, according to Western North Carolina University Political Science Prof. Chris Cooper.

"This is a rhetorical and tactical difference when we talk about 'establishment wing of the party' versus the 'Madison Cawthorn, Mark Robinson, Donald Trump wing of the party,'" Cooper said. "It's not about ideology; it's about style."

And it is about fulfilling a mission to spread the gospel of Trump.

"Cawthorn has got a strategy, and he has been quite explicit about saying, he wants to get more pro-Trump Republicans in congress," said Meredith College Political Science Prof. and Poll Director David McLennan.

That strategy was on full display a couple of weeks ago when Cawthorn and some other Republicans met with Trump at the ex-President's Mar-a-Lago resort, in Florida. According to widespread news reports, Cawthorn presented his own plan dictating which candidates should run for which North Carolina Congressional districts.

That plan included Republican Mark Walker switching from a U.S. Senate run to a Congressional race, paving the way for Trump endorsee Ted Budd to challenge former Gov. Pat McCrory in a GOP senate primary.

In an email exchange with WUNC, Cawthorn's campaign spokesman declined to provide details about the Mar-a-Lago meeting.

Cawthorn's brash style clearly resonates with Republican voters like Ronnie Grigg. Grigg is a candidate for the Cleveland County School Board and was also attending the local GOP's Christmas Party.

"Well I just think he stands firm on his beliefs and I think that's what we need," Grigg said. "We need somebody that's strong a strong conservative."

Nannette Leonhart, another Cleveland County resident and Republican Party member, also said she likes what she has seen of Cawthorn online.

"He's a go-getter. He's not going to back down from the issues," Leonhart said.

One of those issues is questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. A conversation with Leonhart made clear she subscribes to the baseless claim that the election was stolen from ex-President Trump even though extensive post-election audits, thorough ballot counting and frivolous lawsuits have shown the claim to be a lie.

None of that seems to make a difference to Cleveland County GOP voter Linda Robinson either, who said about Trump: "He still is our president. It was stolen, admit it."

And Robinson indicated she was impressed that Cawthorn joined the ex-President at the Jan. 6 rally after which pro-Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a violent coup attempt.

Barring any court-ordered redraw of the Congressional district map and without any Tim Moore-caliber Republicans to challenge him in a primary, there is very little standing in Cawthorn's way to victory in the 13th, a district drawn to heavily favor a GOP candidate.

There are other Republicans who have declared their intention to run for the GOP nomination in the 13th. They include Karen Bentley, a former Mecklenburg County Commissioner, and former Huntersville Mayor John Aneralla.

Neither Bentley nor Aneralla got to file before the North Carolina Supreme Court suspended 2022 candidate filing and postponed the primaries until May pending litigation over state Legislative and Congressional District maps.

But Aneralla, who also has served as the Mecklenburg County GOP Chairman, while touting what he saw as his geographic advantage in a primary, implicitly acknowledged that even a Republican like him with a record of civic and political leadership faces a daunting task in taking on someone with the public profile of Cawthorn.

"All things being equal, 52% of the vote is in Gaston County and Mecklenburg County," Aneralla said. "That's where the bulk of the vote will come from. However, you know, having big-name I.D., good or bad, will help in the primary."

For former state Representative and Mecklenburg County Republican Charles Jeter, the stakes in a 13th District GOP primary are high.

"To me, I don't want to get too melodramatic," Jeter said. "But I really do believe it's the soul of Republican Party."

Original post:

Is Madison Cawthorn on a crusade for the 'soul' of the Republican Party? - WUNC

Yesterday was a terrible day, a legislator wrote in a text to Mark Meadows, Donald Trumps chief of staff, on January7,2021. We tried everything we could in our objection to the 6 states. Im sorry nothing worked. That text was released last week by the House select committee investigating the events of January6th, namely, the assault on the Capitol by a mob that was trying to disrupt the tally of electoral votes. The text itself, though, was referring to a parallel attempt by members of the House to engineer the rejection of the votes of six states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) that Joe Biden had won. Neither effort succeededand that failure, extraordinarily enough, seems to have been a cause of regret for the apology-texting legislator.

The text was released as the committee was recommending that Meadows be charged with criminal contempt for defying its subpoena to appear, and the identity of its author was not made public. The same is true of the identity of the House member who, on November4th, the day after the election, texted Meadows to suggest an aggressive strategy: Why can t the states of GANCPENN and otherR controlled state houses declare this is BS (where conflicts and election not called that night) and just send their own electors to vote and have it go to the SCOTUS. Its interesting to think about what might be packed into the phrase declare this is BSthis could refer to the votes in those particular states, the democratic process itself, or really anything that wouldnt result in Trumps running the country.

At this point, its no surprise that Republican members of both the House and the Senate shared the underlying goals of the angry crowd; Representatives Mo Brooks and Madison Cawthorn spoke at the Trump rally that preceded the assault. A hundred and thirty-nine representatives and eight senators voted to reject the electors of at least one state. But there is more to be learned about the level of cordination between Trumps aides and his allies in Congress and the various Trump-aligned groups that helped with the logistics for the rally. What, in short, was the relation between the House members and the mob?

Meadowss contempt referral is an important development for several reasons. As chief of staff, he served as a point of connection, notably in efforts to pressure officials in the Justice Department and at the state level to pursue fake election-fraud cases. (Meadows was on the line when Trump called Brad Raffensperger, Georgias secretary of state, and suggested that he could face criminal prosecution if he didnt find more votes for him.) He was in direct contact with Trump on January6th; he might be able to shed light on an apparent delay in deploying the National Guard to safeguard the Capitol and on why he sent an e-mail the day before saying that the role of the Guard would be to protect pro Trump people. Representative Jim Jordan, of Ohio, forwarded a text to him which made the argument that Vice-President Mike Pence could throw out electoral votes. At a hearing last week, Representative Liz Cheney, of Wyoming, read aloud texts to Meadows from Donald Trump,Jr., who told him in the midst of the assault that the actions had gone too far and gotten out of hand, and from Fox News figures, including Laura Ingraham, who wrote, Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. (Ingraham said that her text had been used misleadingly by regime media.)

But Meadowss case is also significant because of how he and his party responded to the subpoena. He had initially agreed to coperate with the committee and was slated to testify; indeed, the texts were among the material he handed over ahead of his planned appearance. Now he is suing Nancy Pelosi in order to quash the subpoena. Meadows has explained his change of heart by saying that Trump asserted executive privilege, but, as Representative Jamie Raskin, a member of the committee, put it, an ex-President cant just wave a magic wand to exempt an ex-aide from appearing at all. (Steve Bannon, Trumps former chief strategist, made a similar spurious claim, and he has now been charged with criminal contempt.) A key factor seems to be that Trump got mad.

When the committees recommendation that Meadows be referred for charges reached the House floor, though, the Republican members who rose to debate it barely bothered to engage with the legalities. Several used their time to urge the passage of the Finish the Wall Act. You know who doesnt show up for court orders? Representative August Pfluger, of Texas, asked. Ninety-nine point nine per cent of the illegal immigrants who are served those papers. Members spoke about fentanyl, Hunter Biden, mask mandates, empty shelves at Christmas, and the unjust treatment of parents who object to some crazy curriculum, as if the response to any criticism of Trump is to hopscotch from one of the former Presidents obsessions to another.

When the Republican members did address the matter at hand, it was in startlingly vitriolic terms. Representative Mary Miller, of Illinois, said that the committees work is evil and un-American. Yvette Herrell, of New Mexico, said that it is setting the country on its way to tyranny. Jordan called the committee an expression of the Democrats lust for power. And, inevitably, Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, said that its proceedings prove that communists are in charge of the House. Its tempting to dismiss such rhetoric as overblown, but Congress has become an ever more uneasy place. Last week, Steny Hoyer, the House Majority Leader, sent the Capitol Police Board a letter asking for clarification on the rules about where representatives can carry weapons in the Capitol.

On Tuesday, Cheney said that the decision about how to deal with the legacy of January6th is the moral test of our generation. A fear is that a growing sector of the Republican side of the aisle is engaged in another sort of test: a probing of just how Trumpist representatives are, and, by implication, how far they might go if a situation akin to what took place on January6th occurs again. Last time, the violence at the Capitol elicited enough shock that some Fox News anchors and leading Republicans texted Meadows, asking forTrump to calm the mob. If there is a next time, the texts to whoever plays Meadowss role might have a different, and more dangerous, message.

Read the original here:

Mark Meadows and the Republican Response to the January 6th Investigation - The New Yorker

Republican John Thune has a problem. Hes served three terms representing South Dakota in the Senate as a conventionally conservative lawmaker close to the leadership. And it seems hanging around to see if he can succeed Mitch McConnell as Senate GOP leader is the main reason hed run again at the age of 60 (apparently his wife hates Washington, which happens to most political people eventually).

But according to the New York Times, Thunes biggest problem is deciding whether he wants to fight for the top leadership job knowing that part of his reward for winning would be enforced subservience to Donald Trump:

Part of Mr. Thunes hesitation owes to Mr. Trump and the potential for the former president wholashed out at Mr. Thuneearly this year when the senator rejected his attempts to overturn the election to intervene in South Dakotas Senate primary race. But the larger factor may be the longer-range prospect of taking over the Senate Republican caucus with Mr. Trump still in the wings or as the partys standard-bearer in 2024.

Susan Collins, one of Thunes friends and colleagues lobbying him to stick around, said something striking about the Trump Factor in Thunes calculations:

Weve just got to plow through this to the post-Donald Trump era, which I believe is coming, Ms. Collins said, lamenting that the former presidents haranguing the leader, Mitch, has gotten worse lately.

The idea that there would soon be a post-Donald Trump era in GOP politics was a common (if not always publicly expressed) sentiment in 2016, when many viewed him as an accidental presidential nominee, and again at some of the many low points of his presidency. When it looked like he would probably get waxed by Joe Biden in 2020, the perception of Trump as an aberration who would give way to vintage Reagan-style conservatives gained strength again. And in early 2021 when a lot of Republicans, including Thune, refused to go along with Trumps stolen-election claims and insurrectionary talk, it again appeared the 45th president might drift away into irrelevance.

It sure doesnt look that way now, with Trump being the odds-on favorite for a party-backed comeback bid in 2024, with both elite and rank-and-file Republicans either embracing or tolerating his subversive and mendacious views about 2020. Even if Trump decides not to run in 2024, he has introduced and obtained mass support for an authoritarian-populist POV that repudiates traditional conservative Republican ideology on about every point other than hatred of government and its needier beneficiaries, their plutocratic economic policy leanings, and their comfort levels with racists and theocrats (not to mention racist theocrats). Susan Collins is 69 years old; its unlikely she will outlast Trumpism as the dominant point of view in her party.

Truth is, the old gang of Trump-skeptic conservatives is modest in the House and shrinking in their natural habit in the Senate:

After the retirements of G.O.P. senators including Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Rob Portman of Ohio and Roy Blunt of Missouri, Mr. Thunes departure would represent perhaps the most revealing exit yet by a mainstream Senate Republican who has grown frustrated with the capitals political environment and the former presidents loyalty demands.

Right now the Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Missouri Republican Senate primaries are Trumpier-than-thou contests that will either tilt a triumphant new Senate majority to the hard MAGA right or keep Democrats in control. Its understandable that Thune doesnt want to be responsible for wrangling these people, with Trump looking over his shoulder. And unlike Collins, he can perhaps grasp that the post-Trump era may not begin until 2028 or even later, as Trumpism maintains its hideous grip on his party. Its far past time for imagining that the man and his obnoxious and hateful world view will just go away without a vicious fight.

Daily news about the politics, business, and technology shaping our world.

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Will the Post-Trump Era Ever Actually Begin? - New York Magazine

Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said on Sunday that a reelection bid by former President TrumpDonald TrumpBill O'Reilly says Trump will run again Iran's Revolutionary Guard stages massive exercise amid heightened tensions DC police officer beaten during Jan. 6 attack resigns MORE would be "bad" for the GOP and the nation.

"Fox News Sunday" host Bret Baier asked Hogan if he believed that the Republican Party could win in 2024 with Trump as its nominee.

"I think that'd be bad for the party and bad for President Trump and bad for the country. So I don't think he's gonna run, and I would my advice be that he did not," Hogan said.

Hogan, who is currently serving his second term as governor and is barred from running for a third, was asked if he would consider running for the presidency regardless of whether Trumpruns again.

"I'm gonna be governor until Jan. 23 [2023], and then I'm going to take a look at what the options are after that," he replied.

During his interview, Hogan also touched on issues his state is dealing with, including the omicron variant of COVID-19. The Maryland governor predicted that the new variant of concernwillsoon become the dominant strain in his state.

"I would say in the next couple of days omicronis going to be the dominant variant in our state, and we are anticipating over the next three to five weeks probably the worst surge we've seen in our hospitals throughout the entire crisis," said Hogan. "But we don't expect it to last for long. We're hoping it starts to taper off fairly quickly, but we're facing a pretty rough time."

See more here:

Republican governor says Trump reelection bid would be 'bad' for GOP and US | TheHill - The Hill

no state senator, Kathy Bernier on upfront. I haven't angered all republicans. There's many republicans that agree we need to move on revealing to us this weekend. Other republicans are now privately agreed with her. This is a charade. What's going on? The republican head of the Senate elections committee calling for the Michael Gableman review of the 2020 election to come to an end. I've got numerous communications from my republican colleagues, both at the assembly and the Senate, thanking me for my bravery. It is an internal battle. Republicans will take with them into the 2022 elections. Again, these are legitimate concerns. So I think the goal, not a timeline but a goal needs to go through a process, understand what happened. U. S. Senator Ron johnson monday, a close ally to former president donald trump. So you're comfortable with where this investigation stands and the fact that it is ongoing and will continue into the new year? Well, again, I'm not part of the investigation. Do you have any concerns that the republicans who do honestly feel that the election process is not fair? And whether you say rigged or what have you, what is the concern level that some of these voters just won't show up to the polls in 2022. Hopefully everybody understands that it's extremely important that they vote. I think it's the job of the elected officials, particularly state legislature, legislature and legislators to restore that confidence. So nobody takes that attitude in Milwaukee Wi C N 12 News. Numerous reviews and audits, including from conservative groups have shown there was no widespread fraud in Wisconsin's 2020 election.

Top Wisconsin Republican: 'Many Republicans that agree we need to move on'

State Sen. Kathy Bernier is calling on GOP election review to end

Updated: 6:36 PM CST Dec 20, 2021

State Sen. Kathy Bernier said on UPFRONT Sunday other Republicans are privately backing her calls for the Michael Gableman probe of the 2020 election to come to an end. "I've gotten numerous communications from my Republican colleagues both at the Assembly and Senate thanking me for my bravery," Bernier said, the Republican who chairs the Senate elections committee. "I haven't angered all Republicans. There are many Republicans that agree we need to move on."However, not all agree. The debate among Republicans is one the party will take into the 2022 elections. "Again, these are legitimate concerns," U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said in an interview Monday about the election. "So I think the goal not a timeline but the goal needs to go through a process, understand what happened."Johnson, a close ally to former President Donald Trump, faces reelection in 2022 if he decides to seek a third term. "Hopefully everybody understands it's extremely important they vote," Johnson said when asked if he's concerned some Republicans won't show up to the polls. "I think it's the job of elected officials, particularly the state legislature and legislators to restore that confidence so nobody takes that attitude."

State Sen. Kathy Bernier said on UPFRONT Sunday other Republicans are privately backing her calls for the Michael Gableman probe of the 2020 election to come to an end.

"I've gotten numerous communications from my Republican colleagues both at the Assembly and Senate thanking me for my bravery," Bernier said, the Republican who chairs the Senate elections committee. "I haven't angered all Republicans. There are many Republicans that agree we need to move on."

However, not all agree.

The debate among Republicans is one the party will take into the 2022 elections.

"Again, these are legitimate concerns," U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said in an interview Monday about the election. "So I think the goal not a timeline but the goal needs to go through a process, understand what happened."

Johnson, a close ally to former President Donald Trump, faces reelection in 2022 if he decides to seek a third term.

"Hopefully everybody understands it's extremely important they vote," Johnson said when asked if he's concerned some Republicans won't show up to the polls. "I think it's the job of elected officials, particularly the state legislature and legislators to restore that confidence so nobody takes that attitude."

Link:

Top Wisconsin Republican: 'Many Republicans that agree we need to move on' - WISN Milwaukee

Georgia Senate President Pro Tempore Butch Miller is pushing to eliminate all absentee ballot drop boxes in the state, only months after he voted to install them.

Miller, the No. 2 Republican in the state Senate and a candidate for lieutenant governor, has introduced Senate Bill 325, which would eliminate drop boxes,a focal point among pro-Trump Republicans who ginned up unfounded fears about mail-in voting. The state's election board approved the use of drop boxes amid the pandemic last year.

"Drop boxes were introduced as an emergency measure during the pandemic but many counties did not follow the security guidelines in place, such as the requirement for camera surveillance on every drop box," Miller said in a statement. "Moving forward, we can return to a pre-pandemic normal of voting in person. Removing drop boxes will help rebuild the trust that has been lost. Many see them as the weak link when it comes to securing our elections against fraud. For the small number of Georgians who need to vote absentee, that will remain as easy and accessible as it was before 2020."

Voting rights groups accused Miller of "going all-in on the Big Lie."

"Instead of figuring out how to put together policies that will help our people, he is preemptively erecting barriers to voting a year out," Stephanie Ali,policy director at theNew Georgia Project, said in a statement, arguing that Miller's proposal shows he is "terrified" of the state's changing demographics after Republicans got swept in the last round of statewide races.

Election officials around the country have warned that proposals like Miller's will make it more difficult to vote, particularly for voters of color.

"Efforts like Sen. Miller's to remove drop boxes or place other restrictions on voting are not about election security, but part of a national coordinated attack on democracy," Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, chairwoman of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, told Salon. "Nationwide, the voter suppression proposals and laws disproportionately affect people of color and working people these are the voices extreme lawmakers are trying to suppress to tip future elections in their favor. Candidates should win by running good campaigns, not by undemocratically taking away Americans' freedoms."

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who has pushed backagainstfalse GOP election claims and Donald Trump's efforts to overturn his loss, rejected Miller's claim that every county did not have video surveillance, noting that officials had identifiedonly one irregularity:a woman who cast a ballot one minute after the deadline.

"This office and I have worked very hard on making sure we have integrity up and down the line," he told WSB-TV.

On Tuesday, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that helped the GOP write a slew of new voting restrictions, ranked Georgia No. 1 in the country on "election integrity," including the new drop boxes.

"It means that we're a leader in voter integrity and also security," Raffensperger told the news outlet.

Georgia Democrats called out Miller for pushing the proposal after he said in a recent interview that newly-arrived Georgians "need to assimilate into our values and our culture."

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"Butch Miller's proposal to blow up our elections based on lies is part of his sad, desperate attempt to win over far-right voters after Donald Trump endorsed his primary opponent," Scott Hogan, executive director of the Democratic Party of Georgia, said in a statement. "We already know Butch Miller is terrified of Georgia's diversifying electorate now, he's trying to silence the voters of color who elected Democrats last cycle by banning one of the most popular ways they chose to cast their ballots."

Just months earlier, Miller joined other Georgia Republicans in supporting Senate Bill 202, a sweeping set of voting restrictions thatcodified the use of drop boxes, even while restricting their availability. But Miller now faces an opponent endorsed by Trump, and appears intent on trying to win over Trump supporters after the former president accused him of not doing enough to try to overturn his election defeat. Repeated reviews and investigations have found no evidence of fraud or widespread irregularities in Georgia or for that matter in any other state.

"Trump's grip on the Republican Party is clear: he has made endorsing the Big Lie a litmus test for his support," Griswold said. "Now, hundreds of candidates running under the GOP banner at the county, stateand federal levels have promoted lies about the 2020 elections. We need lawmakers and election administrators who will respect voters and their decisions at the ballot box, even if they don't like the outcome. That is how democracy works."

Miller is running to replace Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican who opted not to run for re-election after spending much of the year battlingelection conspiracy theories from his own party. Duncan has said that he does not think anything should be done about drop boxes.

"I'm one of those Republicans that want more people to vote," he said earlier this year.

An analysis by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Georgia Public Broadcasting earlier this year found that heavily Democratic counties like Fulton, DeKalb, Cobband Gwinnett were far more likely to use the drop boxes than Republican areas. More than 305,000 of about 547,000 absentee ballots in the metro Atlanta area were cast using drop boxes, compared to just 32% of the absentee votes in 11 smaller countries.

"This legislation is nothing more than a last-ditch attempt to further undermine faith in the results of the 2020 election and win support with those who simply cannot accept that they lost," Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts said in a statement. "Our absentee ballot drop boxes were safe and secure three counts of the vote and monitors from the Secretary of State's office proves that."

Georgia has already restricted the use of drop boxes. Though SB 202 required each county to have at least one drop box per 100,000 active voters, they must now be located inside early voting sites and can only be accessible during early voting days and hours. Voting rights advocates accused Republicans of seeking to "limit options in the metro areas versus the rural areas" where Republicans tend to do better.

Miller's proposal comes ahead of two high-profile elections in the state next year. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., the state's first Black senator, is up for re-election and appears likely to face Trump favorite Herschel Walker, a former NFL star. Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican who has rejected Trump's election fraud claims, is set to take on Trump-endorsed former Sen. David Perdue in the GOP primary, ahead of a potential rematch with former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, who refused to concede her race in 2018 after accusing Kemp of voter suppression. Abrams has charged that Georgia Republicans' crackdown on ballot access is a "redux of Jim Crow in a suit and tie"targeting Black voters.

SB 202 is already having noticeable effects on the state's elections. Rejected absentee ballot requests rose 400% in November's municipal elections after the state imposed new restrictions, and 52% ofrejected applications were denied because they were submitted after the state's new deadline, which requiresvoters to request ballots at least 11 days before an election. State lawmakers have also used the new law to replace local election officials with their own picks, often replacing Black Democrats with white conservatives.

RELATED:"What voter suppression looks like": Rejected ballot requests up 400% after new Georgia voting law

Griswold said laws like SB 202 are part of the "worst attack on democracy in recent history." She called on Congress to pass voting rights legislation in response to the ballot access crackdown, urging the Senate to reform the filibuster because "American democracy is more important than antiquated Senate rules." While the Senate has renewed its focus on voting rights amid increasingly aggressive Republican gerrymandering, whichthreatens the DemocraticHouse majority, conservative Democrats like Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizonahave ruled out any changes to the filibuster.

"Access to the ballot box shouldn't be dependent on voters' zip code, political partyor the amount of money in their bank account. Every eligible American deserves to have their voice heard and their vote counted," Griswold said."Congress needs to do its job and pass the Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Act as soon as possible to combat this historic wave of voter suppression."

More on the fight to preserve voting rights and the GOP assault on democracy:

Read more:

Top Georgia Republican wants to ban ballot drop boxes just months after voting to install them - Salon

In deference to the increasing influence of the virtual over the real in our political discourse, I begin with the caution Sportin Life provided in Porgy and Bess: It aint necessarily so.

Superficially, the debate over what amount of state and local tax (SALT) payments ought to be deductible from federal income taxes appears to feature two surprising role reversals. Conservative Republicans are defending their 2017 decision to increase taxes on some high-income Americans, while the effort to undo this is being led by liberal Democrats.

True, the GOPs enthusiasm for increasing the revenue collected from the wealthy is largely targeted at voters in states that vote Democratic, and their 2017 law more than offset whatever increase falls on most of their supporters with other, larger reductions.

Even with this political selectivity, however, there still seems a big disconnect between the Republican article of faith that tax increases mean GDP decreases and their insistence on requiring greater contributions to the IRS from those who work in businesses where America's global standing is highest: technology and intellectual property (California) biomedical research (Massachusetts) Finance (New York) pharmaceuticals (New Jersey).

But looking at this issue in the broader context of American politics makes clear that this is not an exception to the ideological division over the role that the government should play in our economy. It is instead not just an affirmation of it, but an indication of how visceral it has become.

For the right, ideological consistency is no match for the passionate desire to own the libs.

What is on display here is the depth of conservative determination to diminish the resources we devote to public purposes in this instance by inflicting pain on those who take the opposite view.

That is why the Republican success in fully assessing residents of high-tax states for income that they do not retain but automatically pass on to their sub-federal governments is a significant victory in their anti-tax crusade.

Understanding this requires paying attention to an often overlooked but very significant factor in American politics: the contemporary tug-of-war between the states.

Driven both by self-interest in expanding their economic footprint and the need to prove that liberal policies are bad for business, Republican governors and legislators not only try to keep taxes low, obstruct the growth of labor unions, and minimize rules that protect the environment, they vigorously advertise these results to the people who decide where enterprises are located.

An example of the strength of this motivation that has received far too little attention is how then-Sen. Bob CorkerRobert (Bob) Phillips CorkerRepublicans, ideology, and demise of the state and local tax deduction Cheney set to be face of anti-Trump GOP How leaving Afghanistan cancels our post-9/11 use of force MORE helped defeat an organizing drive by the workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn. Worried by the companys expression of support for the drive, Corker and other Tennessee Republicans threatened that if the union drive succeeded, a proposed package of financial aid for the plant's expansion would be withdrawn. Asked why they opposed the union that the employers favored, Corker indicated that if the union won, there would be upward pressure on wages throughout the area, which in turn would make it harder for Tennessee to persuade businesses to leave places where workers were better paid.

Not only does the same logic apply to differentials in the level of public spending among the states, the Republican advocacy of higher taxation in this case creates a win-win situation for the right. If New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, California et. al. do not cut their high-end rates, the siren song of the low-tax states will continue to resonate more loudly.

The evidence that the personal preferences of top executives have an influence on business location decisions lends weight to this rationale.

Alternately, if that pressure does produce a lowering of the revenue demands made by those more liberal states, anti-tax crusaders will sing a different but equally triumphant tune: They will cite this to counter the inconvenient fact that high state taxes are fully compatible with strong economic performance.

Republicans should not get this chance to chip away at one of their major philosophical disadvantages.

Two caveats are in order. One, there are principled advocates of tax fairness like Bernie SandersBernie SandersEquilibrium/Sustainability Underground abortion network links to Mexico The Hill's 12:30 Report: Manchin explains BBB opposition, slams Dems Republicans, ideology, and demise of the state and local tax deduction MORE (I-Vt.) who oppose the state and local deduction on legitimate ideological grounds. I believe that the imperative of supporting rather than punishing electorates that support higher levels of public spending outweighs the equity argument, but I recognize its sincerity.Second, I note that Jim and I are beneficiaries of the division as Maine residents but I amprepared to supply a list of the parts of the tax code that I support which are unfavorable to me.

In summary, the central issue in this debate is whether or not you think the willingness of voters in some states to tax themselves more highly than do their neighbors ought to be discouraged. Remember we are talking here about a tax deduction, not a credit. Wealthy citizens of New Jersey, New York, California, and Massachusetts who chose not to move to low tax areas were paying more of their income to support what they believed to be the appropriate level of public services before the deduction was significantly reduced, as they will be if it is fully reported.

What Republicans included in the 2017 tax bill to penalize high-tax jurisdictions was an integral part of their war against the public sector, under the banner of Ronald Reagans pronouncement that government is the problem.

Those of us who recognize that this view is a threat to our quality of life need not apologize for opposing what is and is meant to be a disincentive to those willing to pay higher state and local taxes to fund a sufficient level of public goods.

Barney FrankrepresentedMassachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives for 16 terms (1981-2013) and was chairmanof the House Financial Services Committee from 2007 to 2011.

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Republicans, ideology, and demise of the state and local tax deduction | TheHill - The Hill

From the moment that Donald Trump first ran for president in 2015, there's been a longing from not just the mainstream media, but from large numbers of Democrats for Republican heroes who will stand up to him. The tiny percentage of almost entirely elite Republicans who objected to Trumpbecame known as "never-Trumpers" and were exalted in #Resistance circles as patriots and heroes, even though their actual power over the GOP was non-existent. They existed more to prop up this illusion that the Republican Partywas once an upstanding party, and that it's only after the advent of Trump that the GOP lost its way.

"I say to my Republican friends, take back your party. The country needs a big, strong Republican Party,"Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, embodyingthis type of thinking, remarked in September.Pelosi is right in one respect: Democracy can't endure when only one party feels constrained by the demands of basic morality. But the premise of her remarks was rotten in multiple ways.

For one thing, there is no better form of the Republican Party to "take back." The GOP hasbeen the party of Richard Nixon and JoeMcCarthy for longer than most Americans have been alive. Trump's mentor,infamously sleazy lawyer Roy Cohn, was influential in Ronald Reagan's administration, at least until he was disbarred and died of AIDS. Reagan's race-baiting, you'll recall,was hardly more subtle than Trump's. And before Trump's Big Lie, we had George W. Bush's "WMDs in Iraq." Jonah Goldberg may play at being the upright conservative now, but he only came up in GOP politics because his mother was involved in destroying the life of a young Monica Lewinsky. The fantasy of the "good Republican" relies on ignoring literal decades of actual Republican behavior.

In 2021, no one more illustratedthis gulf between the fantasy of the heroic Republican and the actual scumminess of the GOP than Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

RELATED:Never forget that Liz Cheney helped produce Trumpism and could be worse in the long run

The daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney has made a name for herself with MSBNC viewers in the past year by refusing to back down from her vocal outrage over Trump inciting a violent insurrection on January 6. For that,she now stands out from thevast majority of her party, which has reorganizedto cover for Trump and lay the groundwork for his 2024 coup effort to succeed. She most recently made headlines when, as part of her duties for the Jan.6 committee, she dramatically readtext messages sent from Fox News hosts to Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows. The texts proved the hosts knew Trump was responsible for the riot, even as they pretended otherwise on-air.

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But while that was a jolly good time that embarrassed the liars at Fox News, no one should be confused about why Cheney is doing what she's doing. Her objections to Trump and his insurrection aren't rooted in any real interest in saving democracy. On the contrary, her anger is clearly more aesethetic than substantive. She and her family were served well by the old school of GOP politics, which were thoroughly corrupt, but kept the appearance of sleaze at arm's length by making sure the unkempt massesknew their place. It's one thing to get the votes ofthe doughy redhats with bad facial hair by throwing them red meat from behind a podium. It's another thing entirely when the animals are running through the Capitol, breaking things and leaving behind the odor of marijuana smoke and smeared feces.

RELATED:Beware Liz Cheney 2024: If you think that's a big improvement on Trump, think again

It's not just that her father was one of the architects of the original big lie, the "WMDs in Iraq" nonsense that was produced to justify the unjustifiable invasion of Iraq. Until Trump tried to overtly steal the 2020 election, Cheney stood by her man through thick and thin. She voted with Trump 93% of the time during his four years in office. When Trump attempted to blackmail the Ukrainian president into falsifying evidence for an anti-Biden conspiracy theory in 2019, Cheney refused to vote to impeach him. She alsojoins in with every Fox News smear of Democrats, showing that she's fully committed to the GOP's long-standing habit of resorting to dirty tricks.

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Most importantly, Cheney opposes voting rights. She supported the long line of Trump judges that were being installed in order to gut the Voting Rights Act. Even after she became an outspoken Trump critic, she vehemently refused to back any kind of legislation to prevent the ongoing state-level efforts by Republicans to make sure Trump's next coup is more effective. She doesn't take issue with Republicans trying to wind down democracy or steal elections. She just wants to put a gloss of respectability on the process. A paperwork coup, where power is obtained by preventing people from voting and by corrupting the election systems, is just fine by Cheney. What grossed her out was the way Trump and his allies kept doing obvious coup-stuff on camera.

It's understandable that so many Democrats want there to be a better Republican Party. Democracies are better when they're competitive. One only has to look at the debacle of Andrew Cuomo's tenure as New York's governor to see the decay that sets into even left-leaning parties when there's no real electoral competition. But it's important not to confuse what Democrats want a healthy democracy with what the handful of never-Trump Republicans like Cheney want. What Cheney wants isn't a healthy democracy or a better GOP. She just wants a return to the old days, when Republican corruption was better-dressed anddidn't involve being photographedkow-towing to an embarrassment like Trump. Sorry Liz, wanting classier D.C. cocktail parties is not the same thing as wanting a functioning democracy.

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Liz Cheney: Not the Republican hero that we needed in 2021 - Salon