Category Archives: Democrat

To see what racism and race-baiting look like, look no further than todays Democrat-Left. From relentless obsession with critical race theory, baseless claims of "systemic racism," critical race theory brainwashing sessions, to delivery of health care based on skin color, Democrats and their ideological brethren see everything through black-and-white glasses.

A perfect case in point is the Democrat-Left response to the rebuttal by U.S. Sen. Tim Scott to President Joe Bidens address to Congress Wednesday night.

The $6 Trillion Man spoke softly and carried a big shopping list. After Biden quietly left no spending stoneunthrown, the South Carolina Republican delivered a warm, stirring and confident reply. He spoke about growing up poor, fatherless and Black. He also explained that he personally had experienced racism. But he added a key point. "Hear me clearly:America is not a racist country," Scottdeclared, in contrast to Bidens claims to the contrary.

DAN GAINOR: TIM SCOTT SPEECH TRIGGERS RADICAL REACTION FROM LIBERAL MEDIA MOB. DID THEY EVEN LISTEN TO IT?

Scott also chided Senate Democrats for filibustering his post-George Floyd police-reform legislation. Even after ScottgaveDemocratsthe opportunity to offer extensive amendments, they refused even toconsider hismeasure.Scott said: "My friends across the aisle seemed to want the issue more than they wanted a solution."

The Republican-Right praised Scotts speech, and I began saying "DeSantis-Scott 2024" to anyone who would listen.

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But the Democrat-Left reacted not with a refutation of Scott on substance, but with bitter, bigoted attacks on him as a Black man who refuses to toe the Lefts line and dares to think for himself.

*The vicious slur "Uncle Tim" trended on Twitter for 12 hours before the normally hypersensitive censors at that Big Tech giant judged this inappropriate. Of course, it blamed a misfiring algorithm.

*"A major strategy of racists,is to incentivize one ofits[sic] Black victims to act as the crash test dummy for white supremacy," said documentarian TariqNasheed, AKA Tariq Elite and K-Flex. "WhenUncle Tim Scottsays America is not a racist country, he is fully aware he is speaking in bad faith,"Nasheedcontinued via Twitter. "The purpose is to protect white supremacists."

*According to ABC talk-show host and "comedian" Jimmy Kimmel, Scott said America is not a racist country, "and then Tim went back to thesensory deprivation egghe calls home."

Rather than mock Scott, the Democrat-Left might ask themselves why they never managed to elect a Black senator from the South between Reconstruction and Scotts election on Nov. 4, 2014.

On June 22, 2010, Scott won 68% of the Republican primary-runoff vote for a Palmetto State U.S. House seat. Scott defeated Paul Thurmond, who scored just 32% of the vote. Never mind that Thurmond is Whiteand alsothe son of South Carolinas late, long-serving U.S. senator, the legendary Strom Thurmond.

Parenthetically, Strom Thurmond was the only prominent segregationist Southern Democrat who became a Republican. The Left loves to scream the filthy lie that the Democrats who oppressed Blacks under Jim Crow morphed into Republicans. While Thurmond certainly did this, the other Dixiecrats who tortured Blacksincluding Alabamas police-dog deploying Democrat National committeeman Bull Connor, Govs. Orval Faubus of Arkansas and George Wallace of Alabama, and filibustering U.S. Sens. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, Albert Gore Sr. Of Tennessee, and many moreall lived, ruled and died as Democrats.

Rather than bring Americans together,Bidens inflammatory rhetoric pits citizens against each other.

On Dec. 17, 2012, South Carolinas Republican Gov, Nikki Haley, a woman of East Indian descent, appointed Congressman Tim Scott to fill the seat of Republican Jim DeMint, who left the Senate to run the Heritage Foundation. Scott was elected to that seat on Nov. 4, 2014. He earned 749,266 votes, 83,661 more ballots that White Republican Lindsey Grahams total of 665,605 that election night.

Republicans proudly have held Tim Scott on their shoulders. Democrats attack him for being Black.

This confirms, yet again, that the Democrat Party has become Americas headquarters for racism and anti-Black bigotry.

For further proof of this phenomenon, consider the man atop the Democrat Party.

In his latest bid to unite America, President Joe Biden has called Georgias new election-integrity law "Jim Crow for the 21stcentury" and "Jim Crow on steroids."

"Parts of our country are backsliding," Biden moaned onApril 14. "The days of Jim Crow, passing laws that harken back to the era of poll taxes, when Black people were made to guess how many beans howmanyjelly beans in a jar, or count the number of bubbles in a bar of soap before they could cast their ballot."

Biden said this via satellite to the National Action Network. Its founder, Al Sharpton, is a museum-quality racial arsonist who has called Jews "diamond merchants"andFred Harari, who isJewish, a "White interloper." In 1995, Sharptons anti-Semitic slurs mayhave inspired Roland Smith, a crazed protester, who shot up and ignited Freddies Fashion Mart, Hararis store in Harlem. The ensuing inferno killed seven. Smith fatally shot himself.

Rather than bring Americans together,Bidens inflammatory rhetoric pits citizens against each other. While Bidenhurls Molotov catchphrases atthePeach States new statute, why didnt he help loosen Delawaresmuch tightervotingrules?

*Days of in-person early voting? Georgia: 17. Delaware: Zero

*Ballot dropboxes?Georgia: at least 159 (no fewer than one per county). Delaware: Zero

*No-excuse absentee ballots? Georgia: Yes. Delaware: No.

*Voters name and partyread aloudat polls? Georgia: No. Delaware: Yes

*Voter ID required? Georgia: Yes. Delaware: Yes.

Bidenalso trivializes the pain of Jim Crowsgenuinevictims while diluting the cruelty of thesemandatesand their76-year-long,"separate-but-equal"reign of terror.

"This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle," Biden told journalists on March 25. "I mean, this is gigantic what theyre trying to do, and it cannot be sustained."Male bald eaglestypically weigh 10 times as much as an averageone-pound crow.Does Biden truly believe that Georgias "Jim Eagle" law is10 times worsethan Jim Crows multifaceted, anti-Black voter suppression?

Poll taxes once made voting too expensive for poor citizens, manyBlack. Georgias new lawimposesno poll tax.

Before 1965,Alabamas literacy testasked prospective voters 68 questions, including:"If a state is a party to a case, the Constitution provides that original jurisdiction shall be in ________."By refusing to hear Texasanti-vote-fraud case last December, todays Supreme Courtforgotthatitis the correct answer.

Also,"The Constitution limits the size of the District of Columbia to ________."Answer: Ten square miles.

TodaysGeorgialawkeepsliteracy tests buried.

Michigans Jim Crow Museum observes that inmany a lynching,"The victim was an example of what happened to a Black man who tried to vote."Georgias lawdoesnot reinstatelynching.

Northern Freedom Riders headed South to register Black voters in 1961. Theyenduredbeatings and fire-bombings. Georgiasnew law resurrectsneitherpractice.

Three youngCongress of Racial Equalityactivists namedJames Chaney(a Black man),Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner (both White) registered Black Mississippians to vote in June1964.On Goodmans first evening on duty, local Klansmen murdered them and hid theirbodiesin an earthen dam. Elsewhere, investigators found the bodies of Freedom Summer college students Henry Dee and Charles Moore(both Black), a cadaver in a CORE T-shirt, andfive other corpses.

Thatwas Jim Crow, not merely requiring votersBlack and otherwiseto show ID, asdo36 states(including Bidens blessed Delaware). Blacks routinely present ID at airports, banks, libraries, hotels and millions of other venues daily.

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For Biden to compare Georgias vote-expansion bill with the Jim Crow that slaughtered Chaney, Goodman, Schwerner, Dee and Mooreismorally grotesque, ber-divisive, and a profound insult to those who were killed while crushing Jim Crow and securing Black voting rights.

And,remember: The Jim Crow laws were passed, signed andbrutallyenforced by Democrats, not Republicans.Perhaps thats whyBiden cannot shut up about Jim Crow. Those racist rules werehispartys handiwork.

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Bucknell Universitys Michael Malarkey contributed research to this opinion piece.

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Deroy Murdock: Biden's 'Jim Eagle' vs. Jim Crow here's what Democrats get so profoundly wrong on race - Fox News

I called James Carville hoping to get his thoughts on President Joe Bidens first 100 days in office.

He obliged then, one question in, brushed aside the exercise to talk instead about why the Democrats might be poised to squander their political advantage against a damaged GOP.

His failure to cooperate may have been for the best since the first 100 days ritual can sometimes lead to dull, dutiful analysis. What Carville offered up instead was a blunt critique of his own party even after a successful 2020 election cycle a sequel of sorts to his fulminations during last years Democratic primaries. The longtime Democratic strategist is mostly pleased with Biden, but its where much of the party seems to be going that has him worried.

Wokeness is a problem, he told me, and we all know it. According to Carville, Democrats are in power for now, but they also only narrowly defeated Donald Trump, a world-historical buffoon, and they lost congressional seats and failed to pick up state legislatures. The reason is simple: Theyve got a messaging problem.

A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

What do you make of Bidens first 100 days?

Honestly, if were just talking about Biden, its very difficult to find something to complain about. And to me his biggest attribute is that hes not into faculty lounge politics.

Faculty lounge politics?

You ever get the sense that people in faculty lounges in fancy colleges use a different language than ordinary people? They come up with a word like Latinx that no one else uses. Or they use a phrase like communities of color. I dont know anyone who speaks like that. I dont know anyone who lives in a community of color. I know lots of white and Black and brown people and they all live in ... neighborhoods.

Theres nothing inherently wrong with these phrases. But this is not how people talk. This is not how voters talk. And doing it anyway is a signal that youre talking one language and the people you want to vote for you are speaking another language. This stuff is harmless in one sense, but in another sense its not.

Is the problem the language or the fact that there are lots of voters who just dont want to hear about race and racial injustice?

We have to talk about race. We should talk about racial injustice. What Im saying is, we need to do it without using jargon-y language thats unrecognizable to most people including most Black people, by the way because it signals that youre trying to talk around them. This too cool for school shit doesnt work, and we have to stop it.

There may be a group within the Democratic Party that likes this, but it aint the majority. And beyond that, if Democrats want power, they have to win in a country where 18 percent of the population controls 52 percent of the Senate seats. Thats a fact. Thats not changing. Thats what this whole damn thing is about.

Sounds like you got a problem with wokeness, James.

Wokeness is a problem and everyone knows it. Its hard to talk to anybody today and I talk to lots of people in the Democratic Party who doesnt say this. But they dont want to say it out loud.

Why not?

Because theyll get clobbered or canceled. And look, part of the problem is that lots of Democrats will say that we have to listen to everybody and we have to include every perspective, or that we dont have to run a ruthless messaging campaign. Well, you kinda do. It really matters.

I always tell people that weve got to stop speaking Hebrew and start speaking Yiddish. We have to speak the way regular people speak, the way voters speak. It aint complicated. Thats how you connect and persuade. And we have to stop allowing ourselves to be defined from the outside.

What does that mean?

Take someone like Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Shes obviously very bright. She knows how to draw a headline. In my opinion, some of her political aspirations are impractical and probably not going to happen. But thats probably the worst thing that you can say about her.

Now take someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene, the new Republican congresswoman from Georgia. Shes absolutely loonier than a tune. We all know it. And yet, for some reason, the Democrats pay a bigger political price for AOC than Republicans pay for Greene. Thats the problem in a nutshell. And its ridiculous because AOC and Greene are not comparable in any way.

I hear versions of this argument about language and perception all the time, James. Its an old problem. Whats the solution?

Thats why Im doing this interview. Lots of smart people are going to read it, and hopefully they can figure out that which I cant. But if youre asking me, I think its because large parts of the country view us as an urban, coastal, arrogant party, and a lot gets passed through that filter. Thats a real thing. I dont give a damn what anyone thinks about it its a real phenomenon, and its damaging to the party brand.

Part of the issue is that Republicans are going to paint the Dems as cop-hating, fetus-destroying Stalinists no matter what they say or do. So, yeah, I agree that Democrats should be smart and not say dumb, alienating things, but Im also not sure how much control they have over how theyre perceived by half the country, especially when that half lives in an alternate media reality.

Right, but we cant say, Republicans are going to call us socialists no matter what, so lets just run as out-and-out socialists. Thats not the smartest thing to do. And maybe tweeting that we should abolish the police isnt the smartest thing to do because almost fucking no one wants to do that.

Heres the deal: No matter how you look at the map, the only way Democrats can hold power is to build on their coalition, and that will have to include more rural white voters from across the country. Democrats are never going to win a majority of these voters. Thats the reality. But the difference between getting beat 80 to 20 and 72 to 28 is all the difference in the world.

So they just have to lose by less thats all.

So what do you want the Democrats to do differently besides not having people peddle politically toxic ideas like abolishing the police? How do they change the conversation so that Republicans arent defining them by their least popular expressions?

Youre a strategist, James. I want to know what youd advise them to do. You dont have any complaints about Biden because hes getting stuff done. Hes putting money in peoples pockets. But the Democratic Party is a big coalition and youre always going to have people promoting unpopular ideas, right? Whereas the Republican Party is more homogenous, and that lends itself to a tighter, more controlled message.

Tell me this: How is it we have all this talk about Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and we dont talk about Dennis Hastert, the longest-serving Republican speaker of the House in Congress? If Hastert was a Democrat who we knew had a history of molesting kids and was actually sent to prison in 2016, hed still be on Fox News every fucking night. The Republicans would never shut the hell up about it.

So when Jim Jordan was pulling all these stunts with Anthony Fauci [Fauci was speaking at a congressional hearing about ending coronavirus precautions], why didnt someone jump in and say, Let me tell you something, Jim, if Fauci knew what you knew, if he knew that a doctor was molesting young people, he wouldve gone to the medical board yesterday. So you can go ahead and shut the fuck up. [Ed. note: Jordan denies knowing about the allegations of abuse when he was an assistant coach at Ohio State University.] I love that Congresswoman Maxine Waters told Jordan to shut your mouth, but thats what I really wish a Democrat would say, and I wish theyd keep saying it over and over again.

Can I step back for a second and give you an example of the broader problem?

Sure.

Look at Florida. You now have Democrats saying Florida is a lost cause. Really? In 2018 in Florida, giving felons the right to vote got 64 percent. In 2020, a $15 minimum wage, which we have no chance of passing [federally], got 67 percent. Has anyone in the Democratic Party said maybe theres nothing wrong with the state of Florida? Maybe the problem is the kind of campaigns were running?

If you gave me an environment in which the majority of voters wanted to expand the franchise to felons and raise the minimum wage, I should be able to win that. Its certainly not a political environment Im destined to lose in. But in Miami-Dade, all they talked about was defunding the police and Kamala Harris being the most liberal senator in the US Senate. And if you look all across the Rio Grande Valley, we lost all kinds of solidly blue voters. And the faculty lounge bullshit is a big part of it.

If youre a Democrat, you could look at the state of play and say, Were winning. We won the White House. We won Congress. We have power. It aint perfect, but it aint a disaster either.

We won the White House against a world-historical buffoon. And we came within 42,000 votes of losing. We lost congressional seats. We didnt pick up state legislatures. So lets not have an argument about whether or not were off-key in our messaging. We are. And were off because theres too much jargon and theres too much esoterica and it turns people off.

Not to beat a dead horse, but Democrats and Republicans are dealing with very different constituencies. Democrats have a big tent, they have to win different kinds of voters and that means making different kinds of appeals. Republicans can get away with shit that Democrats cannot.

Yeah, thats a problem. We can only do what we can do. People always say to me, Why dont Democrats just lie like Republicans? Because if they did, our voters wouldnt stand for it. But Im not saying we need to lie like they do. Im saying, why not go after Gaetz and Jordan and link them to Hastert and the Republican Party over and over and over again? We have to take these small opportunities to define ourselves and the other side every damn time. And we dont do it. We just dont do it.

Republicans arent just more comfortable lying, theyre more comfortable with slogans and sound bites, and thats partly why theyre more effective at defining themselves and the Democrats.

Let me give you my favorite example of metropolitan, overeducated arrogance. Take the climate problem. Do you realize that climate is the only major social or political movement that I can think of that refuses to use emotion? Wheres the identifiable song? Wheres the bumper sticker? Wheres the slogan? Wheres the flag? Wheres the logo?

We dont have it because with faculty politics what you do is appeal to reason. You dont need the sloganeering and sound bites. Thats for simple people. All you need are those timetables and temperature charts, and from that, everyone will just get it.

Thats not how the world works; thats not how people work. And Republicans are way more disciplined about taking a thing and branding it. Elites will roll their eyes at that, but Id ask, Hows that working out for you? Most people agree with us on health care and minimum wage and Roe v. Wade and even on the climate.

So why cant we leverage that?

What would you have Biden do to counter some of these messaging problems?

Id have him pick up a phone. Id have someone in the White House pick up the phone. And when someone in the party starts this jargon shit, Id call them and say, Were only a vote away. Our approval rating is 60 percent. We got a chance to pick up seats in 2022, and if you did this, it would be very helpful to us.

Are you sure those calls arent happening already?

Maybe they are, but they need to be more effective. And we need more of them.

Theres a philosophy on the left right now, which says the Democrats should pass everything they possibly can, no matter the costs, and trust that the voters will reward them on the back end.

Where do you land on that?

First of all, the Democratic Party cant be more liberal than Sen. Joe Manchin. Thats the fact. We dont have the votes. But Ill say this, two of the most consequential political events in recent memory happened on the same day in January: the insurrection at the US Capitol and the Democrats winning those two seats in Georgia. Cant overstate that.

But the Democrats cant fuck it up. They have to make the Republicans own that insurrection every day. They have to pound it. They have to call bookers on cable news shows. They have to get people to write op-eds. There will be all kinds of investigations and stories dripping out for god knows how long, and the Democrats should spend every day tying all of it to the Republican Party. They cant sit back and wait for it to happen.

Hell, just imagine if it was a bunch of nonwhite people who stormed the Capitol. Imagine how Republicans would exploit that and make every news cycle about how the Dems are responsible for it. Every political debate would be about that. The Republicans would bludgeon the Democrats with it forever.

So whatever you think Republicans would do to us in that scenario, thats exactly what the hell we need to do them.

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James Carville thinks the Democratic Party has a wokeness problem - Vox.com

Many Democrats, including some who ran for president in 2020, say Iowa and New Hampshire shouldnt hold the nations first nominating contests because their majority-white populations dont reflect the Democratic electorate. Those debates are taking place behind the scenes at the Democratic National Committee, as party leaders including former Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina both say states like theirs should appear sooner on the primary calendar, and Nevada state lawmakers have filed a bill to move to the front of the line.

We definitely see a need for more diversity in states that are scheduled at the beginning of the election, to properly reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of our country, but also [because] it impacts the issues that are being discussed, said Yadira Sanchez, co-executive director of the advocacy group Poder Latinx. Our diversity demands that we see ourselves reflected in the primary process and not at the end, when decisions have already been made.

But for New Hampshire politicians in both parties, keeping the first-in-the-nation primary is mission critical.

Its the holy grail, said Tom Rath, a former New Hampshire attorney general who spent 10 years on the Republican National Committee. When he served, he said, It was clear I had one mission: Keep the primary.

Why should it stay in New Hampshire? One, its tradition, and two, we do a great job, said Bill Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democratic National Committeeman and the husband of Senator Jeanne Shaheen. The primary is to New Hampshire what oranges are to Florida, he said; each state has its bragging rights for a reason.

Shaheen dismissed the argument that New Hampshires demographics should disqualify it, arguing it is a good early testing ground for candidates of any background because its small and comparatively inexpensive, allowing even little-known contenders to prove themselves.

We create a level playing field. It doesnt matter what the color of your skin is. We judge people by the content of their character, Shaheen said.

The debate over which states deserve the political attention and economic boost of an early nominating contest is hardly new. But political experts say that this year, Iowa and New Hampshire face fresh vulnerability, owing to a number of factors: a fiasco at the Iowa caucuses in 2020, the Democratic Partys increasing attention to its diverse electorate, and the relatively small role the states played in crowning the partys current leader, President Biden.

Jim Roosevelt, longtime leader of the Democratic National Committees Rules and Bylaws Committee, said he anticipates discussing the order of the early states at two public meetings this spring, though the decisions will not be finalized for at least a year.

In the meantime, New Hampshire politicians are going on offense to keep the primary at home, and Republicans are getting ready in earnest for it to begin. Pompeo and Cotton have appeared recently at virtual fund-raisers for Republicans in the state, and Haley campaigned for Republicans there last fall.

On the Democratic side, Vice President Kamala Harris visited the state last month, promoting the Biden administration jobs plan and expanded broadband access, though her visit could have more to do with Senator Maggie Hassans upcoming reelection fight; shes considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats up in 2022.

Longtime Secretary of State Bill Gardner, known as the guardian of the primary, has pledged to bat away any attempts to threaten New Hampshires first-in-the-nation status.

The state GOP and Gardner, a Democrat, have taken aim at a sweeping federal voting rights bill that would automatically register new voters and ease the process of voting by mail, claiming without specific evidence that due to its reach, the bill could threaten the primary. Gardner testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the issue in April.

New Hampshires Democratic congressional delegation supports the bill, and Shaheen said the Gardner attack is a red herring, since it is the national party and the states themselves that determine the primary calendar, not Congress. But the debate has nonetheless drawn in more than one 2024 Republican candidate, with Cotton and Pompeo both siding with Gardner.

As an early battleground, New Hampshire may make more sense for one party than the other, some political analysts said.

New Hampshire is a white state, it is a rich state, it is an old state, it is a privileged state, said Arnie Arnesen, a radio host and former Democratic candidate for governor. What we saw in 2020 was that what delivered for the Democratic Party was basically none of those things.

But why would the Republicans not want to be in a white, privileged, wealthy state? she questioned.

New Hampshire state law dictates that it must hold the nations first primary, but the national parties set the primary calendar for states. More than a decade ago, when Florida and Michigan did not follow the Democratic Partys calendar, they were penalized at the convention by having the voting power of their delegates limited.

If New Hampshire rejected a later spot in the calendar, and the national party stripped its delegates power, presidential candidates would have to decide whether it was worth coming to the state just for a symbolic victory and some maple syrup.

New Hampshire has never been about the delegates, said Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire. Its been about the publicity that winning here means for a candidate. Would candidates be willing to give that up? That becomes the question.

Regardless of what the national parties decide, New Hampshire may be starting to lose its sway, said Fergus Cullen, a former chair of the Republican State Committee, because the primary carries weight only as long as the candidates show up.

God bless Bill Gardner, but the candidates are going to make strategic decisions about whether it is in their best interest to compete in New Hampshire, Cullen said. Candidates in both parties are [already] starting to pick and choose which states theyre going to participate in and which states theyre going to blow off . . . if not everyones competing here, the outcome has a lot less weight.

Emma Platoff can be reached at emma.platoff@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @emmaplatoff.

Originally posted here:

As Democrats weigh fate of New Hampshires first-in-the-nation primary, Republicans prepare to run in it - The Boston Globe

NEW HAVEN The race is on.

DuBois-Walton, 53, a Democrat who announced March 8 that she had formed an exploratory committee for a possible run to challenge Democratic Mayor Justin Elicker, will file papers for that run at 9 a.m. in the City / Town Clerks Office, she said.

DuBois-Waltons last day on the job at the Housing Authority was Friday.

Its exciting, DuBois-Walton said. Ive been here 14 years and have been able to bring the combination of strong leadership, big vision ... and put together what residents need to bring big change here.

I look forward to talking to the people of New Haven about what we can do for them, she said.

About what she brings to the table as a candidate for mayor, DuBois-Walton said, I think I bring strong leadership and experienced leadership that knows how to get things done.

That strong leadership in turn brings other partners to the table and other dollars to solve the problems ... I think strong leadership is key, she said. If you dont use that opportunity to provide strong leadership, we wont move forward as a community.

We need leadership thats going to set a vision and a path that people can get excited about, DuBois-Walton said.

While school administration is separated from municipal government by statute in Connecticut, the mayor is part of the school board in New Haven. I think the mayoral leadership is huge, DuBois-Walton said. I think what weve seen when we have seen big reform in our school administration is ... weve seen the mayor partnering with the superintendent and the Board of Education.

I think we need leadership, strong leadership and I think we need ... real leadership..., she said.

We look forward to making that case and talking to the people, she said.

Elicker said he looks forward to the race. Elicker announced his plans to seek a second term in January.

I welcome Dr. DuBois Walton to the race and look forward to the conversation about the direction of the city, Elicker said. We are confident that, after one of the most challenging years our community has seen, we are on the right track.

The city has responded to the pandemic with a focus on equity and science, everything from ensuring a computer device for every public school child to implementing over 45 vaccine pop ups in historically underserved communities, he said. And with the end of the pandemic on the horizon, we are about to take off, starting with a $6.3 million investment this summer in youth programs, safety and neighborhood investment.

DuBois-Walton is one of at least three people planning or considering runs for mayor in November. Democrat Mayce Torres, who has not previously held elected office or served in city government, also has filed papers to run. Democrat Elena Grewal, also a newcomer to city politics, has filed papers to form an exploratory committee.

DuBois-Walton, a native of New York who initially arrived in New Haven in 1985 as an undergraduate at Yale University, then returned in 1994 after a few years in Boston, worked in the administration of former mayor John DeStefano Jr. (as chief of staff and chief administrative officer) and as head of the Housing Authority during the administration of Toni Harp, whom she supported in the last election.

She was a member of Elickers transition team, but has said that it made sense for the leader of the largest affordable housing organization in New Haven to be part of the transition for a mayor who has made the need for affordable housing a major part of his campaign.

The Housing Authority Board of Directors last month voted to accept DuBois-Waltons request to take a leave of absence, appointing Shenae Draughn, a 13-year employee who most recently served as senior vice president of The Glendower Group, a subsidiary branch of the Housing Authority, to be interim director.

Draughn, who began her new job Saturday, will serve as interim executive director/secretary/president of the Housing Authority at least through Sept. 30.

The move to appoint Draughn to lead the authority while DuBois-Walton runs for mayor follows a previously-approved succession plan. It will allow the authority to move forward seamlessly with leadership that you also will have confidence in and provide full continuity of services, full continuity of leadership and direction, DuBois-Walton said at the time.

DuBois-Walton said when she announced her plan to form an exploratory committee that New Haven needs to invest in its neighborhoods, build infrastructure and build on its efforts to shape up the citys finances.

Federal money is likely to come in to help with COVID-related expenses and state Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, is pushing to convert the state to a three-tiered Payment in Lieu of Taxes reimbursement program and give more money to communities like New Haven that have a lot of tax-exempt properties, she said.

But unless we can focus on economic development, the city would be hard-pressed to move forward economically, DuBois-Walton said. While certain parts of New Haven are prospering at this point, the city needs an economic growth strategy that is including everyone in that prosperity.

mark.zaretsky@hearstmediact.com

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Democrat Karen DuBois-Walton says shes in to win, will make New Haven mayoral run official today - New Haven Register

State Supreme Court Judge Scott DelConte dismissed a lawsuit by Republicans against the Schenectady County Board of Elections and 18 Democrats aiming to keep the Democrats off the Working Families Party line.

The lawsuit alleged that the Working Families Partys paperwork authorizing Democratic candidates to appear on the ballot is invalid because it was electronically submitted to the Schenectady County Board of Elections and contains digitally copied signatures.

In a news statement, Democratic candidates in Niskayuna applauded the decision and called the suit meritless.

This was the right decision, and will ensure that voters across New York will have a full array of choices in this years election, said Jaime Lynn Puccioni, a candidate for town supervisor. As a voter, and particularly as a woman of color, I was disgusted to see the Republican Party continue down the road of voter suppression, conspiracy, and MAGA tactics, rather than engaging in a fair campaign about actual issues for the voters of our community.

Lawsuits were filed by Republicans in counties across the state. The case in Saratoga County had already been dismissed by Supreme Court Justice Dianne Freestone.

Electronic submission of documents with digitally copied and notarized signatures was allowed by New York as a COVID-19 safety measure, the judges found.

Justice DelConte saw this case for what it was: a frivolous lawsuit which sought to intimidate the WFPs candidates and deprive its voters of their choice at the ballot box, said Niskayuna Councilman John Della Ratta, a longtime lawyer. While I completely expect the Republicans to further pursue this meritless case, I have no doubt that the Court of Appeals will reach the same conclusion as Justice DelConte.

Categories: News, Schenectady County

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Lawsuit aiming to keep Schenectady County Democrats off Working Families Party line dismissed - The Daily Gazette

I am not suggesting that partisan governance will never lead to the repeal of valuable legislation. But theres little in recent history to support the view that political parties will undo everything their predecessors did. Sharp swings are likelier to happen when congressional gridlock pushes policymaking into executive orders which is true now. After legislation to protect Dreamers fell to a filibuster in the Senate, President Barack Obama turned to an executive order. President Donald Trump then reversed that order, and then President Biden reversed Trumps reversal. If the Dream Act which passed the House and got 55 Senate votes had been made law in 2010, I think it would have had a better shot at surviving the Trump era intact.

If anything, past legislation in America is too stable. More old policy should be revisited, and if its not working, uprooted or overhauled. Theres nothing wrong with one party passing a bill that the next party repeals. That gives voters information they can use to decide who to vote for in the future. If a party repeals a popular bill, it will pay an electoral price. If it repeals an unpopular bill, or replace it with something better, itll prosper. Thats the way the system should work.

We are a divided country, but one way we could become less divided is for the consequences of elections to be clearer. When legislation is so hard to pass, politics becomes a battle over identity rather than a battle over policy. Dont get me wrong: Fights over policy can be angry, even vicious. But they can also lead to changed minds as in the winning coalition Democrats built atop the successes of the New Deal or changed parties, as savvy politicians learn to accept the successes of the other side. There is a reason Republicans no longer try to repeal Medicare and Democrats shrink from raising taxes on the middle class.

This is what Manchin gets wrong: A world of partisan governance is a world in which Republicans and Democrats both get to pass their best ideas into law, and the public judges them on the results. That is far better than what we have now, where neither party can routinely pass its best ideas into law, and the public is left frustrated that so much political tumult changes so little.

This whole debate is peculiarly American. In parliamentary systems, the job of the majority party, or majority coalition, is to govern, and the job of the opposition party is to oppose. Cooperation can and does occur, but theres nothing unusual or regrettable when it doesnt, and government does not grind to a halt in its absence. Not so in America, where the president can be from one party and Congress can be controlled by another. In raising bipartisanship to a high political ideal, we have made a virtue out of a necessity, but thats left us little recourse, either philosophically or legislatively, when polarization turns bipartisanship into a rarity. Thats where we are now.

The legislation Senate Democrats have passed and considered in their first 100 days is unusually promising precisely because it has been unusually partisan. They are considering ideas they actually think are right for the country and popular with voters as opposed to the narrow set of ideas Republicans might support. The question they will face in the coming months is whether they want to embrace partisan legislating, repeatedly using budget reconciliation and even ridding the Senate of the filibuster, or abandon their agenda and leave the rest of the countrys problems unsolved.

I can tell you this, I am going to do everything I can to get the biggest, boldest change we can, because I think the people I represent depend on it, Schumer told me. My party depends on it. But most of all, the future of my country depends on it.

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Opinion | 100 Days of Big, Bold, Partisan Change - The New York Times

Democrats in the state are gearing up to try to re-elect Gov. Laura Kelly, and Ben Meers, the executive director of the Kansas Democratic Party, said he hoped to test the theory. He said that having Democrats campaign in deep-red districts required a different type of field organizing.

There are some counties where if the state party cant find a Democrat, we cant have an organized county party, because the area is so red, he said. But if we can run even the lone Democrat we can find out there, and get a few of those votes to come out you know the analogy: A rising tide lifts all Democratic ships.

Some Democratic strategists in Kansas noticed that phone-bank canvassers had more success with voters during the general election when they focused on congressional and local candidates, rather than headlining their calls with Mr. Biden. Theyre hoping that building local connections in the state will help Ms. Kellys campaign.

In Georgia, Run for Something believes that Ms. Carters presence on the ballot significantly helped Mr. Bidens performance in her area of the state. While the group said that district-level data alone could be misleading, and needed to be combined with other factors taken into account in its analysis, Mr. Biden averaged 47 percent of the vote in the three counties Newton, Butts and Henry in which Ms. Carters district, the 110th, sits. That was five percentage points better than Hillary Clintons performance in 2016.

Ms. Carter said she had tried to start grass-roots momentum in the district. For me, running for office was never an ambition, she said. It was more so out of the necessity for where I live.

Ms. Carters district has grown exponentially during the last decade, bringing with it changing demographics and different approaches to politics. She knew through previous political organizing and her own campaigning that many people in her district, including friends and family, didnt know when local elections were, why they were important or what liberal or conservative stances could look like at a local level.

Ms. Carter said she spent a lot of time during her campaign trying to educate people on the importance of voting, especially in local races that often have more bearing on day-to-day life, like school and police funding.

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How Democrats Who Lost in Deep-Red Places Might Have Helped Biden - The New York Times

Democrats have introduced a bill to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court from nine to 13. Such a move could allow President Biden to swing the current 6-3 conservative majority in favor of liberals.

The effort, condemned by Republicans, faces long odds and has raised questions about why the issue is being raised now and what Congress can actually do.

Heres a look at some key questions:

Democrats say it is in response to Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell.

Early in 2016, McConnell blocked hearings or a vote on Judge Merrick Garland, President Obamas nominee to fill the seat left by the sudden death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.

McConnell said that in an election year, the voters should decide who will choose the next justice. When Donald Trump was elected, he chose Scalias replacement. But late in 2020, when liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, McConnell rushed through another Trump nominee to fill her a seat a week before the election which was won by Joe Biden.

The Republicans stole two seats on the Supreme Court, and now it is up to us to repair that damage, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the bills sponsor, said outside the court on Thursday.

Yes. The Constitution leaves this decision to Congress. It says, the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

And from time to time, Congress has indeed changed the number of justices. It was six when Congress passed the first Judiciary Act in 1789 and the number fluctuated in the mid-19th century. But since 1869, the high court has had nine justices.

Yes, but it is dubious precedent.

In 1937, after winning a landslide reelection, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said the Supreme Court justices were old and overworked, and he proposed to add one new justice for every current justice over age 70. This could have expanded the court to 15 justices.

But everyone understood FDRs true motive. He was angry with the old conservative justices who had struck down several of his New Deal measures designed to cope with the Great Depression. They had a horse and buggy view of the Constitution, he told reporters.

Despite huge Democratic majorities, the House and Senate took no action on FDRs plan.

But in the spring, the Supreme Court appeared to change direction. A narrow majority upheld a New Deal measure to protect workers and unions as well as laws setting minimum wages. It was the dubbed the switch in time that saved the nine.

And within a few years, FDR had packed the court the old-fashioned way. As the old justices retired, he replaced all of them with New Deal liberals.

Because it would take four new Democrats to create a liberal majority. With the arrival of 49-year old Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the court has six Republican appointees who lean right, and three Democratic appointees who lean the left.

The eldest of the nine is liberal Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who is 82. He is expected to retire this year or next, allowing President Biden to fill his seat. But Republican appointees look to retain a lopsided majority for another decade or more, barring a dramatic change.

Not good. The leading Democrats are lukewarm to the idea.

Biden said he is no fan of court packing and opted to set up a 36-member commission to spend six months pondering possible reforms or changes to the Supreme Court.

And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said she was not enthused about the expansion bill introduced Thursday. I have no intention to bring it to the floor, she said.

Markey acknowledged Democrats would also first have to abolish the filibuster rule in the Senate to have a chance to pass his court expansion bill. And even so, it would require all 50 Democrats to vote in favor.

They say they would do the same as soon as they regained full control of Congress and the White House, and change the number of seats to either add justices or reduce the number if a Democratic appointee retired or died.

One popular proposal would limit the justices to an 18-year term, and have a president appoint a new justice every two years. This would have several advantages. It would allow each president to appoint two justices in a four-year term, and it would end the incentive to choose ever younger justices in the hope they could serve in a powerful position for 30 or 40 years.

But the Constitution may need to be amended, since it says judges and justices, once appointed, shall hold their offices during good behavior.

Not surprisingly, most of them denounce it as a terrible idea.

But some conservative analysts worry about FDR precedent for a different reason. They hope the Supreme Court will wield its solid conservative majority to make major changes in the law on issues like abortion, religion and guns. And they fear some justices may decide now is not the time for a conservative revolution inside the court.

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Can Democrats really expand the Supreme Court? - Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON Even in a dysfunctional capital, the Federal Election Commission has long stood out for monumental dysfunction.

It has endured years without full membership, months without a quorum and persistent deadlocks between its three Democratic and three Republican commissioners over whether to even begin inquiries into campaign law violations not to mention open hostility in its ranks and longstanding vacancies in critical posts.

As billions of dollars have poured into American political campaigns in recent years, the F.E.C. has been an idle bystander, a zombie watchdog in the view of many in the campaign finance world from both political parties.

You have literally seen the referee leave the field, said Representative Derek Kilmer, Democrat of Washington and a longtime proponent of shaking up the commission.

The F.E.C. is in dire need of reform, Trevor Potter, a former Republican-appointed chairman of the agency, told Congress last month.

Yet as the Senate prepares to begin work on a sweeping voting rights and elections overhaul bill, the two parties are bitterly divided over a proposal to restructure the enforcer of campaign finance rules, a central plank of the legislation. It is a significant reason Republicans oppose the measure so strongly.

The bill would reconfigure the panel from being evenly divided to having a 3-to-2 split, making stalemates far less likely, giving more power to its presidentially appointed chairman and building in stronger enforcement mechanisms.

Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader who has long fought against campaign finance restrictions including by steering like-minded allies onto the commission placed revamping the panel at the top of his list of examples of Democratic overreach in a measure he said was stuffed with outlandish ideas.

First, I would list turning the F.E.C. from the judge into a prosecutor and giving the party of the president the opportunity to harass opponents, said Mr. McConnell when asked to itemize his objections to the bill. Completely outrageous.

He and fellow Republicans argue that the commissions overhaul would set off a series of back-and-forth partisan campaign investigations each time power shifted in Washington and the makeup of the panel changed.

I think that is a mistake, said Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama and a senior member of the Rules Committee that is scheduled to take up the elections and campaign bill in May. One group will go after the other. With Republicans in control, they will go after the Democrats, and vice versa.

He also questioned whether it was necessarily bad that the commission often could not agree on enforcement measures.

Maybe they dont need to, he said. Most things are disclosed, and you all are sure watching, he said of the news media.

Democrats suspect that Mr. Shelby nailed the true reason that Republicans oppose the overhaul that they prefer the tightly leashed watchdog that exists now over an empowered election commission that would rigorously carry out the law.

Republicans want to keep it broken because they want people to be able to skirt the law with impunity, said Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland and a proponent of the changes. The problem is that it is so broken, people have accepted it as the status quo. But campaign finance laws are meaningless if they are not enforceable.

Democrats and other advocates of giving a new start to the commission which was established in the post-Watergate era also take issue with the idea that it would be weaponized, saying sufficient safeguards would be built in.

Besides the consequential change in the makeup of the commission, the legislation would also give its chairman much more say in managing the agency and filling important staff positions, such as the general counsel, that have sometimes sat empty for years. New enforcement mechanisms would be instituted as well.

But the main bone of contention for now is the plan to revamp the membership of the commission itself.

Under the proposal that has passed the House and is being considered in the Senate, the evenly divided six-member panel would be reduced to five members to avoid the regular ties that now prevent it from doing much besides building a huge backlog of cases.

The legislation calls for the commission to be composed of two members from each party and one independent. Rather than the informal practice today of having congressional leaders handpick candidates for the job a tradition that has provided Mr. McConnell with significant influence over Republicans named to the commission a blue ribbon advisory panel would be created to recommend prospective commissioners.

The legislation recommends that the members include knowledgeable retired federal judges, former law enforcement officials and election law experts.

The idea is to try to take this away from being a purely political appointment and rather have folks who have expertise around campaign finance law and add legitimacy to the agencys efforts, said Mr. Kilmer, the Washington congressman, who said he modeled the new commission on a redistricting panel in his home state.

Needless to say, there is some skepticism about whether the independent member of the commission could be truly independent or instead just be a partisan in disguise who swings the commission in one partys direction. But the legislation specifies that an independent member would have to have had no affiliation or connection with either party for the previous five years.

Critics are not convinced. In a letter to congressional leaders, nine former Republican commissioners denounced the legislation as a partisan takeover with likely ruinous effect on our political system. They argued that the panels unique role in overseeing political cases made partisan parity mandatory.

In our experience, the agencys bipartisan structure both assures that the laws are enforced with bipartisan support and equally important, that they are not perceived as a partisan tool of the majority party an electoral weapon, if you will, they wrote.

Mr. McConnell said that the creators of the commission recognized that it could not be perceived as partisan if it was to have any credibility at all.

The F.E.C. was set up 3-to-3 when Democrats had huge margins in Congress, he said. They could have done anything they wanted. It never occurred to them that you would have the police, in effect, all be on one side.

Supporters of the overhaul say the commission was created when campaign finance was a less partisan issue than it is today, and added that the agency operated much more effectively in its earlier years. And the commission changes have backing from some congressional Republicans, though no Republicans in the House or Senate support the overall elections bill.

Backers see the changes as a way to make the panel function more like other big regulatory agencies in Washington such as the Federal Communications Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission. They also recognize that reshaping the commission could mean that decisions will not always go their way as the membership shifts. But they say they are fine with that outcome.

I really do take issue with this notion that the presidents party would automatically dominate the commission, said Daniel I. Weiner, a lawyer at the liberal Brennan Center for Justice and a former legal counsel to a Democratic commission member. But I would still rather this be an agency that was periodically run by people I disagree with than an agency that is just paralyzed the way it is now.

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Democrats Aim to Revive a Campaign Finance Watchdog - The New York Times

They might not even be able to do it, but theyve sort of laid down a road map for us, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a close ally of GOP leader Mitch McConnell, said this week.

As with many things Schumer wants to accomplish in the evenly split Senate, his plan to eke out new filibuster-proof legislating opportunities hinges on the support of Sen. Joe Manchin. And the West Virginia Democrat just firmly reiterated his disapproval of repeatedly working around the 60-vote margin required to pass most bills.

So Schumer might not be able to muster the votes to take another crack at the same budget measure Democrats used to ease passage of the Covid relief bill, never mind the policy limitations he'd face if he pushed ahead. Still, the New York Democrat's highly public flirtation with the maneuver could help Republicans use it against his party whenever the Senate swings back to GOP control.

Hes certainly laying out what future majorities could do, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said. That doesnt mean that we should.

The Senate parliamentarian, who serves as the chambers nonpartisan procedural referee, said last week that it is possible to revise a budget measure like the one used to sideline Republicans on the Covid bill. But critical questions about the tactic remain unanswered, including whether Democrats could recycle that same resolution to facilitate passage of Bidens infrastructure plan this year and whether they could take unlimited attempts at legislating via the budget.

It's possible that when you unleash the magic that the magic is a whole lot harder to execute than you would think particularly when you get beyond the traditional uses of raising money or spending money, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said.

If Schumer's plan turns out to be workable, the move could afford Senate Democrats at least six chances to stave off the filibuster before the midterm elections next year, rather than the three shots they already get.

How that happens and what way that happens, we have to have discussions with the parliamentarian, of course, Schumer said this week. And we have to decide how to use it. But its something were going to explore using.

"I havent made a decision yet," the majority leader said when asked about the timing for his decision on the so-called budget reconciliation process.

Either way, the procedural insight Schumer is amassing could become source code for his successors to exploit from the outset of their time in control, especially any future Senate leader who has a more substantial majority and policy goals that fit easily within the constraints of the budget process.

For every action, theres an equal and opposite reaction, and this does expand reconciliation. That old door swings both ways, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said.

I would never presume to tell my friend Sen. Schumer how to do his job," Kennedy added. "But I would caution him to be careful with just looking for instant gratification, because its not in the Constitution that Ive been able to find that says hell always be majority leader and that hell always be in the majority.

For Schumer, Manchins resistance isnt the only impediment to pulling off the novel ploy. Utilizing the budget to pass a bill without a 60-vote hurdle is time-consuming, as Democrats were newly reminded during the grueling process of turning the new presidents pandemic aid plan into law in March.

Employing the budget trick even two more times during the current session of Congress as is already allowed would be an ambitious feat on its own. That would mean four more vote-a-rama amendment sessions, much like the all-nighters senators endured in February and again in March to get the stimulus off to Bidens desk.

To work under the budget maneuver, legislation must also be carefully tailored to abide by the so-called Byrd rule designed to ensure reconciliation is only used to advance bills related to spending, revenues or the debt. Democratic priorities like a clean energy standard, paid leave mandates and workers rights could breach those rules, so the tool can be as limiting as it is liberating.

Reconciliation is not a panacea, Cornyn said, noting that Democrats had to ditch major policy goals after the Senate parliamentarian ruled that they wouldnt work in the stimulus. That includes scrapped proposals to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and fund a California transit project Republicans dubbed Pelosis subway to slam the Speaker.

Democrats acknowledge that Schumers gambit, if successful, could sting should Republicans regain control of Congress and the White House. But limiting Democrats reconciliation options could also prove risky, said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who pointed to the GOPs use of the budget to pass a massive package of tax cuts in 2017.

Listen, we learned this lesson four years ago, Durbin said. Theyll use reconciliation for their highest political priority tax cuts for the rich. They wasted no time doing it. Theyll do it again. Wed be naive to step back and say, Were afraid theyre going to misuse it. Theyre going to use it if they get the opportunity.

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Democrats hand their foes a weapon as they weigh a filibuster loophole - POLITICO