Category Archives: Democrat

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) expressed openness to lowering the income limits for families to access the expanded child tax credit if it helps win Sen. Joe ManchinJoe ManchinPelosi sidesteps progressives' March 1 deadline for Build Back Better On The Money Fed's inflation tracker at fastest pace since '82 Billionaire GOP donor maxed out to Manchin following his Build Back Better opposition MOREs (D-W.Va.) support for the partys sweeping climate and socialspending bill.

Clyburn said in an interview withThe Washington Post on Thursday that he thinks Democrats still have wiggle room with getting Manchin on board with a party-backed expansion to the child tax credit after its recent lapse.

The No. 3 House Democratsaid Manchin has made it very clear that he has concerns about the structure of the expansion, but Clyburn said he doesnt think the West Virginia senator is entirely opposed to the credit.

He wanted to see it means-tested. I'm not opposed to that, Clyburn said, adding he would like to see Manchin come forward with a bill for the child tax credit thats means-tested.

I think it would pass. Hed get it through the Senate. I think we could get it through the House, Clyburn continued, adding he thinks theres a lot in Build Back Better that he says hes for so, lets do that.

Democrats have been working for months to make changes to and scale down the partys Build Back Better Act, in large part to try to get support from Manchin, a key centrist holdout.

Democrats hope to pass the bill,a legislative priority for President BidenJoe BidenFormer chairman of Wisconsin GOP party signals he will comply with Jan. 6 committee subpoena Romney tests positive for coronavirus Pelosi sidesteps progressives' March 1 deadline for Build Back Better MORE, using a complex procedure known as budget reconciliation thatwould allow them to greenlight the package in an evenly split Senate with a simple majority.

But, with Republicansuniformly opposed to the bill, Senate Democrats would need total support from their caucus to pass the measure, giving Manchin significant influence over the shaping of the legislation.

In an interview on Thursday morning, Manchinsignaled that he is stillopen to participate in negotiations around the spending plan and the expanded child tax credit, but added he thinks means testing will ensure it is targeted to those most in need.

Everyone thinks the child tax credit has gone away. The child tax credits still there, the $2,000 child tax credit is still there, and we're going to make sure that we can help, continue to help those in need, Manchin toldWest Virginia MetroNews's Hoppy Kercheval.

I want to target West Virginians basically to make $75,000 or less should be the highest priority we have. They have it up to $200,000 for an individual and $400,000 for families. That's a lot of money, headded,after expressing concerns about inflation earlier in the interview.

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Top House Democrat open to lower income caps for child tax credit to win over Manchin | TheHill - The Hill

Fox News host Dan Bongino issued a warning on Saturday's "Unfiltered," saying Democrats are "obsessed" with tearing down "family and religion."

DAN BONGINO: You ever noticed that every time the Democrats have a crisis, the fix they propose always seems to attack our pillars of Western culture? It's all part of what they call the "Great Reset." Folks, the left can't stand conservatives. They hate what we stand for. They hate that this country is built on objective truths. They hate that God-given rights exist, but you already know that. The answer is why do they hate these things? And it's found in what they call the "Great Reset." It's because you are in their way.

So what's the "Great Reset"? The World Economic Forum is a globalist organization of self-professed elites. The founder and chairman is Klaus Schwab, who literally wrote the book "COVID 19: The Great Reset" and made it a focal point of his summit in Switzerland in 2020. You want to read up on the "Great Reset"? There's an entire page on their website dedicated to how they want to start over with year zero.

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Dan Bongino: Democrats are obsessed with tearing down values - Fox News

WASHINGTON It was a testament to the breakdown of the Senates judicial confirmation machinery that the first question posed by many this past week regarding an upcoming Supreme Court vacancy was whether Democrats could install a new justice entirely on their own.

The answer is yes, if the party sticks together. And the prospect of President Bidens eventual nominee receiving only Democratic votes is hardly far-fetched, given the bitter history of recent confirmation fights for the high court.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the last member of the court confirmed by the Senate, did not receive a single Democratic vote. But Republicans held a 53-to-47 advantage and could afford to lose a colleague or two in ramming through her nomination just before the presidential election in 2020.

With their bare-minimum 50-seat majority, Democrats will not have that luxury after Mr. Biden nominates the first Black woman for the court sometime in the next few weeks. Considering the toxic partisan atmosphere surrounding contemporary Supreme Court fights, it is conceivable she could make history not only because of her gender and race, but also as the first person elevated to the court by a tiebreaking vote of the vice president.

It would be a far cry from the simple voice-vote approval of many of her predecessors as recently as the 1960s. Or the 98-to-0 confirmation of Justice Antonin Scalia, a leading judicial conservative, in 1986. Or even the 87-to-9 vote in 1994 for Justice Stephen G. Breyer, a member of the courts liberal wing, who announced on Thursday that he would step down after nearly three decades.

The decline in consensus Supreme Court confirmations has been precipitous, and the escalation of partisan warfare has been sharp.

Deep bitterness lingers over the Democratic assault on Robert H. Bork in 1987; the routine deployment of filibusters against judicial nominees of both parties beginning during the administration of President George W. Bush; the Republican blockade of Judge Merrick B. Garland in 2016; the tumultuous confirmation of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh in 2018; and the hardball Republican move to rush Justice Barrett onto the court two years later.

With the Supreme Court deciding so many of the most polarizing issues of the day including abortion rights and affirmative action neither side is willing to cede much ground, and both display their battle scars.

It is a sad commentary on the nomination process that it has so disintegrated over the years, said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, one of the handful of Republicans considered to be in play as potential backers of Mr. Bidens pick. If you look at the incredibly strong vote by which Stephen Breyer was confirmed, you just dont see it nowadays.

Democrats would dearly like to avoid a skin-of-the-teeth party-line vote for whomever Mr. Biden puts forward. One of the first calls made by Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was to Ms. Collins, promising her whatever material and assistance he could provide to help her evaluate the forthcoming nominee.

Democrats also hope the fact that Mr. Bidens pick would replace a liberal justice and not tip the ideological balance of the firmly conservative court and the fact that she will be an African American woman will deter Republicans from a scorched-earth campaign when their odds of winning are low.

But while Republicans are promising an open-minded review of the nominee, hard feelings over the earlier confirmation clashes, such as Justice Kavanaughs fight against sexual assault allegations, are never far from the surface.

Whoever the president nominates will be treated fairly and with the dignity and respect someone of his or her caliber deserves, something not afforded to Justice Kavanaugh and other Republican nominees of the past, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a senior Republican member of the Judiciary Committee, said in response to Justice Breyers retirement.

Besides Ms. Collins, another Republican who will be the focus of Democratic attention is Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a frequent supporter of judicial nominees of Democratic presidents and the only Republican to oppose Justice Kavanaugh.

Ms. Murkowski is running for re-election this year under a new ranked-choice voting system back home. She is already opposed by a hard-right conservative vigorously backed by former President Donald J. Trump, who is furious at Ms. Murkowski for voting to convict him at his impeachment trial following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Siding with Mr. Bidens choice for the court could help her attract the Democratic and independent voters she could need to prevail under the new election rules in her state.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has also deferred to Democratic presidents in the past and voted for justices and lower-court judges they put forward.

Last year, Mr. Graham, Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski were the only three Republicans to back Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, a front-runner to succeed Justice Breyer, for a seat on the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Supporting someone for a circuit court seat is no guarantee of supporting that same person for the Supreme Court. However, backing someone for the high court after opposing that person for a lower court would be harder to reconcile, making it unlikely that any of the 44 Republicans who opposed Judge Jackson would reverse course and support her now. All were well aware at the time that she was a future high court prospect. Three Republicans were absent.

Mr. Biden could also select Judge J. Michelle Childs of Federal District Court in South Carolina, who has been strongly endorsed by Representative James E. Clyburn, a powerful lawmaker from that state and the No. 3 House Democrat. If Judge Childs is the presidents pick, Mr. Graham and South Carolinas other Republican senator, Tim Scott, could face pressure to back her.

But home-state allegiance is no guarantee. Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, opposed the Supreme Court nomination of Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a Colorado native, even though the senator introduced him at his confirmation hearing.

Justice Gorsuchs case is instructive. Though very conservative, he was the sort of highly experienced, pedigreed and qualified candidate a Republican president could have put forward in the past with the expectation that he would receive a strong show of support in the Senate despite ideological differences.

But since Justice Gorsuch was filling the seat held open by the nearly yearlong blockade of Judge Garland and had been nominated by Mr. Trump, most Democrats balked. Just three voted for his confirmation. Only one, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, remains in the Senate; he was also the sole Democrat to vote for Justice Kavanaugh.

Another potential nominee with a Senate voting history is Judge Wilhelmina M. Wright of Federal District Court in Minnesota, who was confirmed on a 58-to-36 vote in 2016. Thirteen Republicans voted for her, and five of them remain in the Senate today, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader. But a vote for a district court nominee does not equate to a vote to place a person on the highest court.

Even before the nominee is known, it is clear the outcome in the Senate is most likely to be highly partisan, with the candidate receiving a few Republican votes at best and perhaps none at all. For a country torn apart by partisanship and a court struggling with its image and credibility, that is far from an ideal outcome.

I really think it would be harmful to the country to have a repeat of what we saw with the last two nominees being so narrowly confirmed, Ms. Collins said. I just dont think that is good for the country, nor the court.

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Bitterness From Supreme Court Fights Hangs Over Coming Nomination - The New York Times

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greenewho has been stripped of her House committee assignments for writing inflammatory social-media posts, thrown off Twitter for spreading COVID-19 misinformation, and fined more than eighty thousand dollars for violating House rules on masksis facing a primary challenge. Three Republicans are running against her for the Party nomination in Georgias Fourteenth Congressional District, in the northwest corner of the state. The most serious of these challengers, it seems, is Jennifer Strahan, a health-care executive who has tried to portray herself as right-wing, just not loony right-wing. Strahan claims to be uniting conservatives who want a congresswoman who can accomplish something other than managing to embarrass the Republican Party and the entire state of Georgia.

A poll released last week suggested that Strahan might have a shot at beating Greeneif, that is, she gets a lot of help. The poll, conducted by a firm called TargetPoint, was designed to test anti-Greene messages. Respondents were asked, for example, whether theyd be more or less likely to vote for Greene after hearing that she had called the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Connecticut, and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, false flag operations. (The Web site Jewish Insider, which first obtained the poll, reported that it was financed not by the Strahan campaign but by a group of anti-Greene Georgia Republicans.) By the time respondents had been informed of some of Greenes most outrageous positions, including her claim that 9/11 was a hoax, she and Strahan were roughly even. Meanwhile, when respondents who said that they were planning to vote in the Democratic primary were asked whether they would consider, instead, voting for Greenes opponent, in order to hold Marjorie Taylor Greene accountable, all of them said yes.

Georgia is an open-primary state, meaning that voters can choose which partys primary they want to participate in. (Voters in Georgia do not register with a party.) Thus, some of Strahans help could come from people who disagree with her and have no intention of casting a ballot for her in November. All of this raises the question: Should it?

Crossover voting, as its known, has an unfortunate reputation. Usually, when its been advocated for, this has been done with the intention of undermining the opposition. In March, 2008, for example, the conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh launched what he called Operation Chaos. At that point, John McCain had already clinched the Republican Presidential nomination, and Barack Obama was leading in the race for the Democratic nomination. Limbaugh urged his listeners to vote for Hillary Clinton, to prolong the Democratic contest. In Indiana, an open-primary state, it seems that Limbaugh was either effective or else served as a convenient excuse, because the Obama campaign blamed crossover voters, at least in part, for Clintons victory in that states May primary.

Twelve years later, in South Carolina, another open-primary state, several G.O.P. politicians urged Republicans to cross over and cast their ballots for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Presidential primary. They, too, dubbed their campaign Operation Chaos. The Greenville News reported that conservative political groups were calling on Republicans to vote for the worst Democrat. We dont see this as in any way improper or underhanded because were being very open about it, Stephen Brown, the former chairman of the Greenville County Republican Party, said at the time. (Whatever the impact of the effort, Joe Biden won the South Carolina primary by a wide margin.)

Voting for the worst candidate in order to sow chaos is, for obvious reasons, a bad idea. Universalized, such conduct wouldor, at least, couldlead both parties to nominate extremists and incompetents. But what about voting for the least worst candidate in an effort to save the Republic? This would seem to fall into a different ethical category. As John Stuart Mill put it, in Utilitarianism, The morality of the action depends entirely upon the intention.

Because Republicans are nominating extremists, Democrats could engage in crossover voting with the very best of intentions. In Greenes district, they could vote for Strahan in the hope of defeating a dangerous conspiracy monger. Were G.O.P. voters in blue-leaning districts to do the sameto engage in what might be called principled crossover votingthey would end up voting for the most centrist candidates in Democratic primaries. If that happened, its hard to see how the country would be worse off than it is now.

The lines for Greenes district have recently been redrawn in such a way as to render it slightly less red. (Greene has blasted the new lines, calling them a fools errand that was led by power-obsessed state legislators.) Still, the district leans heavily Republican, and whoever wins the G.O.P. nomination will, almost certainly, head to Washington. Indeed, Democrats in the district are such a minority that its not even clear they could swing a primary. But, it could be argued, they have an obligation to try.

Why Republicans keep electing politicians like Greene is a question that will occupy historians and political scientists for decades. Part of the reason, though, would seem to be structural. In safe red districts, which sophisticated gerrymandering is producing more and more of, the only campaigns that matter are primary campaigns, and voters who turn out for primaries tend to be the most politically committed. (James Huntwork, a Republican election-law expert, once described the primary-campaign dynamic in a lopsided district as a race between one candidate who says, I am completely crazy! and another who claims, I am even crazier than you!)

In total, fifteen states hold open primaries. These include Michigan, where Representative Peter Meijer, who was one of ten House Republicans to vote for Donald Trumps second impeachment, is facing a primary challenge from a former Trump staffer, John Gibbs, who is perhaps best known for claiming, in 2016, that Hillary Clintons campaign chairman, John Podesta, was a satanist. (Asked whether he regretted his rhetoric, Gibbs said, I regret that its unfortunately become an issue.) Nine other states allow unaffiliated voters to participate in either partys primary. These include Colorado, where Greenes ally Representative Lauren Boebert is facing a primary challenge from State Senator Don Coram, whos considered a moderate. (Boebert has repeatedly been criticized for anti-Muslim remarks; most recently, she is reported to have asked a group of Orthodox Jews visiting the Capitol whether they were there to conduct reconnaissance.) The lines for Boeberts district, too, have been redrawn, and it is considered a safe Republican seat. But unaffiliated voters in the district outnumber both registered Democrats and Republicans, so they, presumably, could decide the races outcome. Lets hope they turn out for the G.O.P. primary, because right now leaving the future of the Republican Party to Republicans seems way too risky.

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Should Democratic Primary Voters Help Save the G.O.P. from Itself? - The New Yorker

When it comes to elections, the Republican Party operates within a carapace of lies. So we rely on the Democrats to preserve our system of government.

The problem is that Democrats live within their own insular echo chamber. Within that bubble convenient falsehoods spread, go unchallenged and make it harder to focus on the real crisis. So lets clear away some of these myths that are distorting Democratic behavior:

The whole electoral system is in crisis. Elections have three phases: registering and casting votes, counting votes and certifying results. When it comes to the first two phases, the American system has its flaws but is not in crisis. As Yuval Levin noted in The Times a few days ago, its become much easier in most places to register and vote than it was years ago. We just had a 2020 election with remarkably high turnout. The votes were counted with essentially zero fraud.

The emergency is in the third phase Republican efforts to overturn votes that have been counted. But Democratic voting bills the For the People Act and its update, the Freedom to Vote Act were not overhauled to address the threats that have been blindingly obvious since Jan. 6 last year. They are sprawling measures covering everything from mail-in ballots to campaign finance. They basically include every idea thats been on activist agendas for years.

These bills are hard to explain and hard to pass. By catering to D.C. interest groups, Democrats have spent a year distracting themselves from the emergency right in front of us.

Voter suppression efforts are a major threat to democracy. Given the racial history of this country, efforts to limit voting, as some states have been implementing, are heinous. I get why Democrats want to repel them. But this, too, is not the major crisis facing us. Thats because tighter voting laws often dont actually restrict voting all that much. Academics have studied this extensively. A recent well-researched study suggested that voter ID laws do not reduce turnout. States tighten or loosen their voting laws, often seemingly without a big effect on turnout. The general rule is that people who want to vote end up voting.

Just as many efforts to limit the electorate dont have much of an effect, the Democratic bills to make it easier to vote might not have much impact on turnout or on which party wins. As my Times colleague Nate Cohn wrote last April, Expanding voting options to make it more convenient hasnt seemed to have a huge effect on turnout or electoral outcomes. Thats the finding of decades of political science research on advance, early and absentee voting.

Higher turnout helps Democrats. This popular assumption is also false. Political scientists Daron R. Shaw and John R. Petrocik, authors of The Turnout Myth, looked at 70 years of election data and found no evidence that turnout is correlated with partisan vote choice.

The best way to address the crisis is top down. Democrats have focused their energies in Washington, trying to pass these big bills. The bills would override state laws and dictate a lot of election procedures from the national level.

Given how local Republicans are behaving, I understand why Democrats want to centralize things. But its a little weird to be arguing that in order to save democracy we have to take power away from local elected officials. Plus, if you tell local people theyre not fit to govern themselves, youre going to further inflame the populist backlash.

But the real problem is that Democrats are not focusing on crucial state and local arenas. The Timess Charles Homans had a fascinating report from Pennsylvania, where Trump backers were running for local office, including judge of elections, while Democrats struggled to even find candidates. Im not sure what the Democratic Party was worried about, but it didnt feel like they were worried about school board and judge of elections races all of these little positions, a failed Democratic candidate said.

Democrats do not seem to be fighting hard in key local races. They do not seem to be rallying the masses so that state legislators pay a price if they support democracy-weakening legislation.

Maybe some of the energy that has been spent over the past year analyzing and berating Joe Manchin could have been better spent grooming and supporting good state and local candidates. Maybe the best way to repulse a populist uprising is not by firing up all your allies in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C.

The crisis of democracy is right in front of us. We have a massive populist mob that thinks the country is now controlled by a coastal progressive oligarchy that looks down on them. Were caught in cycles of polarization that threaten to turn America into Northern Ireland during the Troubles. We have Republican hacks taking power away from the brave state officials who stood up to Trumpian bullying after the 2020 election.

Democrats have spent too much time on measures that they mistakenly think would give them an advantage. The right response would be: Do the unsexy work at the local level, where things are in flux. Pass the parts of the Freedom to Vote Act that are germane, like the protections for elections officials against partisan removal, and measures to limit purging voter rolls. Reform the Electoral Count Act to prevent Congress from derailing election certifications.

When your house is on fire, drop what you were doing, and put it out. Maybe finally Democrats will do that.

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Opinion | Democrats Are Failing to Defend Democracy - The New York Times

At an open-air event space beside a craft brewery in east Fort Worth, a hip indie-rock guitarist introduces the leading Democratic candidate for Texas governor. Whos excited to see Beto? he asks from the stage, pronouncing the Spanish moniker Bay-toe. In the spread-out crowd of a few hundred, a handful proclaim their excitement. The guitarist then asks if the crowd has heard of Foss, a defunct lo-fi punk group. That was Betos band back in El Paso, he clarifies, before admiringly describing an old photo of said band in which ORourke wore a dress. But, yeah, this next ones for you, Beto.

Im tempted to check the date on my phone. Might I, somewhere on my drive up from Austin, have passed through a portal to 2018?

More attendees trickle in. Many are being shuttled from a downtown parking area, safely past a couple square blocks of homeless camps, to arrive at the brewery. As the December sun sets, a campaign staffer announces ORourke will speak later than planned. The first band retires and is replaced by a DJ, who leads with top 40 standbys and hip-hop airhorns. The response is polite; then, he strikes gold. Just a small town girl, the song begins, and the crowd tightens. Millennial and middle-aged alike, in black Beto t-shirts, begin to sing. Fifteen minutes later, the DJ throws caution to the wind and plays the song a second time. If theres one thing this crowd doesnt want to stop, its believing.

ORourke, who rose to fame with a near-successful bid to topple Senator Ted Cruz four years ago, looks headed for another defeat. Polls show him trailing by as much as 15 points against Texas Republican incumbent Governor Greg Abbott, who thrashed his two prior Democratic opponents and sits on a $55 million warchest. Unlike in 2018, when ORourke rode a backlash to President Trump, he now stares down a projected red wave. After a quixotic 2020 run for president, hes alienated swing voters. His Democratic base may still adore him, but in Texas, thats not enough.

In Fort Worth, ORourkes arrival can be felt as a ripple through the throng. Weaving his way through the crowd, he bounds up to a raised platform. As ever, hes lithe and lanky, his smile all teeth; as always, hes wearing a light-blue button-up shirt. Following a few paeans to local attractions, he launches into whats become his stump speecha careful litany of issues he hopes can become wedges.

He first addresses the February freeze and electric grid failure that killed hundreds of Texans, blaming Abbott for failing to prepare and being beholden to energy CEOs. Hereas he summons memories of the ordinary Texans who provided one another shelter, food, and water during the crisishe makes his unity pitch.

We put our differences behind us, we said no me importa, I do not care, if youre a Republican or a Democrat, who you love, who you pray to never mind the divisions, the differences by which they seek to divide us, ORourke says. Folks, imagine if we had a governor who felt the same way.

He then cycles through some of the reactionary laws that Governor Abbott signed this year, particularly those that poll poorly. He touches on Senate Bill 1, the voting crackdown that House Democrats staged a walkout over last last summer, and Senate Bill 8, the measure thats placed a $10,000 bounty on nearly any Texan who provides or helps someone secure an abortion. He condemns the firearms legislation that now lets most Texans carry handguns without training or permitsa measure Abbott signed over objections from many police chiefs. ORourke, who once spoke favorably of defunding the police, now says simply: You and I, we trust law enforcement, and were listening to them.

An El Paso resident who formerly represented the border city in Congress, ORourke in prior campaigns spoke with power and eloquence in favor of immigrants and against policies like building a border wall. In Fort Worth, and other recent stops, he leaves those topics essentially untouched. The polling here is daunting for Dems.

He closes with a pun: Unlike Abbott, ORourke will keep the power on, and he knows the true power of Texas is in the people around us.

The crowd transforms into a snaking selfie line. Faces light up; this, it seems, is the main event. With each supporter, he shakes hands or hugs, he leans in, he brims with attentiveness. You cant miss it: They love him. Watching dozens get their moment with ORourke, its almost enough to stir something in a heart laden with political polls and past disappointments. One can almost catch a sudden scent on the wind. Wine, perhaps, or cheap perfume.

What was it that made Beto magic?

In early 2017, just a couple months after Trump took office and a year and a half before the next election, ORourke announced his run against Ted Cruz on a shaky handheld livestream. The Texas Democrats had seen their last statewide star, Wendy Davis, crushed in the 2014 governors race. The going wisdom was that Davis, or one of San Antonios Castro twins, would eventually snap the partys nearly three-decade statewide losing streakif not this year, then soon. Instead, those rising stars rose until they winked out of sight. And there was ORourke, campaigning like a man on fire.

There he was, racing in his pickup to rural towns no rational Democrat would visit and delivering supplies amid Hurricane Harvey. There he was jogging, losing his phone, getting a haircut. Everything was live-streamed. No one recruited the little-known congressman from the Mountain Time Zone to do this; he recruited himself. Yet somehow he didnt come off as arrogant. The Trump-era had filled the air with an urgency matched by his energy. As Christopher Hooks wrote for this magazine at the time: Nothing this year feels good, but this does, and that can have a power of its own.

Ideologically, ORourke was fuzzy in a smart way. Like Bernie Sanders, he swore off PAC money, and his volunteer apparatus was modeled on Sanders 2016 presidential run. He even flirted with Medicare for All. But ORourke never fully anchored himself to the policy positions that were rending the party between progressives and moderates. Ultimately, he was more of a good vibes guy. Soon, the money flowed in by the millions.

Election night was a drama in two parts: promising early returns for ORourke driven by suburban support followed by a red tsunami from rural Texas where, it seems, ORourke had wasted his breath. Cruz won by 2.6 points. Even sky-high voter turnout, Donald Trump in the White House, and record-shattering fundraising hadnt been enough. But, unlike in 2014, there was a bright side: ORourke had fuelled down-ballot liberal wins. The Dems flipped two U.S. House seats, 12 state House seats, 2 state Senate seats, and locked in control of Harris County.

From there, as has been well-documented, ORourke went off the rails. Rather than stay home to prep another Senate run in 2020, he launched a doomed bid for the White House. In a bid for relevance, he staked out hard-left positionsnot on popular issues like education and healthcare, but on mandatory gun buybacks and revoking churches tax status. En route to an early flameout, he burned credibility with fence-sitters and ticket-splitters.

On the eve of the Texas primary, he veered back to the center, joining a political blitz to stop Sanders and prop up Joe Biden, a move that earned the ire of former 2018 campaign staffers. Ideological fuzziness, at last, looked more like a lack of principles. Meanwhile, in his absence, a scrum of little-known Democrats duked it out for the chance to lose to Senator John Cornyn.

For the last year and a half, ORourkes been on something of an atonement tour, one heavy on good intentions and light on success. ORourke threw his weight behind the Democratic effort to flip the state House in 2020, and he publicly pressed the Biden campaign to invest more in Texas. These efforts bore no fruit: The Dems flipped zero state House seats, the Senate candidate was drubbed, and Biden lost ground in crucial South Texas. Finally, while postponing his announcement for governor this year, ORourke focused on supporting the state lawmakers who fled to D.C. to stymie the GOPs voting crackdown and push Congress to pass election protections. The anti-voting bill passed in August; Congress did not intervene.

ORourke could delay his gubernatorial announcement, which he made in November, because no other serious candidate was going to run. The once-unheralded El Pasoan who muscled aside the state partys supposed stars had become the supposed star.

Dutifully, ORourkes accepted his part, trotting his charisma around a state that already seems to know him too well: Hes almost universally recognized and more disliked than liked. He does so under the weight of a Democratic president sinking in the polls. And, thanks to Texas Dems 2020 failure, down-ballot races are set to be run on maps freshly gerrymandered by the Republican Legislature: If ORourke still has coattails, there may be nobody in competitive races to ride them.

Texas Democrats are expert conjurers of silver linings. If nothing else, theres always the comfort of playing the noble loser. But who gets healthcare or gets to vote, who survives childhood without legal discrimination or the trauma of school shootings, hinges not on the virtue of the loser.

Somewhere along the way in 2018, ORourkes run broke the mold: Even cynical observers couldnt predict the plot, foresee the final act, anticipate the lines. Now, its hard to shake the feeling that were all back on-script.

In a November interview with Texas Monthly, ORourke answered a question about his troubling poll numbers. I dont think this will be much of a campaign if its about me, he said. I think it really has to be about Texas. It has to be about all of us.

The day after his Fort Worth rally, hes at a historic park ringed with sprawling Live Oaks in downtown Austin. The crowds bigger here, about 1,000 people. The supporters section band for the citys soccer team, a brass and drum outfit, hypes the crowd with upbeat tunes and lyrics that go roughly: Beto, Beto, Betooooo, Beto, Beto.

Around the block, someone drives a truck with a bright-red Abbott ad on the side. It shows Bidens face morphing into ORourkes with alternating messages: Wrong for America, Wrong for Texas.

State Representative Gina Hinojosa introduces him this time. She details ORourkes fundraising for House Dems failed voting rights walkout. Then ORourke takes the stage. He gives essentially the same speech as the night before, with the same high notes and jokes and sprinkles of Spanish. He reaches his closing pun in about 15 minutes. Were going to ensure that we elect a governor who will always keep the lights on and who understands the real power in Texas is the people of this state, he says. Be good to one another. Adis. Buenas noches. Adis.

Cue the selfie line.

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Is Beto Just Another Doomed Texas Democrat? - The Texas Observer

Charlie Bailey's decision gives state Sen. Jen Jordan a clear path to the Democratic nomination for attorney general. Bob Andres / bandres@ajc.com

Charlie Bailey's decision gives state Sen. Jen Jordan a clear path to the Democratic nomination for attorney general. Bob Andres / bandres@ajc.com

The Democratic contenders include state Rep. Erick Allen of Smyrna; state Rep. Derrick Jackson of Tyrone; Bryan Miller, grandson of former Gov. Zell Miller; and state Rep. Renitta Shannon of Decatur.

Bailey enters the contest with powerful backers. Former Gov. Roy Barnes and U.S. Reps. Lucy McBath and Hank Johnson both endorsed Bailey in tandem with his announcement. So did DuBose Porter, the former Democratic Party of Georgia chairman.

Porter was among the Democrats who appealed to Bailey to switch races. He said Baileys background as a protg of former Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor and a veteran prosecutor would round out a ticket led by Stacey Abrams and U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock.

He was a great candidate in 2018 and he brought so much to the ticket. He has a unique background that would be a perfect fit policy-wise in contrast with those running on the Republican side, Porter said. This is someone who has prosecuted cases but also defended civil rights.

Bailey captured about 48.7% of the vote in 2018 when he was defeated by Carr the highest vote share of any statewide Democrat that cycle other than Abrams. Carr, a former economic development commissioner, won by roughly 100,000 votes.

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (left) and Democratic opponent Charlie Bailey (AJC FILE PHOTOS)

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (left) and Democratic opponent Charlie Bailey (AJC FILE PHOTOS)

But he was considered the underdog in this years Democratic primary against Jordan, who had earned national attention for her opposition to the Republican-backed anti-abortion law that narrowly passed in 2019. A range of well-known Georgia Democrats and powerful national organizations backed her bid.

Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncans decision not to stand for a second term triggered an open contest on the GOP side, too. State Sens. Burt Jones and Butch Miller have raced to curry favor with conservative voters. Party activist Jeanne Seaver is in the race, too.

Instead of using their power to work on issues that might improve Georgians lives, the Republicans running for lieutenant governor are in a competition to see who can become more authoritarian, said Bailey. And when you do that, you no longer have credibility.

I respect all the Democrats in the race but my decision has nothing to do with them. Im running against Butch Miller and Burt Jones, Bailey said. And Im running for the issues that will decide this election: health care, public safety and education.

Its attacking the same problems, he said, just from a different perspective.

He will push legislation to create a civil rights division that would investigate discrimination complaints and rogue law enforcement officers. And he echoes other Democrats with calls to expand Medicaid, increase school funding and finance higher teacher pay.

His background as a former Fulton County prosecutor who targeted gang offenders could also complicate GOP efforts to brand Democrats as defund the police backers who are weak on crime.

I respect all the Democrats in the race but my decision has nothing to do with them. Im running against Butch Miller and Burt Jones, Bailey said. And Im running for the issues that will decide this election: healthcare, public safety and education.

10/29/2018 -- Madison, Georgia -- Gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is joined by Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor Sarah Riggs Amico (right) and Democratic Attorney General candidate Charlie Bailey (left) as she speaks during an early voters rally in Madison, Monday, October 29, 2018. (ALYSSA POINTER/ALYSSA.POINTER@AJC.COM)

Credit: Alyssa Pointer

10/29/2018 -- Madison, Georgia -- Gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is joined by Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor Sarah Riggs Amico (right) and Democratic Attorney General candidate Charlie Bailey (left) as she speaks during an early voters rally in Madison, Monday, October 29, 2018. (ALYSSA POINTER/ALYSSA.POINTER@AJC.COM)

Credit: Alyssa Pointer

Credit: Alyssa Pointer

Abrams, the state Democratic partys most prominent figure, isnt taking sides in the jumbled race. Her campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo said the partys slate will be formidable.

We feel like well have an unbelievable ticket that represents the diversity of our state, she said.

Other prominent Democrats, however, quickly tried to clear the way for Bailey. McBath said he would be an outstanding nominee and advocate for Democratic causes in the Georgia statehouse.

I am endorsing him because I know we can count on him to fight for civil rights, voting rights and common-sense gun safety reforms that will save lives.

Former Gov. Roy Barnes:

I got to know Charlie when I hired him as a young lawyer and saw how hard he worked on behalf of regular people who needed someone to fight for them. He worked hard to get justice for teachers whose pensions had been shortchanged and help those fighting for justice against insurance companies. I was proud to support him when he did so well as a first-time statewide candidate in 2018. I know hell be an asset to Stacey Abrams and the entire Democratic ticket as our nominee for Lieutenant Governor.

U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson:

Charlie is a proven, strong candidate for statewide office, so we can be sure he will be a strong nominee for Lieutenant Governor who will defeat whichever far-right candidate the other party nominates. We can count on Charlie as Lieutenant Governor to fight for everyday Georgians, including protecting our right to vote, fighting for affordable healthcare by expanding Medicaid and better public schools.

Former Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor:

I know Charlie well from when he worked for me when I was Lieutenant Governor. I know hell be a very strong candidate and great running mate for Stacey Abrams and that hell be a great Lieutenant Governor. I know firsthand how much good can be done by a Lieutenant Governor dedicated to fighting for working Georgians, including improving schools, making college and technical school more accessible, and protecting people from crime. We can count on Charlie to win and use the office to improve the lives of the people of Georgia.

State Rep. Al Williams:

I know Charlie will be a great running mate for future Governor Stacey Abrams and an asset to every Democrat on the ballot this year. As someone who represents a South Georgia district, I know we need geographic diversity at the top of our ticket, as well as Charlies experience in law enforcement and commitment to civil rights and protecting everyones right to vote. I look forward to campaigning with him and working with him next year to bring Georgia together and make this state a better place for everyone.

Link:

Democrat Bailey jumps from AG race to LG contest in Georgia - The Atlanta Journal Constitution

OPINION Our founders recognized that it wasnt just kings who could be tyrants. They knew majorities could be tyrants too, and that the majority party if unchecked could trample the rights of the minority party. And so the founders combined majority rule with both representation and constitutional protections for the minority. They established safeguards checks and balances throughout our government to keep the government in check and ensure that the rights of the minority party were protected. One of those safeguards was the Senate.

The founders made the Senate smaller than the House of Representatives and senators terms of office longer, with the intention of creating a more stable, more thoughtful, and more deliberative legislative body to check ill-considered or intemperate legislation and attempts to curtail minority party rights. And as time has gone on, the Senates legislative filibuster has become perhaps the key way the Senate protects those rights.

The filibuster ensures that the minority party and the Americans it represents has a voice in the Senate. It forces compromise. It forces bipartisanship. It encourages a greater level of stability and predictability. Even in the rare case when a majority party has a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, the filibuster still forces the majority party to take into account the views of its more moderate or middle-of-the-road members, thus ensuring that more Americans are represented in legislation. Removing the filibuster would erase this protection and allow the majority including an incredibly narrow or merely technical majority, as Democrats have now to trample minority party rights.

In the words of one former senator, We should make no mistake. It is a fundamental power grab by the majority party Folks who want to see this change want to eliminate one of the procedural mechanisms designed for the express purpose of guaranteeing individual rights, and they also have a consequence, and would undermine the protections of a minority point of view in the heat of majority excess. That former senator of course was Joe Biden one of the many Democrats who has opposed abolishing the filibuster.

Because, of course, Democrats were singing a different tune on the filibuster just a couple of years ago. When President Trump urged Republican senators to abolish the legislative filibuster dozens of times Democrats were strongly opposed. In 2017, 32 Democrat senators including now-Vice President Harris and a majority of the current Democrat caucus signed a letter urging that the legislative filibuster be preserved. Republicans agreed and refused to abolish the legislative filibuster despite the former presidents repeated urging.

Now, however, many Democrats who not only supported but actively and repeatedly used the filibuster during the previous administration to block major coronavirus relief legislation and police reform legislation have apparently decided that rules protecting the minority should only apply when Democrats are in the minority. Apparently Democrat minorities deserve representation, but Republican minorities do not.

I urge my Democrat colleagues to think about what abolishing the filibuster would mean for ordinary Americans. Of course it would mean decreased representation for any American whose party was in the minority. But it would also mean highly unstable government policy (and a resulting lack of confidence in government) as well as a sharp increase in partisanship which I venture to say is not what we need right now.

Abolish the filibuster, and policy will shift sharply with it. Social policy on abortion, religious freedom, and other issues. Regulatory policy. Tax policy. Foreign policy. The list goes on. And such incessant changes of national policy would unquestionably heighten partisanship in this country. As the laws became more extreme, the tension between Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, would only heighten. Here in Congress, yes, but most importantly throughout the country.

When Republicans were repeatedly faced with the prospect of abolishing the legislative filibuster during the previous administration, we said no. Not because there wasnt important legislation we wanted to pass, but because we knew that the best thing for our country and for our future representation in the Senate was to preserve this essential protection for the minority party. I urge my Democrat colleagues to think of their future and our country and make the same decision.

To read all of today's stories, Click here or call 642-2761 to subscribe to our e-edition or home delivery.

Continued here:

Razor-thin Democrat majority wants to change the rules in the middle of the game - Black Hills Pioneer

Thomas Suddes| Contributed Commentary

If Ohios Democrats are to recover even a smidgen of the influence they once had at the Statehouse, they have two tough challenges.

Challenge One is to unseat Republican Gov. Mike DeWine or, more realistically, come as close as an Ohio Democrat can to doing that.

Editorial: Gov. Mike DeWine must use political skills to institute school mask mandates

Challenge Two is to elect a statewide executive officer or two as the core of farm team for 2026 and beyond. (Democrats will also strive to elect a Democrat to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, a Terrace Park Republican, but thats more about Washington than Columbus.)

The long, slow decline of Ohio Democrats was unimaginable 39 years ago this month, in January 1983.Thats when the only Republican holding a statewide elected office was the late Supreme Court Justice Robert E. Holmes, of suburban Columbus.

On that 1983 day, a Democrat, Richard F. Celeste, was being sworn in as governor.

Also sworn in that day: Ohios attorney general, auditor, secretary of state and treasurer all Democrats.

Democrats also ran the state Senate and Ohios House. (Democratic House Speaker Vern Riffe was beginning the ninth year of what would be a 20-year speakership.) And six of the Supreme Courts seven justices were Democrats, including Chief Justice Frank D. Celebrezze.

Thomas Suddes: 'Incumbents should fear' 2022 as year of the 'ticked-off voter'

Today, among Ohios statewide elected officers are just three Democrats: Supreme Court Justices Jennifer Brunner, Michael P. Donnelly and Melody J. Stewart. The state Senate has been GOP-run since January 1985, the Ohio House for all but two years since January 1995.

What happened? First off, Democrats failed to develop a farm team. Second, in 1994,Democrats fielded union-backed Rob Burch, a Democratic state senator from Tuscarawas County, to challenge the re-election of Republican Gov. George V. Voinovich.

Trouble was, Burchs disastrous campaign barely drew 25% of the statewide vote. (So beleaguered was the Burch campaign that in 1994, Athens County, Appalachian Ohios Democratic enclave, voted for a Republican for governor the last time Athens County has done so.) You almost have to wonder if certain Democrats were privately rooting for Voinovich.

Thomas Suddes: What does 'Like A Virgin' and Ohio Democrats have in common?

One of Democrats major 1994 problems was that Riffe was retiring from the speakership; he was tired of doing the heavy lifting for Democrats tickets. Moreover, he was in fact dying:Ohios longest serving House speaker only lived for two-and-a-half years after he left the legislature.

Moreover, Democrats made a long-term bet that in the end, organized labor would always save Democrats bacon, thanks to Senate Bill 133, Ohios 1983 collective bargaining law for public employees,which Democrats rammed to passage in a party-line vote.

The paradox was that union membership has steadily declined in Ohio.

In 1990, according to federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data, 20.9% of employed Ohioans were then union members; by 2020, the percentage had fallen to 13.2%. Democrats, nationally, and to some extent in Ohio, compounded their problems by transforming themselves from a shot-and-a-beer crowd to a wine-and-cheese outfit, and with that came a streak of political hairsplitting.

Republicans captured the Senate in November 1984; the Supreme Court in November 1986; Ohios governorship in 1990; Ohios House, and every statewide elected executive office, in November 1994. Meanwhile, rural and Appalachian Democrats have all but disappeared from the General Assembly and GOP gerrymandering isnt the only reason.

Ohio politics: 100 public schools are suing Ohio, saying EdChoice voucher programs are unconstitutional

Another was failure to cultivate new talent and fashion new policy approaches. Until that happens, Democratic wins in Ohio will remain tough and rare.

VOUCHERS: A group of school districts, including the Columbus schools, filed a lawsuit in Franklin County Common Pleas Court last week to overturn Ohios EdChoice school voucher law.

Vouchers help parents pay for nonpublic schooling if they choose that for their child. (In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Cleveland-specific school voucher program.)

The lawsuit illustrates a seeming paradox: Choosing whether to give birth to a child is often asserted to be a fundamental right. But, absent vouchers, a parents right to choose how to educate a child depends on family income. Lawyers can peck and poke lawbooks and previous cases all they want, but isnt fairness the real issue?

Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. tsuddes@gmail.com

Read more:

Suddes: Democrats lost their mojo in Ohio decades ago. Can they win elections here now? - The Columbus Dispatch

In U.S. politics, all eyes will be on Pennsylvania this year: Democrats hope to pick up retiring Republican Pat Toomeys Senate seat so they can hold on to their slim majority in the chamber. And as term-limited Democrat Tom Wolf retires, Republicans have a shot at the governors mansion in a state where they firmly control the legislature.

These and other races have attracted a swarm of candidates. In almost every statewide primary field, there are more than enough aspirants to suit up a football teamwith one exception.

The Democratic candidate for governor, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, doesnt face a single primary opponent.

It is striking that the marquee Democrats in the state have all lined up to run in the Senate race, says Dan Hopkins, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Prominent Democrats contending to replace Toomey include Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman and Representative Conor Lamb. That race is almost overcrowded at the same time that Josh Shapiro has the gubernatorial primary on the Democratic side all to himself, Hopkins says. On the Republican side, there are more than a dozen candidates vying for the nomination.

Shapiro, 48, made his name with lawsuits against the Catholic Church for sexual abuse cover-ups and against drug companies and doctors for fueling the opioid crisis. His pitch to voters in the swing statewhich Joe Biden won with a 1-percentage-point margin over Donald Trumpis that hell protect abortion rights and elections from the Republicans in the Harrisburg statehouse while hewing close to the political center.

As attorney general, Shapiro embraced some traditional rituals of the office. He held press conferences framed by tables laden with ill-gotten firearms and drugs confiscated by the pound. But he also prosecuted businesses for wage theft and sued one of the states leading health-care providers to preserve insurance coverage for western Pennsylvania residents, efforts supported by progressives.

With the future of Roe v. Wade in doubt, Shapiro frequently proclaims his pro-choice stance, emphasizing that the governors veto pen is all that stands between Pennsylvania and a Texas-style abortion ban.

We see attacks every single year in the legislature, and right now both chambers are controlled by anti-abortion legislators, says Signe Espinoza, executive director of Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania, which endorsed Shapiro as soon as he announced his run for the governorship.

Even with Republicans in charge of the statehouse, Democrats believe its the GOP thats out of sync with Pennsylvania opinion on abortion access and political norms. Some of the Republican candidates in the gubernatorial primary have refused to disavow Trumps lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. A few are fully embracing the falsehood.

Shapiro argues that a vote for him will be a vote for the integrity of future elections. After some legislators supported Trumps attempts to overturn the states Electoral College results, and as some Republicans have maneuvered to restrict ballot access in Pennsylvania, he says it will be essential to have a Democrat in charge. And the only Democratic option is him.

Being the governor of Pennsylvania is a position where you can help protect our democracy from the very significant threats were facing, Shapiro says. Some governors are going to find themselves in a positionif Washington fails to deliver meaningful election reformwhere theyre going to be the brick wall that has to stand to defend our democracy.

Shapiro hails from a Philadelphia suburb in Montgomery County, and hes been involved in politics for most of his adult life. After working on Capitol Hill as a congressional staffer in his early 20s, he was elected to the state legislature in 2006, where he helped then-Governor Ed Rendell engineer a political sweep that briefly gave Democrats complete control of Harrisburg.

As Republicans came to power at the state level in 2010, Shapiro got elected to the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, taking the helm as Democrats won a majority there for the first time since the Civil War. In 2016 he became AG even as Hillary Clinton lost Pennsylvania. In 2020 he won reelection with more votes than Biden.

It is partly this track record that has so far cleared the field for Shapiro, along with his strong name recognition from winning two statewide races. Without a primary foe, he wont have to tack left in coming months and can conserve his campaign war chest, which stood at more than $10 million in late October.

Im proud of the fact that Ive been supported by local police, and I think we need more policing in our communities

At a time when some Democratic politicians have sought to distance themselves from police unions, Shapiro embraces more conventional law-and-order policies. Hes clashed with Pennsylvania Democrats to his left, such as Fetterman and Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, on criminal justice issues. As progressive politicians struggle to hone their messaging around violence, Shapiros middle-of-the-road approach may appeal amid a surge in homicides.

Im proud of the fact that Ive been supported by local police, and I think we need more policing in our communities, Shapiro says. He argues that its Republicans, with their austerity-minded budget priorities, who seek to defund the police. Republicans in Harrisburg love to proclaim their support of law enforcement in their press releases, but when it comes time to match that with action, they fail miserably, he says. We have a real crisis brewing, not just in places like Philly, but in Lancaster and other communities where we cant recruit and retain enough police.

Mark Harris, a GOP consultant working for the gubernatorial campaign of state Senate President Jake Corman, says being the states lead law enforcement official during a crime wave is hardly grounds for bragging rights. He says Shapiro coming from the Philadelphia area, which has more in common culturally with New Jersey than the rest of Pennsylvania, is a point of vulnerability, as is his long career in politics.

His negatives have never really been litigated, Harris says. Hes going to have to defend his actual record against a well-funded, well-resourced opponent, whoever GOP voters choose.

In whats predicted to be a brutal year for Democrats, Shapiro says he likes his chances. Ive won tough races before in tough environments, he says. In 2020, I earned more votes than anyone in the history of Pennsylvania running for any office at any time. And it was largely on the strength of winning Republican and independent voters in rural parts of our state.Read next: Trump Lost, But Falsehoods About the Capitol Riot Won

BOTTOM LINE - Shapiro says his defense of abortion rights and election integrity as well as his centrist approach to criminal justice will withstand the headwinds Democrats face in November.

More:

Josh Shapiro Is the Only Democrat Running for Governor of Pennsylvania - Bloomberg