Category Archives: Democrat

Buttigieg: New $1T infrastructure plan 'a big deal'

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg highlights elements of the new $1 trillion infrastructure deal, describing it as "a big deal." He said the infrastructure bill "couldn't come at a more urgent time." (Nov. 8)

AP

WASHINGTON A bloc of six House Democrats voted against a $1.2 trillionbipartisan infrastructure package last week,breaking with the rest of their party on a major priority ofPresident JoeBiden that is key to his economic agenda.

Their main reason for the down vote: They wanted to pass the bill with its counterpart, a multi-trillion-dollar spending deal called the Build Back Better Act that is still being negotiated in Congress.

While the infrastructure package focuses on repairing the nation'sroads and bridges and expanding broadband internet,the Build Back Better Act includes proposals to expand social safety net programs and climate change initiatives. The $1.85 trillion package is what progressives have been pushing for months. They've argued the two bills should be voted on in tandem,but the House didn't take up theBuild Back Better bill Friday because it's still being negotiated.

More: What's in the new infrastructure bill? Lawmakers pass massive spending package.

With Democrats holding a slim majority in the House, the six progressive Democrats would have been enough to sink the infrastructure bill. But13 House Republicans ended up voting for the plan, giving it enough yes votes to pass.

Heres what each progressive Democrat had to say about their vote against the bipartisan infrastructure bill:

Bowman, who represents the northern Bronx and parts of Westchester County, said he did not vote for the infrastructure bill because it was not joined with the Build Back Better Act, according to a statement on Twitter.

Bowman said the infrastructure bill does not address other crises the country is facing including child care, paid leave, housing, prescription drug costs and the climate crisis.

He added that the infrastructure bill alone does not have the policies needed to address these issues.

We were asked to vote only on physical infrastructure at the last hour and to delay the needs and suffering of our constituents with the weakest assurance that the original agreement would be kept, he said. The agreement was broken.

Bowman said his Republican colleagues moved the goalpost after asking for an analysis on the cost ofthe Build Back Better Act.He said he and his Democraticcolleagues made it clear that they would vote for both the Build Back Better Act and the infrastructure bill at the same time.

Bowman previously expressed concerns with the infrastructure bill after the Senate passed the measure in August, saying it does not go far enough to address key crises the country is facing.

A true infrastructure investment must include transforming our economy to handle the climate crisis, supporting care workers, reforming SSI, making child care universal, rebuilding our crumbling public schools and much more, he said.

Bush, who represents St. Louis,tweeted ahead of the vote on the infrastructure bill about the need for both pieces of legislation, later adding she would not accept anything less than the presidents full agenda.

When I was sworn in, I promised to do the absolute most for everyone in St. Louis, starting with those that have the least, she said in a statementfollowing the vote. I have been abundantly clear in my position from day one of these negotiations: St. Louis deserves the presidents entire agenda.

More: US infrastructure spending: Charts show where billions of dollars would go

According to Bush, a vote in favor of the bipartisan infrastructure bill would have jeopardized our leverage to improve the livelihood of our health care workers, our children, our caregivers, our seniors and the future of our environment.

Bush said in September she would not back the infrastructure bill without the Build Back Better Act.

Those bills have to go together. Reconciliation has to happen. Build Back Better has to happen in the House and the Senate before we will vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, she told MSNBC.

Ocasio-Cortez has been critical of passing the infrastructure bill without the Build Back Better Act.

She took toInstagram liveto explain her reasoning for voting no,saying one of her main concerns with solely passingthe infrastructure bill was that the legislation locked in increases to climate emissions.

When it comes to infrastructure, we need to address the climate crisis, she said.

Ocasio-Cortez, who represents parts of Queens and the Bronx,said she was willing to vote for the infrastructure bill if it was paired with the Build Back Better Act, describing how unprecedented climate investments in the infrastructure bill have been linked to other policies in the Build Back Better Act.

Without passing the Build Back Better Act, she said many of these provisions do not get unlocked.

I cannot vote to increase our emissions without a commitment to draw them down, she said.

Ocasio-Cortez said she thinks the Build Back Better Act will be passed, but is not sure if it will be recognizable when compared to its latest version.

We can and should message (the bipartisan infrastructure bill) as a step, but messaging it as a solution alone is going to get us in trouble, she tweeted. BBB contains the majority of the presidents agenda. We must keep going and ensure the promises are delivered.

Following the vote, Omar released a statement giving her reasons for voting no on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. She cited Minnesotas housing shortage and rapidly rising temperatures as some of the reasons she is pushing for the Build Back Better Acts promises of affordable housing and climate crisis solutions.

More: 'A monumental step forward': Biden hails House passage of $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill

Omar represents Minnesotas 5th Congressional District, including Minneapolis and its surrounding suburbs. Originally sworn into office in 2019, Omar is the first African refugee to become a member of Congress, the first woman of color to represent Minnesota and one of the first two Muslim-American women elected to Congress.

My community cannot wait any longer for these much-needed investments that will be delivered through the Build Back Better Act, Omar said in the statement on Friday. I cannot in good conscience support the infrastructure bill without voting on the Presidents transformative agenda first.

In a statement released on Saturday, Pressley stood in line with her progressive colleagues as she called for the Build Back Better Act to pass alongside the infrastructure bill.

We had an agreement that these two bill would move together not that we would vote for one in exchange for a potential vote on the other if certain conditions were met, Pressley said in her statement. Unfortunately, that agreement was not honored.

Pressley represents parts of Boston and its suburbs and is the first woman of color to be elected to Congress from Massachusetts.

The congresswoman said she would not be forced to choose between expanding physical infrastructure or social programs. On Twitter, she expressed her support for one aspect in particular: Paid family leave.

A proposal for 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave was dropped from the budget bills framework in late October. After outrage from some Democrats over the move, a four-week proposal was added back into the bill.

Paid leave is infrastructure. Full stop, Pressley tweeted last Friday.

Tlaib currently represents Michigans 13th Congressional District, which includesDetroit and its surrounding area. In 2008, Tlaib became the first Muslim woman to serve in the Michigan state Legislature.

On Twitter, Tlaib echoed her progressive colleagues' sentiments on Build Back Better. She toldsupporters in a statementthat in order to pass the infrastructure bill, Congress also needs to pass Bidens social infrastructureplan.

More: House GOP members who voted for infrastructure bill face backlash from Republican colleagues

Separating out BBB risks my residents losing child care, real climate solutions, paid leave, reducing the costs of prescription drugs, labor protections, funding for housing, covering hearing aids & fully funding removal of lead service lines, Tlaib wrote on Twitter. We must pass Build Back Better.

In a statement from her office, Tlaib cites a number of climate change-oriented policies as a reason for her no vote. She says that the infrastructure bill does not prioritize clean air and water for her Michigan constituents.

Tlaib saidher issues with the package stem from language written by Sens.Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. The two senators have been at the center of Bidens infrastructure debate as they objected to his initial $3.5 trillion package and forced the administration to significantly scale back their plans.

I will not sacrifice the health and safety of my residents for two Senators who have shown nothing but contempt for the people I represent, she wrote.

Biden hails infrastructure win as 'monumental'

U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday hailed Congress' passage of his $1 trillion infrastructure package as a monumental step forward for the nation" after fractious fellow Democrats resolved a months-long standoff in their ranks to seal the deal. (Nov. 6)

AP

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Who are the 6 House Democrats who voted against the infrastructure bill? - USA TODAY

Pro-Trump supporters breeched security and entered the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as Congress debated the 2020 presidential election electoral vote certification. Even after the riot, election subversion is not an animating issue for most voters. Brent Stirton/Getty Images hide caption

Pro-Trump supporters breeched security and entered the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as Congress debated the 2020 presidential election electoral vote certification. Even after the riot, election subversion is not an animating issue for most voters.

When it comes to the future of American democracy, Democrats are sounding the alarm loudly and often that the country is in a constitutional crisis.

"One of our great political parties has embraced the idea that our last election was fraudulent, that our current president is illegitimate, that they must move legislatures across the country to fix the results, to fix the results of future elections," said Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, in a floor speech arguing in favor of a voting rights bill that was ultimately defeated by a Republican filibuster.

The fix King is talking about are laws passed by Republican state legislatures that could make it harder to cast a ballot and would give partisan Republicans a greater role in certifying elections.

But state legislatures can already determine the outcome of the 2024 election without changing any laws, says Rick Hasen, co-director of the Fair Elections and Free Speech Center at the University of California, Irvine.

"I don't think there needs to be one law that needs to be passed in any state," he says. "You would just need state legislatures to come together or members of Congress to come together and decide that they're going to not follow the rules."

Hasen's nightmare scenario for 2024 is that in key battleground states, legislators who, according to the Constitution are responsible for certifying Electoral College results, say something like this: "'There were irregularities in the election. We can't be sure who the winner is. We've got to appoint an alternative slate of electors.' "

Those slates of electors are sent to Congress, which is then controlled by Republicans who count the GOP electors rather the Democratic electors.

"That's what Trump was trying to get to happen," Hasen says. "That's why the question is whether 2020 was a failed coup or a dress rehearsal for 2024."

Congress finally completed tallying Electoral College votes after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. Many Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans fear that the process could be subverted in 2024. Erin Schaff/Getty Images hide caption

Congress finally completed tallying Electoral College votes after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. Many Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans fear that the process could be subverted in 2024.

So what can Democrats do about this?

They're fighting these Republican laws in court. They'd like to pass federal legislation, but that means convincing West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat, to agree to an exception to the filibuster, the procedural motion whereby the opposition party can block a bill from advancing without 60 votes. Manchin has so far resisted all calls to change the filibuster.

"If there's not going to be an actual policy solution to a lot of the subversion elements, then the only option available to you is a political one," says Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican who started the group Defending Democracy Together.

"So right now, Trump is going around endorsing candidates who, for the most part, bolster and repeat his claims that the election were stolen. They also say openly that they would potentially not certify the 2024 elections, depending on how they turn out," Longwell says. "And so you have to beat candidates like that."

In particular, Longwell is talking about candidates for secretary of state, state legislature and county clerks, all of whom have a role to play in ensuring that an election is fairly administrated.

But Republicans tend to pay a lot more attention to those kinds of races than Democrats, says former Ohio Democratic Party Chair David Pepper.

"So much of the problem is at the statehouse level and most people, they cannot name their statehouse member. They have no idea what those people's power is. Individual citizens have to really, you know, get involved," Pepper says. "If one side is relentlessly attacking democracy and the other side runs out of gas, the attacks on democracy will succeed."

Democrats have another problem. Even after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, election subversion is not an animating issue for most voters.

"It's what I would call a low-salience issue," says Longwell, who also runs voter focus groups and has a podcast called "The Focus Group" published by The Bulwark.

Most of the people in Longwell's groups are like Farah, a swing voter from Georgia (NPR agreed to only use the first name of focus group participants).

"I think if a candidate says that they did certify and support the results or not, it's just a non-issue for me," says Farah.

Democratic strategist Doug Thornell says the issue of election subversion does matter to key parts of the Democratic base, especially young voters and people of color.

"But it's complicated, it's not that easy," he says. "It can have a boomerang effect where it ends up sort of causing people to be frustrated and stay home. You don't want that."

While the idea of future election subversion is a complicated one for Democrats to explain to their voters, for Republicans, says Longwell, the false charge that the last election was stolen is actually a big motivator.

When Wyoming Republican U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney wouldn't accept Trump's false claims that the election was stolen from him, she was kicked out of House Republican leadership.

"When [Minority Leader] Kevin McCarthy said that Liz Cheney could no longer be in leadership because she was off message, what he meant was, 'Our message going into 2022 is that the election was stolen. That is a turnout mechanism for us in 2022,' " says Longwell.

As this week's elections show, Republicans don't have to cheat to win. The election in Virginia was high turnout and free of fraud.

But what Democrats and their allies worry about is that in 2024, Republican legislatures in states like Arizona and Georgia erect enough barriers to the ballot and destroy enough democratic norms so that their party simply cannot lose a close race.

Pro-Trump protesters gather in front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Brent Stirton/Getty Images hide caption

Pro-Trump protesters gather in front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

See the article here:

Democrats worry election subversion is still a threat - NPR

Gas prices over $4.00 a gallon are displayed at a Speedway Express station on October 12, 2021 in San Francisco, California.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

By most economic metrics, American businesses are staging a remarkable rebound from the Covid-19 recession. But ask the people themselves, and Americans tell you they aren't feeling so peachy.

Employers added more than half a million jobs in October, the unemployment rate is under 5% and spending across the economy is returned to its pre-coronavirus trend. The average hourly wage in the U.S. is up nearly 5% from a year ago, and the S&P 500 is up 39% since President Joe Biden's election in 2020.

But for all the good news, Americans still feel like the economy is going downhill.

That is a problem for Democrats, who are trying to hold on to razor-thin majorities in both the House and the Senate. That's in addition to the usual uphill climb faced by a president's party heading into a midterm election cycle, when the incumbent's side often loses seats.

In a recent NBC News poll, 57% of American said they disapprove of Biden's handling of the economy, while just 40% said they approve. Meanwhile, an October Gallup study showed that 75% of Americans rate current economic conditions in the country as only fair (42%) or poor (33%), while 68% say the economy is worsening. Other polling shows that inflation and economic concerns are outpacing worries about Covid.

Democrats and Republicans agree that one economic phenomenon working against Democrats' odds in 2022 is the recent rise in prices. As such, Democrats are expected to be laser-focused on their legislative achievements when they take to the campaign trail in 2022.

In essence, the party will try to persuade voters on a political gambit: That historic investments in infrastructure, antipoverty programs and climate initiatives are worth pesky but temporary inflation, says Raymond James Washington policy analyst Ed Mills.

"Democrats are likely facing those headwinds regardless of what they do, so they are looking to arm incumbents with a list of accomplishments," Mills wrote in an email.

Democrats hope their recent legislative successes including the $1 trillion infrastructure package will help ease any resentment voters feel about rising prices, which has in recent months driven up the cost of everything from gasoline to groceries.

Wages may be up 4.9% on a year-over-year basis, but the Labor Department's consumer price index one of the most popular inflation gauges was up 5.4% in the 12 months ending in September. That is about the same rate as seen in June and July, all of which are the highest in over a decade. The government is scheduled to release October 2021 CPI data on Wednesday.

That means that many Americans have seen their real wage and purchasing power decline over the past 12 months. Many simply cannot buy as many gallons of gas, cartons of eggs or barrels of home heating oil as they could one year ago.

The national average per-gallon price of regular gasoline is $3.41, up about 40% from $2.42 in February 2020, according to the Department of Energy.

That's why the Biden administration, and every Democrat hoping to win election in 2022, is preparing to meet that inflation pessimism with a list of reasons they think voters should feel better than they do.

Democrats who spoke to CNBC said they plan to counter concerns about rising prices by pointing out steady improvements to the supply chain, better wages and greater access to child care.

"As the country recovers from a once-in-a-century pandemic and economic crisis, the private businesses that make up our supply chains, which get goods to businesses and the American people, have struggled to keep up," a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee told CNBC via email.

Economists say the current rash of inflation stems from a mismatch between robust demand and an insufficient supply of goods the result of logistical hiccups and labor shortages. The White House last week published the first of several reports on the current state of the U.S. supply chain, an effort the administration is taking to track the nation's transportation and logistics.

The administration announced Tuesday efforts to ease some supply-chain issues in the next two months.

Those included directing the Department of Transportation to allow port authorities to redirect project cost savings toward tackling supply-chain challenges, and launch programs to modernize ports and marine highways with more than $240 million in grant funding over the next 45 days.

Read more of CNBC's politics coverage:

"While we experience this temporary pain, and expect things to improve with the passage of President Biden's agenda, we've seen some positive signs, including that wage growth is outpacing inflation, especially for those Americans who had the most insecure jobs and the lowest wages," the DNC spokesman added.

Wages for those employed in the leisure and hospitality industry, which saw some of the ugliest layoffs during the spring of 2020, are in the middle of a robust rebound as hotels, resorts and restaurants scramble to hire. Workers in that sector have seen their average hourly earnings rise to $19.04 from $17.12 one year ago, a more than 11% increase.

A few sectors with wages outpacing inflation haven't deterred Republicans from homing in on the broader inflation problem and warning that even more fiscal stimulus could make the problem worse.

"Biden's Build Back Broke agenda has led to skyrocketing prices, a supply chain crisis, a slowing economy, a worker shortage, and weak job growth," Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a press release on Oct. 28. "Trillions more in wasteful spending and higher taxes will only further hurt the middle class and recovering small businesses."

Virginia voters appeared to have heeded that warning on Nov. 2, when Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democratic former Governor Terry McAuliffe in that state's gubernatorial election. Youngkin's victory in Virginia, which Biden won by a healthy 10 points in 2020, is being seen as a de facto playbook for the rest of the party heading into 2022.

"We must continue to focus on the failures of the Biden economy," Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., wrote in a memo following the Virginia election results. Banks is chair of the Republican Study Committee, a group of the most conservative House Republicans.

U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announces the withdrawal of his nominees to serve on the special committee probing the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, as two of the Republican nominees, Reps' Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Jim Banks (R-IN), standby during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 21, 2021.

Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters

"Youngkin focused on providing relief to runaway inflation caused by the Biden economy and on not locking down the economy again," he added. "Our early focus on runaway inflation and the growing supply chain crisis is hitting home with voters. We need to keep hammering away and work on bringing solutions to the table to address their concerns."

Democrats argue that both the $1 trillion infrastructure and the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better bills will help ease those supply chain issues. The House passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill last week, sending it to Biden's desk, after party progressives and centrists made a nonbinding pact to approve the social-spending plan later in November.

"If you are worried about inflation, it's important to understand why it's happening: supply chain, labor, and healthcare complications," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, wrote in a Twitter post on Thursday.

"My family is one of essential workers: school bus drivers, postal workers, cleaners, etc," she added. "When childcare wasn't available, my family couldn't work they stayed home. When childcare isn't universally available, it impacts the labor market. It can become a supply chain issue!"

Raymond James analyst Mills says that, at the end of the day, Democrats are making a wager.

The big bet is that the promise of more efficient ports and highway systems, along with greater access to child care, will help bring workers back into the labor force, ease inflation, and win over a population that does not feel helped.

The upside for Democrats is they have some time. Inflation could relax, supply chains could come back to full capacity and the positive effects of their legislation could begin to make an impact on voters before the 2022 midterms.

"They are hoping to point to SALT tax relief, extension of the Child Tax credit, extended childcare support, down-payment assistance for housing, as ways the reconciliation provides tangible benefits and a net tax cut for most households," Mills wrote. "Whether or not this moves the needle with voters is the bigger debate."

Read more:

Inflation is making voters unhappy with the economy Democrats hope their infrastructure and social bills change that - CNBC

Party will do everything but take a hard look at where it went wrong

The past is often prologue in politics, and that is why Democrats, stung by losses in Virginia and unexpectedly close calls elsewhere, are scrambling (A disconcerting election night for Democrats, Scot Lehigh, Opinion, Nov. 4). But instead of a clear-eyed understanding about what has gone wrong so quickly on the road to Build Back Better, the partys potentates and their media acolytes have engaged in magical thinking, as if we hoi polloi cannot focus on what our eyes and ears register.

Thus, Democratic prestidigitators suggest, for example, that we are racists, even though the defeated Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Virginia introduced racism when he decried that there are too many white teachers in his states public schools. That was in addition to stating that parents should not question school authorities about educational priorities. If that does not unnerve attentive independent voters, I dont know what could.

The continued bad-mouthing of Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin over their positions on the Build Back Better bill is another stumbling block for the attentive voter.

Of course, the not-so-secret weapon that Democrats have is the loud narcissist named Donald Trump who could singlehandedly give them a win in 2022 by simply doing what he does best.

Stay tuned.

Paul Bloustein

Cincinnati

Lessons from Virginia (get your notebooks out, and sharpen those pencils!)

Last Tuesday, Virginians loudly affirmed the parents right to tell schools what they should teach. Henceforth the Commonwealth of Virginia will allow parents (especially white suburban mothers) to monitor and review their childrens curriculum in every subject.

In physics, for example, they will be able to decide just which subatomic particles may be discussed in class; for example, protons, neutrons, and electrons are OK, but muons are not, and, for Gods sake, absolutely no mention of the Higgs boson. In some school districts, however, they may stick with the pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus and insist that the atom is indivisible (as the Greek etymology of the word makes clear).

And what about the theory of evolution? Banned again? Is it time for another Scopes trial, nearly a century after the first one? Remember what Dubya said: The jury is still out on the theory of evolution.

Pasquale G. Tato

Cambridge

The Democrats govern in prose that in itself is poetic

Of course the Democrats disagree with how to proceed in governing (Its the circular firing squad again for the Democrats, Letters, Nov. 5). They want to do things, things to improve life in our country and for the planet. There are options to be considered, priorities to evaluate, decisions to be made. The Republicans have no such internal competition for ideas. They are content, even eager, to leave everything as it is: Keep people of color and other disadvantaged citizens suppressed, maintain the tax code to benefit the rich, support fossil fuel extraction in the face of environmental degradation and climate change, and remain in thrall to an autocratic, self-serving hierarchy.

We cannot improve as a people unless we are willing to change, and if change and compromise are anathema, we cannot improve.

Tom Powers

Hudson

Work now to boost Democrats majority in Congress

For all who are upset about the disproportionate power that West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin yields in the Senate, there is a solution: Do everything in your power to get more Democrats elected to the Senate and the House. With more Democrats, we wont need the votes of Manchin and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema as much. Write postcards, send money, work on campaigns to get more Democrats elected. Grass-roots efforts work as long as some states dont strip people of the voting power.

Annette Pietro

Canton

Pressley and The Squad stumble by standing on principle

Ayanna Pressley and members of The Squad demonstrated political ineptness and immaturity by voting against the Biden infrastructure bill. At least their self-defeating stance was countered by 13 reasonable Republicans in the House who voted for it. Apparently the bill as passed didnt give them everything they had wanted. They couched their lack of support in noble-sounding terms of refusing to choose between what the bill provides and a variety of things they insisted on.

The essence of mature politics is rational compromise and learning to take a victory even if its only a partial win. You then return to continue the fight another day. Until Pressley and The Squad learn not to stamp their feet when they dont completely get their way, they will continue to endanger the Democrats ability to pass much-needed progressive legislation. The next time we may not be so lucky.

Jeffrey Miner

Belmont

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The Democrats have a majority and a bit of a problem - The Boston Globe

Bret: Does my column really post on Facebook? Didnt know that.

This probably sounds horribly misanthropic, but when Facebook came around, I feared it would be a handy way of connecting with people to whom I didnt particularly want to be connected. So-and-so from graduate school? Maybe we fell out of touch for a reason. Second cousin twice removed in Melbourne? Hope hes having a nice life. Its hard enough to be a good friend to people in our real lives to waste time on virtual friendships in digital spaces.

Now Ive been reading a multipart investigation in The Wall Street Journal on the perils of the platform, which include less sleep, worse parenting, the abandonment of creative hobbies and so on. Facebooks own researchers estimate that 1 in 8 people on the platform suffers from some of these symptoms, which amounts to 360 million people worldwide. As someone pointed out, the word user applies to people on social media just as much as it does to people on meth.

I guess the question is whether the government should regulate it and if so, how.

Gail: This takes me back to early America, when most people lived in small towns or on farms and had very little input from the outside world.

They were very tight-knit, protective, familial and very inclined to stick to their clan and isolate, discriminate, persecute and, yes, enslave the folks who werent part of the group. You had a lot of good qualities of togetherness and helping the team but a lot of clannishness and injustice to nonmembers.

Bret: Almost sounds like an academic department at a placid New England college. Sorry, go on.

Gail: The Postal Service brought newspapers and letters and changed all that. And, of course, there were also unfortunate effects a lot of mobilizing to fight against the newly discovered outside world.

I think the digital revolution is maybe as important people are making new friends around the globe, discovering tons and tons of new information but also ganging up on folks they dont like. Discriminating not only against minority groups but also the less popular members of their own.

Bret: The moral of the story is that theres no substitute for in-person relationships, whether its between colleagues, acquaintances, friends, family members or even two columnists who agree about 40 percent of the time. Which reminds me that theres this cabernet that we still need to share, so that we can mourn or celebrate last weeks news.

Continued here:

Opinion | The Democrats No Good, Very Bad Day Changes the Landscape - The New York Times

One bit from the great satirical newspaper-turned-website The Onion that has stayed with me more than any other is searingly funny, of course, but also the best-ever summary of the ugly turn that American politics has taken over the last 40 years. In its 1999 send-up of 100 years of mock front pages called Our Dumb Century, a 1980 election shtick involved an infographic comparing the Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan campaigns. Carters large-type campaign slogan: Lets Talk Better Mileage. Reagans: Kill The Bastards.

In 2021, Biden-era Democrats like Terry McAuliffe, the partys tired retread for governor in Virginia, literally tried to talk better mileage with the voters as their climate change and fix-road-and-bridges promises slowly ground through the sausage maker on Capitol Hill. Over the western mountains and at the edge of suburban sprawl in the Old Dominion State, angry voters searching for their pitchforks after imbibing days of propaganda about what their kids are taught about racism didnt want to hear about fuel efficiency. They were out for blood.

Just like Reagan in 1980, Republican Glenn Youngkins Kill the Bastards message carried the day in a state that had seemed to be trending Democratic blue for much of the 2010s. Once again, the Democrats showed up to a culture war gunfight brandishing a 2,000-page piece of legislation.

Ironically, the Democrats subpar showing on Tuesday not just in Virginia but in a Pennsylvania Supreme Court seat, local races in suburbs like Long Island, and a scare for New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy came on what otherwise should have been a celebratory week for President Joe Bidens ambitious agenda. With COVID-19 cases falling, vaccinations rising, and a highly positive jobs report, Team Biden then claimed a bipartisan victory in passing that $1 trillion-ish infrastructure plan, with hopes that a wider middle-class bailout and climate action will still pass this year.

But if the green tree of universal pre-kindergarten and extended child tax credits falls in a rural community like isolated Bath County, Va., will it even make a sound? The New York Times in the 367th installment of its long-running series Trump Diners, Trump Drive-ins and Trump Dives sent two reporters up into the Allegheny Mountains. There, Bidenomics like the $1,400 check most voters got this spring or the historic drop in child poverty was on the minds of absolutely no one in a county that voted harder for Youngkin than for Donald Trump in 2020, and where off-year voter turnout was high.

Hardware store owner Elaine Neff, 61 whose place of business is adorned with posters depicting Trump as Rambo and the Terminator, and who was in D.C. during the Jan. 6 insurrection hailed Youngkins win because the coronavirus vaccine is a poison and because she believed Democrats had planned extermination camps for Trump supporters. Charles Hamilton, a 74-year-old Vietnam veteran, said his Youngkin vote was really to show support for Trump and his desire to get Biden and that woman out of the White House boasting, Were a county of old country folk who want to do what they want. Somehow, I dont think Neff or Hamilton were waiting to see if Democrats passed paid family leave before voting on Tuesday.

Look, heres the thing about the election. Arguably, it wasnt the bloodbath for Democrats that the Beltway media portrayed it as. Sure, Murphys race was close, but historically the GOP had always won New Jersey when theres a new Democrat in the White House. And a slew of new progressive mayors in cities like Boston and Pittsburgh or even little Beaver Falls, Pa., remind us that America in the 2020s is a complicated place. But its also true that the historical trends angry passion from voters whose party just lost the presidency, apathy from the party in power are in play headed into 2022s midterms. That trend line coupled with the GOPs gerrymandering edge suggests a big Republican House majority in 2023.

Im not sure the wider electorate has fully wrapped its arms around this. A Republican wave election next fall will surely mean the impeachment of President Biden the grounds, frankly, are irrelevant that will plunge the nation into chaos. It will likely translate to wins for state lawmakers and secretaries of state whod be willing to declare victory for a losing Trump in 2024. It means the end of any constructive governing and depending on the Senate outcomes could extend the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court.

The Republicans culture war strategy is winning. That doesnt mean Democrats shouldnt pass bills like the transformational yet horribly named and marketed $175 billion-a-year Build Back Better. They should. Actual, mature governing is a key part of a strategic message for Democrats, and it excites some voting blocs just not the one that the party has been unsuccessfully trying to woo back since that Reagan win in 1980, the white working class.

READ MORE: These women are white, with no college degrees and in the drivers seat of American politics | Will Bunch

The Democrats will lose the culture war if theyre too aloof to even bother to fight it, and if they lose the culture war, they will lose the elections in 2022 and 2024, and it will take a long time to recover. The party that should be dominating in a nation that broadly supports its center-left policies needs to acknowledge that there is a liberal culture, that its baked into the soul of what makes America America, and they are in the fight of a lifetime to save it.

The Democrats need to fight a culture war more than anything else over voting rights, to make the argument that the red state wave of Republican voter suppression laws is a profoundly unAmerican activity, and that Democrats are the spiritual heirs to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Selma-to-Montgomery march, and thus the protectors of an expansive vision for democracy that works for all citizens. To do that, Team Biden needs to make clear starting with an Oval Office address that voting rights is his No. 1 priority, and that he will use every tool in his White House bag of tricks to force at least a carve-out of the wretched filibuster to clear the way for game-changing bills like the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

The Democrats need to fight a culture war over book banning to stop playing rope-a-dope on the bogus critical race theory issue and fight for academic freedom and open expression. They need to put Republicans from Virginia where Youngkin won with an attack ad on Toni Morrisons Beloved to Texas, where American jihadists have targeted some 850 titles in school libraries on the defensive for the book burning mindset that our antifascist grandfathers fought on the shores of Normandy and in the Battle of the Bulge.

The Democrats need to fight a culture war over science to make their voters as passionate about defending the core values of inquiry and knowledge that led to the COVID-19 vaccine and our understanding of what will be needed to roll back climate change in the same way that the far right and its Facebook-fried (excuse me, Meta-fried) misinformation have fired up the right over pandemic denial and fossil fuel addiction.

The Democrats need to fight a culture war over education to remind parents that the real fight for the future of our children is not whether we can keep denying critical parts of American history but whether were providing any civics education at all to our kids, and whether we can offer our young people access to the kinds of higher education thats out of reach for far too many. There needs to be a new push to revive free community college, and Biden needs to remember his campaign promise to address student debt in a big way.

I know its Political Punditry 101 to decry the tribalism in modern American politics, but that feels ridiculous when the Republican tribe has made it clear it will never disarm. Its much better for the Democrats to proclaim that they, too, are a tribe and that its tribal values of expanding democracy and citizenship rights, valuing objective learning and knowledge, and addressing problems with actual governing are the truest American values.

This will probably not gain the Democrats more than one or two votes in Bath County, Va., because those votes are simply not there for the getting. Nor should they be, if the countys voters are wedded to such antithetical values. But the Democrats lost an incalculable number of votes last Tuesday and theyre on track to do so in 2022 by failing to convince their core constituencies theyre fighting for their culture. What are Black and brown voters supposed to think when they see a party fight harder over property taxes in Silicon Valley or the Upper West Side than against voter suppression? What are 18- to 29-year-old voters supposed to think when West Virginia coal millionaire Joe Manchin is making climate policy?

These voters will turn out to fight for their culture if they are called upon because weve seen it happen before. Young folks and Black and brown voters turned out for Biden in 2020 less because his platform called for expanding child care and more because he pledged to fight for the soul of America against Trumpism. Democrats can bring these voters back next year by reminding decent, democracy-loving Americans that their party is the thin blue line between them and book burning, a culture of ignorance, and the end of free and fair elections. That would mean an end to watching the culture war from the sidelines. It means actually fighting to win and to kill all the bastardization of real American values.

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Democrats cant keep ignoring the culture war. They should fight it and win. | Will Bunch - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Latinos are not a monolithic group; they are as diverse as the country itself. And, increasingly, Latinos are swing voters. Democratsmust understandthis or they will risk continuing to lose voter share from the largest and fast-growing ethnic minority in the country.

Much has been said about the Latino vote in last Tuesdays gubernatorial election in Virginia. Pollsters and analysts are immersed in a precinct-by-precinct analysis to better understand how Latinos voted there, but two competing exit polls demonstrate just how much more we need to learn about Latino voters.

A Fox News/AP exit poll found that Republican Glenn YoungkinGlenn YoungkinTrump hits Christie after former NJ governor calls on GOP to move past 2020 election claims Ex-Clinton strategist: Va. results show Democrats 'have gone too far to the left on key issues for educated suburban voters' Murphy campaign calls on Ciattarelli to concede NJ governor election MORE won Latino voters 55 percent to 43 percent, which would be a tectonic shift from where Latinos were just one year ago, when Joe Biden beat Donald Trump among Latino voters 61 percent to 36 percent. But these numbers are based only on exit polling conducted on Election Day, which represented only around one-third of the votes cast in the 2021 election.

Exit polling from Edison Research seems to be a much better match. It shows Democrat Terry McAullife winning 66 percent of Latino voters, versus 32 percent for Youngkin. These numbers include those who voted early and by absentee ballot.

In 2020, Latinos were a big part of President BidenJoe BidenNicaragua's Ortega set to win election amid international criticism Rep. Gosar posts anime video showing him striking Biden, Ocasio-Cortez Overnight Energy & Environment Presented by ExxonMobil Activists cry foul over COP26 draft MOREs wins in Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Virginia. Latinos also came out for both the Democratic candidates in Senate runoff elections in Georgia earlier this year, giving Democrats control of the Senate.

But Latinos also provided former President TrumpDonald TrumpMeat industry groups pledge to meet Paris Agreement emissions targets by 2030 Judge tosses part of DC AG's suit against Trump inaugural committee Rep. Gosar posts anime video showing him striking Biden, Ocasio-Cortez MORE with his margins of victory in Florida and Texas. According to one analysis, Trump also shaved off some Latino support across the country in places where the Democratic advantage was more robust. In the Rio Grande valley of Texas and in Miami-Dade County in Florida, normally Democratic strongholds, Latinos swung towards Trump.

Whatever the exact numbers, the trendline is clear: The Democratic Party is losing Latino voters and needs to speak directly to the issues they care about most. Latinos were devastated by the pandemic. Latinos were three times as likely to be infected and hospitalized and twice as likely to die from the COVID-19 as the rest of the population.

At the same time, they were concerned about what shutdowns would do to their already pulverized businesses. They want leaders to show them how they will get the economy back on track, how they will keep their communities safe, how their kids can have a top-notch education, including college, without the burden of crushing student debt. They want a hopeful, aspirational idea of what their lives can be like in America. They want nothing less than the American Dream.

Immigration reforms remainsa priorityto them as well. But Trump was able to win over some Latinos, especially Latino men, despite taking a hardline stance on immigration. Trump stressed economic opportunities, religious freedom, the right to life and the rule of law. Democrats can counter with better ideas about the economy and jobs, prosperity and education for all Americans.

The lesson that Democrats must take from Virginia is that they cannot assume Latinos will support Democratic candidates moving forward. Democrats will have to earn the Latino vote, and looking towards 2022, Hispanics must be wooed or, in political parlance, persuaded, if they are to be part of the Democratic coalition.

We saw in Virginia a lot of white suburban and independent voters swing back towards the Republican Party. If this holds, Democrats will have to diversify their voter pool to win.

Politics is about addition, and there are many Latino voters Democrats can add to their ranks who will help the party keep and expand its majorities. That is, if the party can swing it.

Maria Cardona is a longtime Democratic strategist, aprincipal at Dewey Square Group, a Washington-based political consulting agency, and a CNN/CNN Espaol political commentator.Follow her on Twitter@MariaTCardona.

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Latinos are the new swing voters: What are Democrats going to do about it? | TheHill - The Hill

NEW HOPE, Pa. The Democrats of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, felt the red wave building over the summer when frustrated parents filled school board meetings to complain about masking requirements and an academic theory on systemic racism that wasnt even taught in local schools.

They realized the wave was growing when such concerns, fueled by misleading reports on conservative media, began showing up in unrelated elections for judges, sheriff and even the county recorder of deeds. And so they were not surprised but devastated all the same when Democrats all across this key county northeast of Philadelphia were wiped out in Tuesdays municipal elections.

This is a bell we need to pay attention to. This is something going on across the country, said attorney Patrice Tisdale, a Democrat who lost her bid to become a magisterial district judge against a Republican candidate with no formal legal training. The Democrats cant keep doing politics as usual.

Shes among the down-ballot Democrats sending an urgent message to the national party: Its worse than you think.

This suburban region northeast of Philadelphia is a critical political battleground in one of the nations premier swing states. Its the type of place where moderate and college-educated voters, repelled by former President Donald Trumps divisive behavior, helped Democrats retake control of Congress in 2018 and win back the White House in 2020. Thats what makes the setbacks here so alarming to many Democrats.

Some in the party privately suspected they were in trouble in Virginias high-profile governors race, which they ultimately lost. But Democrats also suffered embarrassing outcomes in Democratic-leaning suburban New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where they nearly lost the governors office and the state Senate president was unseated by a furniture company truck driver who spent $2,300 on his entire campaign.

The focus now shifts to the even more consequential midterm election season next year, when control of Congress and dozens more governorships will be decided. Already, high-profile Senate races are taking shape in states like Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and here in Pennsylvania, where there is reason to believe the political dynamics could be different in November 2022.

Namely, Trump, who Republicans intentionally avoided in this weeks elections, will almost certainly be a much more significant presence next year. The early slate of Republican candidates, in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, have embraced Trump, his tone and his divisive policies much more than the Republicans on this weeks ballots. At the same time, Democratic strategists believe their party on Capitol Hill will eventually pass popular infrastructure and health care packages that voters will appreciate.

Theres just not a correlation there in terms of what the issues are going to be a year from now and the kind of personalities and the kind of candidates that are running here in Pennsylvania, said Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a leading Democratic candidate in the states high-profile election to replace Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, whose retirement gives Democrats one of their best pickup opportunities in the nation.

The head of the Senate Democrats campaign arm, Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, predicted the party would have a strong record to sell voters next year as the pandemic ends and the economy recovers.

It will be a major contrast with Republicans who are focused on fighting with each other in nasty primaries, wooing Donald Trump for his endorsement and pushing the agenda of the ultra-wealthy, Peters said.

Indeed, while Virginias Republican Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin successfully avoided Trump throughout his race, the former president has already endorsed Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Sean Parnell, whos in the midst of a messy public divorce that includes allegations of domestic abuse. Parnell, a former Army Ranger and a regular on Fox News, is scheduled to testify next week in divorce court.

Trump is also taking an active interest in Georgia, where his endorsed Senate candidate, former NFL star Herschel Walker, is facing allegations of domestic violence of his own. And in Arizona, the candidates are embracing his election fraud conspiracy theories. One of the leading Republican candidates, state Attorney General Mark Brnovich, recently bowed to pressure from Trump in announcing a new investigation into the 2020 election.

Still, historical headwinds against the party that occupies the White House backed by a new Republican focus on education that seemed to unite Trumps base and anti-Trump Republicans this week could make the 2022 midterms the worst election for Democrats since 2010. That year, they lost 63 seats in the House and another six in the Senate.

Bucks County offers a sobering tale for Democrats everywhere.

President Joe Biden won this overwhelmingly white county of nearly 630,000 people northeast of Philadelphia by more than 4 points just last fall, a significant jump from Hillary Clintons victory of less than 1% four years earlier. The county serves as a microcosm of Pennsylvania, and perhaps the country, with a blend of working-class neighborhoods, rural areas and affluent suburbs.

Trumps name was largely absent from this weeks municipal elections, but a new Republican focus on education helped unify the Republican electorate, which was badly fractured during the Trump presidency.

For us, it was really last summer when it all kind of hit, said Liz Sheehan, the Democratic president of the New Hope-Solebury School Board.

People began to raise concerns at local school board meetings about an alleged sexual assault involving a student in northern Virginia. Others seized on controversial books and critical race theory, an academic framework that centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nations institutions and that they function to maintain the dominance of white people. The approach isnt taught in public schools, but has become a catch-all political buzzword in recent months for any teaching about race and American history.

While the alleged sexual assault and debates over critical race theory were hot topics in national conservative media, they had little to do with Bucks County.

We sort of naively thought that, Alright, I guess were a little bit more rational in our area. And all of the sudden, we had meetings where people were showing up in Trump hats, Sheehan said.

A lot of it now is about this notion of parent control in public school, and that is the mask debate and the critical race theory debate coming together under one heading, the school board president continued. And that, I think is what has really motivated people locally, and why we saw a lot of school board members lose seats, a lot of far-right people gain seats.

Sheehan won her race, but many other Democrats were not so lucky.

Robin Robinson, the Bucks County recorder of deeds, says she earned more votes in her bid for a second term than any other Democratic candidate for that office in history. She lost anyway.

Shes scared about what that means for the 2022 midterms.

I was the largest vote getter for a Democrat in the history of this county and I couldnt win a crumby little reporter of deeds? Robinson said. The problem is bigger than Bucks County.

Several Democratic Senate candidates were active in Bucks County in the days and weeks leading up to the election to try to energize voters behind their lower-profile candidates. Overall turnout ultimately exceeded 40% of registered voters in the county, a staggering figure for an off-year election.

Bucks County Republican Party Chair Pat Poprik is optimistic about her partys future, especially after watching a surge of first-time volunteers in recent months. The GOPs success had little to do with Trump, she said.

Some people listen to him, absolutely, but its diminishing constantly, Poprik said. If he comes back in 2024, well see, I dont know, some people say he will, some people say he wont. I gotta tell you, that was the last thing on my mind.

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Local Democrats warn party: Growing Republican wave is real - PBS NewsHour

Nov 6th 2021

TWO OF THE better books on the job invented for George Washington share a title: The Impossible Presidency. Even the most capable presidents are doomed to fail, writes Jeremi Suri in the more recent of them: Limiting the failure and achieving some good along the waythat is the best we can expect.

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Even by these gloomy standards, Joe Biden is foundering. Having received more votes than any candidate in history, he has seen his approval ratings collapse. At this point in a first term only Donald Trump was more unpopular. The Democrats have just lost the three top statewide offices in Virginia, which Mr Biden won by ten percentage points a year ago. This augurs poorly for next years mid-terms: his party will probably lose its congressional majorities.

Democrats in Congress are riven by factional bickering. Earlier this year they passed a big stimulus, but the rest of Mr Bidens agendaa $1trn bipartisan infrastructure package and a social-spending bill worth about $1.7trn over ten yearshas stalled. If passed, the legislation will almost certainly include more money for infrastructure, a poverty-cutting child tax credit, funding for pre-school, a reduction in the cost of prescription drugs and a clean-energy tax credit which will encourage private investment in new generating capacity. This spending is likely to be funded by harmful tax changes, but voters may not care.

Indeed, their spirits may lift next year. Covid-19 cases have fallen by half since September. If unemployment drops further, supply-chain blockages ease and inflation ebbs, life will get easier for those who feel that the odds are against them. Yet, for Mr Biden, that is where the good news ends.

Some of his problems are inbuilt. American politics is subject to patterns more like the laws of physics than the chances of horse-racing. One is that the presidents party loses seats in the mid-terms. Democrats have only a four-seat cushion in the House of Representatives, so their majority is probably doomed. Whatever Mr Biden does, the legislative phase of his presidency is therefore likely to give way to the regulatory phase. Yet, with a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, he will find his room to remake the country with his pen and phone curtailed.

Beyond next year, the Democrats prospects are even bleaker. Their unpopularity with non-college-educated whites costs them large tracts of the country outside cities and suburbs. To win the electoral college, the House of Representatives and the Senate they need a greater share of the raw vote than any party in history. Winning under these conditions, while simultaneously repairing national institutions and making progress on Americas problems, from public health to climate to social mobility, is a task for a politician of superhuman talents.

Mr Biden is not that guy. He has dealt admirably with personal misfortune and by most accounts is kind and decent. However, there is a reason why winning the presidency took him more than 30 years of trying. Democratic primary voters picked him not for inspiration, but largely as a defensive measure to block the progressives champion, Bernie Sanders.

Mr Biden campaigned on his competence, centrism, experience in foreign policy and a rejection of nerve-jangling Trumpism. But the withdrawal from Afghanistan was a debacle, he has governed to the left and the culture wars rage as fiercely as ever. The fact that no voters seem to have a clue what is in the infrastructure and social-spending bills is partly his fault. Child poverty has fallen by a quarter, thanks to legislation passed by Congress on his watch. This would be news even to most Democrats.

The problem is not just Mr Biden, though. His partys left-wing, college-educated activist class consistently assumes that the electorate holds the same attitudes on race and on the role of the government as they do. Virginia is the latest example of this folly. America is a young, diverse country. The median age is under 40 and just 60% of the country identifies as white. The electorate is different. Taking an average of the 2018 and 2014 mid-terms as a guide, 75% of voters will be white and their median age next year will be 53. Democrats have a huge lead among the college-educated. But only 36% of Americans completed four-year degrees. That is far too small a base, especially as Republicans make inroads with non-white voters.

When Richard Nixon won in 1972 the new-left Democrats were painted as the party of acid, amnesty and abortion. The new, new left is just as easily caricatured as the party of white guilt and cancel culture, of people who say birthing person instead of mother and want to set the FBI on parents who have the gall to criticise teachers.

These noisy activists, and the small number of radicals they elect from safe Democratic seats, make it hard for the party to win in more moderate areas, even though they do not represent the majority of the partys voters. Immigration activists are camped outside the vice-presidents residence complaining that Mr Biden has not changed Mr Trumps border policies. By contrast, Democratic voters in Minneapolis, where George Floyd was murdered, have just voted against replacing the police department with a department of public safety.

Countering the Republican message that he carries out the wishes of the radical left will require Mr Biden to be much tougher on his partys fringe. That may mean doing things they hate. He could campaign to hire more police officers in cities where the murder rate has spiked (refund the police, perhaps), or pick fights with the school board in San Francisco, which thinks that Abraham Lincoln is a symbol of white supremacy.

If Democrats believe that grubby attempts to win power are beneath them, then they should look at what is happening in the Republican Party. Glenn Youngkins election as governor of Virginia suggests that Republicans can win in swing states, even with Mr Trump as head of the party, by being cheerful, Reaganesque culture warriors who know how to throw red meat to the base. In a two-candidate race for the presidency, both nearly always have a real chance of winning. Mr Biden and his party need to think hard about what they are prepared to do to limit the risk of another four years of Mr Trump. Because that is where a failed Biden presidency could well lead.

For more coverage of Joe Bidens presidency, visit our dedicated hub

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This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "One year on"

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The calamity facing Joe Biden and the Democrats - The Economist

MCLEAN COUNTY, Ill. (WMBD) Democratic candidate Karla Bailey-Smith wants to represent Bloomington-Normal in the new Illinois House 91st District.

The announcement came at an event at McLean County Democrats Headquarters at 6 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 5. The newly-drawn 91st District currently has no incumbents.

In addition to Bloomington-Normal, the district would include areas like Carlock, Goodfield, East Peoria, and Washington.

Bailey-Smith is no newcomer to politics. In 2020, Bailey-Smith lost the 88th House District seat with 35.4% of the vote to Republican incumbent Keith Sommer.

Bailey-Smith owns a small business in Bloomington and is a Democratic Precinct Committee person. In 1990, she earned an undergraduate degree at Illinois Wesleyan University and three years later, she earned a graduate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Bailey-Smith also worked as a union scenic artist in the New York area. After spending 10 years living in London, England, she came back to Bloomington in 2010 to raise her son.

She previously worked on the initiative to end cash bail in Illinois and has advocated for legislation sponsored by Planned Parenthood, Equality Illinois, the Sierra Club, Everytown for Gun Safety, and the AFL-CIO.

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Democrat Karla Bailey-Smith will run for Illinois House of Representatives in new 91st District - CIProud.com