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Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature, with the support of the lobbying group Hunter Nation, released a slate of 13 bills on Wednesday that aim to expand hunting in Wisconsin and weaken the power of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

The bills aim to expand opportunities for Wisconsinites to hunt and fish different animals while curtailing the control the DNR has over conservation policy in the state. All summer, Republican lawmakers and Hunter Nation have been engaged in a coordinated effort to undermine the DNRs efforts under Gov. Tony Evers and Secretary Preston Cole to move the department in a more environmentally conscious direction.

The bills will allow the hunting of sandhill cranes and farm-raised bovidae hooved animals such as bison, sheep and antelopes as well as changing the hunting seasons for wild turkeys and stocking more pheasants to be hunted. The bills would also increase the amount of fish that are stocked in public and private waterways across the state.

Other bills will affect how the DNR can regulate hunting in the state.

One bill, sponsored by Sen. Duey Stroebel (R-Saukville) and Rep. Calvin Callahan (R-Tomahawk), will require the DNR to eliminate three hunting rules every time it tries to create a new one. Current hunting rules set seasons, size limits and other conditions for allowing hunting while conserving animal populations. Another bill, sponsored by Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) and Rep. Alex Dallman (R-Green Lake), would require the DNR to consolidate or eliminate some of the licenses it requires for hunting and fishing certain species.

The slate of bills also includes a proposal to scale back regulations over where and when people can carry weapons in Wisconsin. The bill would allow people to carry a concealed weapon without being issued a concealed carry license by the Wisconsin Department of Justice or a law enforcement identification card. It also eliminates a law that prevents people from carrying firearms, crossbows or other weapons while riding all-terrain vehicles and prevents local governments from prohibiting weapons on mass transit.

Republican lawmakers in the Senate and Hunter Nation have been working together to retain a Republican majority on the Natural Resources Board the body that sets policy for the DNR. An appointee of former Gov. Scott Walker has refused to step down from his seat even though his term expired May 1 and his replacement has been nominated by Evers.

A lobbyist for Hunter Nation has been working with the board member, Wausau dentist Frederick Prehn, encouraging him to resist political pressure to step aside while the lobbying group and Republican lawmakers attempted to intervene in a lawsuit that aimed to remove Prehn. Republican leaders in the Senate have refused to hold a confirmation hearing for Prehns replacement.

While conservation policies in areas as varied as logging and chemical regulation are contentious in Wisconsin, nothing is more polarizing than the fight over wolf hunting in the state. A Wisconsin state law requires a wolf hunt to be held whenever the animal isnt listed as endangered by the federal government. In 2020 the wolf was delisted by the administration of President Donald Trump. Since then, environmental activists have clashed with hunters and some residents in Northern Wisconsin over the ability to hunt wolves in Wisconsin, with the DNR often moving to limit when and how many wolves can be hunted.

Hunter Nation has been a prominent part of the push for more wolf hunting in the state and the political fight over the issue is central to the release of these bills, according to a release.

Governor Evers and his DNR havent shown good leadership in any aspect for Wisconsin outdoorsmen and women, Sen. Rob Stafsholt (R-New Richmond) said in a statement. Over and over again, the DNR has made it clear that they wont listen to rural Wisconsin citizens concerns, so were taking a stand with this legislative package. Were telling hunters, anglers, trappers, and gun owners that weve got their backs and were defending our rights for transparency, simplified regulations, and improved access to our states natural resources.

The bills in what Republicans are calling the Wisconsin Sporting Freedom Package have begun to be circulated for co-sponsorship.

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Legislative Republicans, hunting group release slate of bills to expand hunting - Wisconsin Examiner

In the typhoon of congressional brinkmanship weve witnessed this week, one detail caught my eye that could easily have been lost in the gales.

A group of 35 Republican senators signed a letter to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden about an aspect of the House reconciliation bill that they find disturbing.

As you know, current marriage penalties occur when a households overall tax bill increases due to a couple marrying and filing taxes jointly. ... Unfortunately, despite its original rollout as part of the American Families Plan, the current draft of the reconciliation bill takes an existing marriage penalty in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and makes it significantly worse. This is not the only marriage penalty created or worsened by the partisan bill.

For the record, I think this objection is completely sound. If theres one thing the social science literature is virtually unanimous about, its that two parents are better than one. And while marriage isnt essential to ensuring that a child grows up in a stable home some cohabiting parents stay together for decades, and some single parents provide very stable homes the association is extremely strong. Anyone concerned about child poverty needs to be concerned about marriage. Kids who grow up in two-parent families have a poverty rate of 7.5%, compared with 36.5% of those raised in single-parent homes.

Its not just poverty. Kids raised in stable homes without a revolving door of new adult partners for their parents and new stepsiblings (actual or de facto) for themselves are healthier physically and psychologically. They are less likely to struggle in school, get in trouble with the law, engage in risky behaviors or get depressed and commit suicide. The United States has the dubious distinction of having more children living with only one adult (23%) than any other nation on earth. A Pew survey of 130 countries found that the global average is 7%.

This link between marriage and good outcomes for children is so robust that scholars across the political divide agree on it, though they may differ on what to do about it, or about whether it is even possible to do anything about the growing percentage of children growing up in single-parent homes.

Government efforts to encourage marriage, such as those undertaken by the George W. Bush administration, were well-intentioned flops. They included funding for programs that offered counseling for new mothers on the virtues of marriage as well as couples therapy and public service announcements featuring celebrities. The divorce/unwed parenting numbers didnt respond. (Divorce has been trending down since its peak in 1980, but the percentage of children growing up in single-parent homes has not decreased due to the rise of unwed childbearing.)

The governments failure to affect matrimony should surprise exactly no one. For one thing, the programs didnt last long, but thats probably for the best. A behavior as complex as choosing whether or not to marry is unlikely to be affected by government encouragement. Its the same with other behaviors. Remember the Presidents Challenge to eat healthy and exercise more? That was another Bush initiative. These hortatory programs have a long pedigree. President Dwight Eisenhower founded the Presidents Council on Youth Fitness in 1956. Rates of obesity have stubbornly increased in every decade since.

This is not to say that we should throw up our hands. Cultural change happens all the time. Just consider how much weve been able to curb drunk driving over the past 25 years due to changing mores and the activism of civil society groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

But there is one huge thing the government can do: stop making things worse. Every tax or safety net-related marriage penalty should be sandblasted out of the code. The Republican senators are completely right about this. If it means the programs cost more, so be it. Its worth it.

This is precisely the kind of perspective we need a healthy conservative party to advance. We need a party that is focused on the importance of the mediating institutions in society families, churches, schools and community organizations rather than simply on individuals and government. This is too frequently a blind spot for Democrats.

But todays Republican Party has forfeited the benefit of the doubt. You need a certain moral standing to be taken seriously on matters like the marriage penalty. You rely on voters to believe that you are at least partly motivated by good policy.

But when Sen. Mitch McConnell cynically filibusters a bill to raise the debt ceiling to cover bills his party helped to rack up; when Republicans open their ranks to the likes of Reps. Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene; when the party thwarts basic public health measures like vaccines and masks; and when the party closes ranks around former President Donald Trump by blocking an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 riot, well, people will doubt your bona fides.

Republicans are also endangering our democracy with their embrace of Trumps election fraud fantasy. Thats the most urgent threat. But its also a loss for this country that the Republican Party is discrediting conservatism, because we cant do without it.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the Beg to Differ podcast.

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What we lost when the Republican Party lost itself | Charen - Chicago Sun-Times

HOOD COUNTY, Texas Michele Carew would seem an unlikely target of Donald Trump loyalists who have fixated their fury on the notion that the 2020 election was stolen from the former president.

The nonpartisan elections administrator in the staunchly Republican Hood County, just an hour southwest of Fort Worth, oversaw an election in which Trump got some 81% of the vote. It was among the former presidents larger margins of victory in Texas, which also went for him.

Yet over the past 10 months, Carews work has come under persistent attack from hard-line Republicans. They allege disloyalty and liberal bias at the root of her actions, from the time she denied a reporter with the fervently pro-Trump network One America News entrance to a training that was not open to the public to accusations, disputed by the Texas secretary of states office, that she is violating state law by using electronic machines that randomly number ballots.

Viewing her decisions as a litmus test of her loyalty to the Republican Party, they have demanded that Carew be fired or her position abolished and her duties transferred to an elected county clerk who has used social media to promote baseless allegations of widespread election fraud.

Republican politicians and conspiracy theorists continue to cast doubt on the election process across the country, particularly in areas where President Joe Biden won. They have demanded audits in states like Arizona, where the results of a Republican-led review in Maricopa County confirmed Bidens victory. They have also moved to restrict voting in multiple states, including Texas, which passed sweeping legislation that has already drawn lawsuits alleging the disenfranchisement of vulnerable voters.

Last week, Trump issued a public letter demanding an audit in Texas. Hours later, the Texas secretary of states office announced that it had begun a comprehensive forensic audit in four of the states largest counties: Dallas, Harris, Tarrant and Collin. Biden won three of the four.

But Hood County stands out nationally and within Texas because it offers a rare view into the virulent distrust and unyielding political pressure facing elections administrators even in communities that Trump safely won. The county also represents the escalation of a wider push to replace independent administrators with more actively partisan election officials, said David Kimball, a professor of political science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Going back to the 2020 election, by and large, we saw election officials at the state and local level stand up to and resist efforts by Trump supporters to overturn the results, said Kimball, who is also a ballot design and voting equipment expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Election Lab. And now this seems to me like part of the next move: Remove officials and put in somebody else whos more to their liking.

Kimball said such efforts can be dangerous given the power of elections administrators to control the number and location of polling places, the use of mail-in ballots and compliance with state and federal laws. In Mesa County, Colorado, for example, elected County Clerk Tina Peters, who has fueled the false narrative that Trumps victory was stolen, allowed an unauthorized individual to copy the hard drives of voting machines, according to a lawsuit against Peters filed by the Colorado secretary of states office. Sensitive security information, including passwords, later appeared on far-right media sites and on social media, the lawsuit states. Peters attorney has denied that she did anything wrong.

Carews case is particularly troublesome because it smells of political bullying and reflects a wider rift in Texas among different factions of the GOP that has grown more pronounced since the election, said Carlos Cascos, a Republican who served as secretary of state for two years under Gov. Greg Abbott before leaving in 2017.

Theyre in power, they get somewhat cocky and they start eating their own.

Theyre in power, they get somewhat cocky and they start eating their own. Thats what Im seeing happening with the Texas GOP, said Cascos, who this year helped form the Texas Republican Initiative, a group that was created to combat intraparty attacks led by former GOP Chairman Allen West, who is now running for governor.

Similar fissures have cropped up in Hood County, where far-right conservatives who preach allegiance to Trump have split with more establishment-aligned Republicans in demanding that Carews duties be placed under elected County Clerk Katie Lang, who has espoused Trumps stolen-election theory. Lang made national headlines in 2015 after refusing to issue a marriage license to a gay couple following the U.S. Supreme Courts landmark decision legalizing same-sex marriage.

She frequently shares Stop the Steal and Impeach Biden memes and videos, including those produced by Blue Shark Media, a popular local far-right Facebook and YouTube show that has claimed the presidential election was stolen, vigorously opposed mask mandates and repeatedly called for Carews ouster. The shows founder is Mike Lang, her husband, who as a former state representative chaired the hard-right House Freedom Caucus.

Aside from saying that she would abide by the Constitution, Katie Lang declined to talk with ProPublica and The Texas Tribune about how she would approach elections management if given the role. Mike Lang did not respond to a request for comment.

The attacks have confounded Carew, 47, whose job is nonpartisan, but who has voted in Republican primaries for the past 11 years, according to public records.

Stress now invades her sleep, waking her up at night as her mind replays the barrage of accusations against her, she said in a recent interview.

I had no idea what I was getting into.

The heart of the argument against Carew is as basic as the way she numbers voter ballots.

Hood County represents a growing number of areas that have begun shifting from electronic-only machines to more secure hybrid models, which provide paper ballots and are intended to help guard against fraud. A new state law requires all counties to move to voting systems that produce paper ballots by 2026. Like many elections officials in the states largest counties, including nearby Tarrant and Dallas, Carew uses the machines to randomly number ballots in accordance with guidance from the Texas secretary of state.

But critics such as Laura Pressley, a self-proclaimed elections expert and favorite of hard-line Republicans in the county, accuse Carew of purposefully ignoring an obscure provision of state law that calls for paper ballots to be consecutively numbered starting with one. Pressley argues that ballots cannot be audited without such numbering, enabling the possibility of election fraud. She has stopped short of claiming any wrongdoing in Carews handling of the 2020 election.

Our elections are the representation of free will, and if we cant trust that our free will is being represented legally and accurately, then Gods will is being thwarted.

Our elections are the representation of free will, and if we cant trust that our free will is being represented legally and accurately, then Gods will is being thwarted, Pressley, a failed Austin City Council candidate turned critic of electronic voting machines, told county commissioners in April. Dave Eagle, a county commissioner and critic of Carews, invited Pressley to speak at the meeting.

The push for consecutive numbering has become so potent in Hood County that commissioners in May asked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to weigh in on the dispute.

The pending decision could put Paxton, a Trump supporter who unsuccessfully sued to overturn presidential election results in battleground states, at odds with the Republican-led secretary of states office. The office has defended Carew, arguing in a July letter to Paxton that electronic voting systems must number ballots randomly so as not to violate privacy rights. It also has said that the consecutive numbering provision was intended for paper ballots, not electronic voting machines.

As state and local officials battle over how to number ballots in Hood County, experts worry that Texas constitutional numbering requirement is outdated and doesnt reflect a broader shift toward protecting voter privacy.

J. Alex Halderman, an election security expert at the University of Michigan, said that over the years states have outlawed the numbering of ballots, adding that Texas policy is at the other extreme.

Colorado law explicitly states that paper ballots cannot be marked in any way that allows for voter identification. Numbering of Election Day ballots is not allowed in Illinois or North Carolina, and election laws in states including Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi and New York dont call for the numbering of ballots.

Where I really worry is for voters who feel socially vulnerable for one reason or another, because they are themselves members of minority groups or are in the political minority, Halderman said. They are going to be the ones most worried that, Oh gosh, the people running the election can figure out how I voted, and that can deter people from voting at all or being less likely to cast a dissenting vote.

Where I really worry is for voters who feel socially vulnerable

The law dates back to a time when legislators believed that numbering ballots and voter lists would allow for easy identification and help to catch fraud. Over the years, the law was challenged by candidates who worried that it could dissuade voters from participating in elections; by 1947, the League of Women Voters was pushing for a secret ballot in Texas.

The Texas system originally was devised so that, in case of an election contest, any voters ballot could be identified and the court could determine whether it had been changed, stated a 1947 McAllen Monitor editorial supporting the shift toward more privacy at the ballot box. But this precaution is so little needed in contrast to the far more prevalent danger of checking up on timid voters that the cure has done more harm than the original malady.

Since then, historians have pointed to the numbering system as a facilitator of election fraud. Douglas Clouatre wrote in his book Presidential Upsets: Dark Horses, Underdogs, and Corrupt Bargains that George Parr, a longtime political boss in South Texas, used numbered ballots, in combination with poll lists, to identify and bribe voters to choose Democratic candidates and reject Republican ballots. Parrs scheme is credited with helping John F. Kennedy win Texas in 1960.

Seven election experts and administrators told ProPublica and the Tribune that consecutively numbering ballots is out of step with best practices in election security and is not required to conduct effective election audits.

In an audit youre counting the ballots in a particular precinct to see if they match the totals that youve already got, and so the order of the ballots doesnt matter as long as you are counting all of them, said Kimball, the ballot design expert.

A 14-year veteran of county elections administration, Carew left a job in Aransas County on the Gulf Coast to be closer to her ailing parents, children and growing grandchildren in north Texas.

Having grown up in Weatherford, just 25 miles away, Carew said she was proud to be running elections in Hood County. She had garnered nothing but praise from Republican leaders in Aransas County who tapped her in 2015 to be their first elections administrator.

I cant imagine anyone not giving anything but A-plus as a grade. Shes that good, Ric Young, the Aransas County Republican Party chair, said in an interview. People have to realize her credentials are impeccable and she knows what she is doing.

More than four decades ago, Texas lawmakers passed a measure allowing counties to create an independent administrator position. Aimed at insulating elections administrators from political pressures, the law calls for them to be appointed by a bipartisan elections commission rather than by county commissioners. Elected officials are prohibited from directing the activities of administrators.

In proposing the legislation, lawmakers said the move was a step toward professionalizing elections, but they made such a switch voluntary. Of the states 254 counties, about half which make up roughly 80% of registered voters have appointed an independent elections administrator. The others are run by elected local officials, usually county clerks, who are also expected to avoid partisanship.

There has been a consistent trend in Texas to move toward the fairer, less politicized administration of elections, said Jeremi Suri, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin. In the last year, we are starting to see people try to reverse that in ways that are discouraging.

Across the country, elections officials are increasingly feeling pressure to prioritize partisan interests over a fair democratic elections process, according to a June study issued by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice and the Bipartisan Policy Center. The study, which interviewed more than three dozen elections administrators, found that 78% believe misinformation and disinformation spread on social media has made their jobs harder, with more than half saying the position has become more dangerous.

78% of elections administrators believe misinformation and disinformation spread on social media has made their jobs harder. More than half said their job was more dangerous.

In a September news release announcing a lawsuit challenging Texas new elections law, the Brennan Center pointed to the negative effects it would have on elections administrators. In direct opposition to measures that made voting easier in Houston, the states largest city, legislators banned drive-thru polling places and 24-hour voting across the state. They also banned the unsolicited distribution of applications for mail-in ballots to eligible voters, such as the elderly, and created new criminal penalties for election workers accused of interfering with expanded powers given to poll watchers.

These new penalties are one example of a troubling new trend of state laws that target election officials and poll workers, the statement said. Laws like these rub salt in the wounds of election workers, many of whom faced unprecedented threats and intimidation last year for simply doing their jobs.

Texas new voting restrictions, a recent push by GOP activists to seize control of local party precincts and efforts to delegitimize the elections process in places like Hood County could have a greater chilling effect that drives out a generation of independent elections administrators, said David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonprofit that seeks to increase voter participation and improve the efficiency of elections administration.

This is an incredible delegitimization of American democracy when it comes right down to it, said Becker, a former Department of Justice lawyer who helped oversee voting rights enforcement under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. It is a security threat that is injecting chaos and partisanship and doubt into our election system.

Carew entered Hood County in the summer of 2020, when Trump was already raising the specter of election fraud. Deep-seated divisions among the local Republican Party had already started to form with the selection of the next elections administrator.

This is an incredible delegitimization of American democracy it is a security threat that is injecting chaos and partisanship and doubt into our election system.

A five-person commission that hires and fires elections administrators in the county was split between Carew and another candidate, Zach Maxwell, who had previously served as chief of staff to Mike Lang. According to his resume, Maxwell had never been employed by a county election office, but Katie Lang, who sits on the commission, said she believed he was committed to elections and praised his work ethic.

Republican County Judge Ron Massingill argued that the county needed someone with experience to deal with an expected turbulent presidential election. He eventually sided with the Hood County Democratic chair and the Republican county tax assessor in a 3-2 vote to hire Carew in August 2020, making him a target of hard-line party leaders who have framed the decision as a betrayal.

In one of her first presentations to the commissioners court a month before the election, Carew asked them to approve a $29,000 grant from the Center for Tech and Civic Life for items that included election supplies, voter education material and mail-in voting support. She told them that the grant gave elections officials discretion when using the money.

Eagle, an artisanal cheesemaker and former Tea Party leader, questioned the more than $350 million the nonprofit organization had received from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, saying the social media company had stifled conservative voices on its platform.

This is just one more assault, in my opinion, by the progressive left to completely destroy this election cycle, Eagle said during the meeting. He argued that by giving to nonprofits, private donors were attempting to sway local elections in favor of Democrats, and pointed to a lawsuit seeking to prevent counties from accepting such grants. The suit was later dismissed after a U.S. district judge refused to issue a temporary restraining order blocking the grants.

Hood County commissioners voted against the grant, which was accepted by 101 other Texas counties, including 85 that voted for Trump. Texas Republican lawmakers have since passed legislation that would require written consent from the secretary of states office for private grants exceeding $1,000 to election departments, arguing that they seek to tilt the balance of elections in favor of Democrats.

Days after the November election, Blue Shark Media alleged voter fraud in the national election and said voters should not accept the results. Mike Lang, the former state representative, and his co-hosts praised local elected officials, including Eagle, Katie Lang and Constable John Shirley, a former high-ranking member of the far-right paramilitary Oath Keepers, for attending a Stop the Steal rally in front of the county courthouse.

Those are your GOP Republicans that theyre for Trump, they want Trump in there. Theyre not part of the establishment that are like, Oh, no, Trumps not going to win, Lang said during a show posted on Nov. 8.

He did not raise concerns about the management of the local election. But since then, the show has repeatedly attacked Carew, even resurfacing her failed request for the nonprofit grant and calling it nothing more than an attempt to draw unsolicited mail-in ballots.

We need to not only look at who we elect, but we need to look at who our elected officials hire, Lang said during a show that month.

The demands for Carews ouster have grown so vigorous that critics have threatened political action against Massingill, the county judge, for his support of the elections administrator.

Massingill, who is quick to point out that he is a recipient of Trumps Order of Merit for loyalty and service to the Republican Party, said the attacks on Carew from his own party are unwarranted.

I dont think it is fair. I really dont. She is following the law, Massingill said in an interview. We want somebody in that office that is neutral and unbiased. We cant have the Democratic Party or the Green Party or the Republican Party telling her how to run the election.

Days before an April commissioners court meeting, Blue Shark Media aired an episode calling for Carews removal. The show had spent months criticizing Carew for a host of perceived slights, including her connection to the League of Women Voters, which honored Hood County and 53 others for their outstanding election website. Critics in the county have argued that the voter education and advocacy group is biased because it called for Trumps removal from office after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

In another example that Carew was not ideologically pure, the shows hosts pointed to a report that she had denied Christina Bobb, a former Trump administration official who works for One America News, access to a private training held at a conference of the Texas Association of Elections Administrators. Dominion Voting Systems, one of the countrys largest election system vendors, filed a defamation lawsuit against the network and Bobb in August, alleging false and manufactured stories about election fraud. The lawsuit stated that Bobb crossed journalism ethical lines by raising money through a nonprofit to fund a partisan review of its voting machines in Arizonas Maricopa County. Bobb and OAN did not respond to requests for comment.

In a two-and-a-half minute report that aired in March, Bobb said that she was able to attend the first day of the conference after identifying herself as a member of the public.

On the second day, Carew, then the president of the state association, barred Bobb, saying she attempted to attend an elections certification training that was not open to the public or to members of the media. Carew said Bobb failed to inform organizers that she was a reporter. She said the Katy-based National Association of Election Officials, which puts on the training that costs several hundred dollars to attend, asked her not to allow Bobb inside.

She was dishonest with us as to who she was with, Carew said.

But for Mike Lang, the incident was further evidence of Carews bias.

The fact is that Michele Carew, the president of the association, kicked her out, and is that election integrity and transparency? Not a bit, he said during a Blue Shark show in April.

Two months later, Blue Shark obtained an application that Carew submitted for a position in Travis County. The application, they said, suggested that Carew was committing fraud because she stated that she was still working for Aransas County.

How can you have any type of integrity or honesty when you cant fill out an employment application? Mike Lang asked on a June 21 show as he displayed portions of the application.

Carew, who said she applied for the job after months of attacks in Hood County, told ProPublica and the Tribune that she mistakenly submitted an older version of her standardized employment application. She said she was shocked to learn that critics had gone as far as to track down the application.

Lets have a commission meeting and lets find another elections administrator, Lang said during the June show in which he demanded that Massingill take action against Carew.

Despite concerns from some Republican precinct chairs about a lack of evidence, the Hood County Republican Party Executive Committee in July passed a resolution threatening a social media campaign against Massingill if he didnt convene the countys elections commission to discuss Carews termination.

The resolution makes several big claims, but only uses hearsay to back them up, Mark Shackelford, a precinct chair, wrote in internal Hood County GOP emails obtained by ProPublica and the Tribune. Shackelford later told ProPublica and the Tribune that he believed that without more robust evidence the resolution would be perceived as sour grapes within the county. And it was, he told ProPublica and the Texas Tribune in an email.

When Massingill refused, Katie Lang, the vice chair of the elections commission, stepped in and called a meeting. Aside from opponents, the meeting drew poll workers, election judges and former officials in Aransas County who defended Carew.

In the end, the elections commission voted 3-2 not to terminate Carew, marking the same split as when it hired her to be the elections administrator. David Fischer, Hood Countys GOP chairman who along with Lang voted to fire Carew, said the vote had not ended the effort against her.

The next step, Fischer said during the meeting, should be for the commissioners court to schedule a vote to dissolve the office and place elections under Lang. The move would make the office more accountable to the countys majority Republican voters, said Fischer, who declined an interview request.

Commissioners have not said whether they plan to abolish the position.

In the meantime, Eagle and Pressley have continued their claims that Carew is flouting the law. In August, the pair addressed City Council members in Granbury, the largest city in Hood County, where Eagle advised them against contracting with Carew for its November 2021 election.

Instead, Eagle told officials, the city should hire a private company to run its election.

Carew has struggled to withstand the personal attacks and the accusations that she violated the law. She worries she has grown less trusting and more cynical.

I felt alone to tell you the truth, she said in an interview. The worst part was being dragged through the mud over something they dont know what theyre talking about.

Carew said she has tried to find solace in discussions with other elections administrators, the only people who really know what she has been going through.

She feels as if shes somehow let them down. That her experience in Hood County has overshadowed more than a decade of service as an elections manager. And she worries that she will only be known for the claims lodged at her by those trying to remove her from the role.

But Carew is sure of one thing. She has already told her husband that Hood County will be her last elections administrator position.

I dont feel like I am the same person I was a year ago, Carew said. This county has ruined me.

Carla Astudillocontributed reporting.

This article was republished from ProPublica under a Creative Commons agreement.

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Gods will is being thwarted. Even in solid Republican counties, hard-liners seek more partisan control of vote - The Current GA

A new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation reveals that over half of Republicans (55 percent) believe immigrants and tourists are responsible for current pandemic conditions in the U.S., a much larger proportion than the 32 percent of Republicans who attribute high infection rates to the unvaccinated or to the 28 percent who cite the publics failure to wear masks or maintain social distancing. That pervasive belief that immigrants are to blame for Americas public health crisis suggests that classic scapegoating tactics have led to a dangerous mainstreaming of extremism.

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Classic scapegoating tactics have led to a dangerous mainstreaming of extremism.

There is no evidence that migrants are responsible for the surge in Covid-19 infections in the U.S. or even at the southern border. Across the U.S., Covid outbreaks have consistently been worse in regions and communities with no mask mandates or with low vaccination rates. The delta variant along with three other Covid-19 variants monitored by public health officials circulated in the United States before it was detected in Central America.

These facts havent stopped Republican leaders and conservative commentators from linking reports of migrants at the southern border to the spread of Covid-19. In March, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott accused the Biden administration of releasing immigrants in South Texas that have been exposing Texans to Covid. In August, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis claimed that no elected official is doing more to enable the transmission of Covid in America than Joe Biden with his open borders policies. That same month, former President Donald Trump issued a statement warning that thousands of Covid-positive migrants had passed through Texas without noting that migrants who test positive are quarantined.

Blaming immigrants for the spread of Covid-19 is a lazy but effective tactic that packs a double punch of disinformation. It falsely places the blame for Covids spread on immigrants rather than where it belongs: on a lack of adherence to evidence-based preventative practices such as vaccinations and masks. At the same time, it stokes resistance to perceived liberal immigration policies by focusing on the threat of disease, infestation and infection, by voicing dehumanizing ideas about purity and contamination and by suggesting that immigrants pose an existential threat to Americans.

This is a dangerous game that mainstreams and normalizes extremist ideas. Blaming immigrants for spreading contagious disease is a popular far-right extremist tactic that has been used for generations to both exploit and stoke xenophobic and nativist sentiments and has been used throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

When such propaganda is spread not only on fringe internet platforms, but also by elected officials whom residents trust as the source of their facts and information, it becomes even more dangerous. Such hateful speech can also incite violence. People dont commit or condone violence against out-groups spontaneously, as Harvards Dangerous Speech project explains: They must first be taught to see other people as pests, vermin, aliens, or threats.

Blaming immigrants is a strategic frame that intertwines anti-elite, pro-nationalist and anti-immigrant discourse all at once. Liberal elites and their lenient immigration laws become the real bogeyman, and those laws must be countered with restrictive immigration policies that will protect people here from the dangerous and destructive force of immigration.

Such hateful speech can incite violence.

We should all be concerned about how anti-immigrant sentiment is being used to deflect attention away from ineffective state and regional public health policies, to discourage people from accepting the science about masks and vaccines and to encourage them to blame others for Covids spread. In linking immigration with the spread of Covid-19, Republicans seek to garner support for stricter immigration laws and persuade voters that the Biden administration is ineffective and dangerous to their health and safety.

But these tactics, which encourage the public to see immigrants as threatening, also lay the groundwork for extremist groups to advocate for violent solutions to address that threat as we have already seen in far-right terrorist attacks across the country and around the globe.

The Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was a clear illustration of the serious threat that propaganda and disinformation pose to our democracy. With a clear majority of Republicans now believing false claims about immigrants role in spreading Covid while simultaneously rejecting public health evidence that would reduce their chances of getting sick it is equally clear that the danger from propaganda is not just to our democracy itself, but to the health and well-being of the people living in it.

More here:

Republicans blaming Covid on immigrants threatens public health and our democracy - MSNBC

When Time magazines Feb.18, 2013 cover featured then-41-year-old Sen. Marco RubioMarco Antonio RubioWhat happened to Marco Rubio, Time mag's 'Republican Savior' of 2013? Florida senators rebuke Mexican president for receiving Cuban, Venezuelan leaders Milley defends calls, says he 'knew' Trump didn't intend to attack China MORE (R-Fla.), the declarative headline read: The Republican Savior: How Marco Rubio became the new voice of the GOP.

That headline with a photo showcasing Rubios boyish yet statesman-like look cast him as the Republican Party leader for a new generation. Moreover, Rubios name was phonetically linked to rising-young-star while he led the GOPs charge on immigration reform.

Strategists and pundits discussed whether Rubio was the partys Hispanic answer to President ObamaBarack Hussein ObamaThe Memo: Progressives exult in new-found power Photos of the Week: Congressional Baseball Game, ashen trees and a beach horse Judge questions private enforcement of Texas abortion law MORE. After all, the same week Rubio appeared on Times cover, he gave the Republican response to the State of the Union address. (Mostly remembered for his ill-timed gulp of water followed by ridicule.)

Fast forward eight years to last weeks Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey, in which Rubios new voice and Republican Savior monikers have not aged well. At age 50, he languishes at the bottom of his partys 2024 presidential prospects list supported by just 3 percent of Republican voters.

So, what happened to Marco Rubio, the GOPs new leader for the next generation?

No slouch by any standard, he is a respected senior senator from the nations third most populous state and known for foreign policy expertise. In 2022, he will vie for his third term and likely will prevail against Rep. Val DemingsValdez (Val) Venita DemingsWhat happened to Marco Rubio, Time mag's 'Republican Savior' of 2013? Democrats face bleak outlook in Florida Democratic donors hesitant on wading into Florida midterm fights MORE but only after a tough, expensive fight. How expensive? In June, a FOX News headline read: Rubio-Demings 2022 showdown could become most expensive Senate race ever. That means Democrats think Rubio is beatable, and in politics, perception is reality.

What contributed to his downfall? One argument is that Rubio peaked too early and prematurely reacted to media hype. Then in 2015 beginning in the fourth year of his first six-year term Rubio contracted a severe case of Potomac Fever, a contagious yet common Senate disease. The fever deluded him into thinking he could be Obamas successor.

Predictably, Rubio struggled throughout the 2016 primary season and dropped out on March 15, after winning only 27 percent of Florida primary voters compared to 46 percent for Donald Trump.

Rubios embarrassing and career-altering campaign never gained traction. It was plagued by bad political timing and conflict with Trump, who effectively reduced Rubio to Little Marco permanently popping his Republican Savior balloon.

Humiliated by his presidential run, on March 17, 2016, Rubio declared,Im not running for re-election to the Senate. Nevertheless, two days before the June 24 deadline, he filed for reelection, saying, I changed my mind.

Ironically one of the five primary candidates fighting for Rubios then-open seat was a little-known, young, two-term congressman from the Daytona Beach area named Ron DeSantisRon DeSantisWhat happened to Marco Rubio, Time mag's 'Republican Savior' of 2013? Noem denies conservative site's report on affair with Lewandowski: 'A disgusting lie' Florida bars state agencies from assisting with Biden immigration policies MORE. He promptly went back to his 6th District and won reelection but whet his appetite for statewide office.

In November 2016, Rubio retained his Senate seat with only 52 percent of the vote against a lackluster Democrat named Patrick MurphyPatrick Erin MurphyWhat happened to Marco Rubio, Time mag's 'Republican Savior' of 2013? Oklahoma AG requests Supreme Court review landmark tribal decision Equilibrium Presented by NextEra Energy Flaming shipwreck wreaks havoc on annual sea turtle migration MORE. Trump, at the top of the ticket, won the state by only 1.2 percentage points.

As we head into the 2022 election cycle, Rubio has carved out a lane of national and Senate respectability. But the early momentum from his 2013 glory days is lost because the Republican Party and Tea Party wing that first elected him in 2010 has radically changed. Rubio belongs to the Trumplican Party now but is not considered a true MAGA-hat-wearing believer.

Politically speaking, the two-term senator is smothered by Gov. DeSantis, who is smothered by former President TrumpDonald TrumpBiden's Red Queen justice:How he destroyed both the investigation and the reputation of border agents Trump asks judge to force Twitter to lift ban Trump teases Schumer about occasional Ocasio-Cortez challenge MORE. Loyalty to Trump is the only standard that seems to matter. And Trumplicans, especially those in Florida, know the difference between true believers and those who pretend because they have no choice.

Rubios last chapter hasnt been written. Born in 1971, he could be a factor in presidential cycles for at least two more decades. Rubio could be perceived as a moderate, compromise candidate when the Trump era ends. Moreover, serving for decades, he could become a lion of the Senate even majority leader someday.

Then perhaps when Rubio is in his late 60s, some young GOP presidential candidate might pluck him from the Senate and choose him to be his running mate adding gravitas and foreign policy experience to a national winning ticket.

In the end, Rubio is a man of great faith who often tweets Bible verses. And this once so-called Republican Savior knows that His Savior was humiliated and defeated by his people, but ultimately resurrected.

Myra Adams writes about politics and religion for numerous publications. She is a RealClearPolitics contributorand served on the creative team of two GOP presidential campaigns in 2004 and 2008. Follow her on Twitter @MyraKAdams.

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What happened to Marco Rubio, Time mag's 'Republican Savior' of 2013? | TheHill - The Hill

Rep. Kevin McCarthy has been clawing his way upward by embracing Trump, distancing himself from Trump, and trying to embrace him again. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

This week was a big anniversary for Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican minority leader, but one hed rather forget. For the rest of us, however, the events six years ago are worth recalling to understand just who McCarthy is, what hes so desperate to become and why hes doing the craven things he does to realize his dream.

On Sept. 28, 2015, Republicans controlled Congress. McCarthy, then the House majority leader, announced a bid to become the speaker. He was favored to succeed Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio, who was resigning rather than be ousted by party hard-liners contemptuous that he wasnt enough of a battler against President Obama. McCarthy vowed to be that brawler. But a day later, live on Fox News, the congressman from Bakersfield committed a rare bit of truth-telling.

Foxs Sean Hannity had badgered him: What had Republicans achieved under his and Boehners leadership? After minutes of testy back-and-forth, McCarthy finally had an answer to satisfy the conservative host. Not about some law to make the country a better place. Instead McCarthy boasted that polls showed House Republicans had succeeded in undermining Hillary Clinton, the likely 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, by their prolonged investigation of Islamic militants attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, which killed four Americans in 2012 when she was secretary of State:

Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping."

McCarthy pleased Hannity, but in saying the quiet part out loud hed confirmed Democrats contention that the Benghazi probe was purely partisan; the Clinton campaign rushed out a video ad of McCarthys gaffe. Republicans questioned his political smarts, and a faction of House right-wingers endorsed a rival for speaker. On Oct. 8, McCarthy abandoned his candidacy.

The episode reflected the essence of McCarthy an ambitious partisan rather than a constructive, substantive legislator. After election to the California State Assembly in 2002 and to Congress in 2006, he immediately moved in Sacramento and Washington to climb the partys leadership ladders. Much like his Republican Senate counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, McCarthy is what the late Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona used to describe as a party over country politician.

Story continues

McConnell has said hes 100% focused on blocking President Bidens agenda, but lately McCarthy has been working to top him. McCarthy is mobilizing House Republicans against the bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed in the Senate with support from 19 Republicans, including McConnell.

Both men are leading Republicans to oppose an essential but unpopular increase in the nations debt limit, despite bipartisan responsibility for that debt. Theyre demanding that Democrats alone authorize the Treasury to keep borrowing to pay the nations bills and avert a catastrophic U.S. default in mid-October; they falsely suggest the increase is needed to cover Democrats multitrillion-dollar spending plans, which arent law yet and would be spread over a decade if enacted. The government must borrow to cover existing obligations and to offset federal revenue lost to Republicans tax cuts.

McCarthys humiliation in 2015 only slowed his drive to become speaker. With Republicans favored to win a majority in next years midterm election, his ambition dictates every move. Hes virtually measuring the draperies for the suite belonging to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco). Yes, thats the one briefly occupied, and vandalized, by the pro-Trump insurrectionists whom some House Republicans now describe as mere tourists, even patriots.

They get little or no reproach from McCarthy. Hes determined not to offend former President Trump or the MAGA base between now and November 2022. He needs their support, first to elect a Republican majority and then to back him for speaker. After all, the far right is no longer a wing of the party, as it was in 2015. It is the party: Trumps party.

McCarthy is blowing to the MAGA winds now, but the human weather vane went kerflooey for a time after Jan. 6. Hed previously echoed Trumps election-fraud lies. Even after the Capitol siege, he led House Republicans in voting against certifying electoral votes from two pro-Biden states. McCarthys longtime boss and Republican predecessor in Congress, former Rep. Bill Thomas, went on local TV to scorch his erstwhile protege for supporting, nurturing, the lies of the president just to advance his political career.

McCarthy opposed Trumps impeachment a week later. But amid a backlash from party donors to the presidents incitement of the mob, he blamed Trump for the attack and called for his censure. Then came the MAGA blowback. McCarthy rushed to Florida. "Kevin came down to kiss my ass and wants my help to win the House back," Trump said later, according to Bob Woodward and Robert Costas new book, Peril.

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, ousted from McCarthys Republican leadership circle for condemning Trump, called McCarthys pilgrimage to Florida unforgivable.

I would be deeply ashamed of myself, she said Sunday on CBS 60 Minutes. I dont know how you explain that to your children.

The explanation is simple: Its McCarthys dream to be speaker, even at the cost of his political soul and the nations democratic well-being.

Yet its his nightmare to be reliant on a man who returns no ones loyalty, and who no longer thinks of McCarthy as loyal my Kevin. McCarthy can bend the knee all he wants. Trump stands ready to kick him to the curb.

@jackiekcalmes

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Continued here:

Calmes: McCarthy, the Republican 'leader' so desperately trying to be a follower - Yahoo News

In the coming months over the horizon, individual Republicans are going to be in a position to help determine the course of the GOP.

INDIANAPOLIS Hail to the victors, the undefeated among us: Frank OBannon, Julia and Andr Carson, Dan Coats, Mitch Daniels, Robert Orr, Lee Hamilton, Todd Young, Bob Knights 1976 Hoosiers, champions all in politics and sports.

In their time, they didnt face the permanence of defeat and whether to accept such a fate.

There are other modern statesmen and women who have experienced the bitterness of defeat: Richard Lugar, Evan and Birch Bayh, Doc Bowen, Andy Jacobs Jr., Bill Hudnut, Steve Goldsmith, Dan Quayle, Joe Kernan, John Gregg and Pete Buttigieg. With their defeats, they accepted their fates in varying degrees of humility and grace. There are those like Mike Pence, John Brademas and Phil Sharp who would come back from the stings of multiple defeats to achieve the winners circle, the winning TV chyron.

In the coming weeks and months, Hoosier Republicans are going to face a choice: Whether to be willing to accept the fate designated by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of voters, or whether to sign on to the corrupt motives, cudgels and bargains of the autocratic former president Donald Trump, who lives by Roy Cohns credo of never accepting a defeat; of simply proclaiming victory in the face of empirical results and evidence.

The fate of the republic, the fragile American experience in democracy, may be hanging in the balance of these individual yet collective choices. If Americans no longer accept the legitimacy of victory and the verdict of defeat, the American democracy will wane and, perhaps, collapse.

Growing up in Indiana, a Hoosier schoolboy was taught, Winners never cheat, and cheaters never win. In this context, the notion of a sore loser was implicit: They were never celebrated, instead, derided and cast away.

Each Memorial Day, a Hoosier schoolboy would be riveted to Paul Page on the radio, calling the Indianapolis 500. Many of us had the Walter Mitty experience, imagining his joining the milk-splattered podium revisited by four-time champions A.J. Foyt, Al Unser, Rick Mears and Helio Castroneves. There may have been tears from vanquished Scott Goodyear or Marco Andretti or after mili-second defeats, but they accepted their fates, perhaps while realizing it was as close to victory as they would get. Perhaps there would be a tear shed in Gasoline Alley, but they never whined.

Indiana has a rich champion culture, beginning with Notre Dames Knute Rockne and extending through the decades of titlists: Jerry Sloan of the University of Evansville; Allen Bradfield at Vincennes University; Branch McCracken, Bob Knight, Doc Counsilman and Jerry Yeagley at old IU; Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian, Dan Devine, Lou Holtz and Muffet McGraw at Notre Dame; Carolyn Peck at Purdue; Slick Leonard with the Pacers and Lin Dunn with the Fever; Tony Dungy with the Colts; and Tony Hinkle at Butler.

In 2016, there was a merging of sports and politics as Trump barnstormed the state with Coaches Gene Keady, Holtz and Knight (who took credit for convincing the Manhattan billionaire to seek the White House).

President Trumps White House tenure was, to say the least, tumultuous. He openly feuded with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and ended his term by goading an insurrectionist mob at the U.S. Capitol to hang Mike Pence on Jan. 6.

Coats authored a Sept. 17, 2020, New York Times op-ed in which the former Indiana senator laid out the stakes: Voters face the question of whether the American democratic experiment, one of the boldest political innovations in human history, will survive. Our democracys enemies, foreign and domestic, want us to concede in advance that our voting systems are faulty or fraudulent; that sinister conspiracies have distorted the political will of the people."

Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan wrote in an op-ed last week, Our constitutional crisis is already here. Kagan writes, Trump and his Republican allies are actively preparing to ensure his victory by whatever means necessary. Trumps charges of fraud in the 2020 election are now primarily aimed at establishing the predicate to challenge future election results that do not go his way."

According to analysis by The Atlantics Adam Serwer, 1. Trump tried to pressure secretaries of state to not certify; 2. tried to pressure state legislatures to overturn the results. 3. tried to get the courts to overturn the results. 4. tried to pressure Mike Pence to overturn the results. 5. When all else failed, Trump tried to get a mob to overturn the results.

Since Jan. 6, there have been 11 states that have changed laws that will allow partisan committees to determine the acceptance of election results, as opposed to the various secretary of states including Republicans in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Arizona - who made the correct calls in 2020.

In the coming months over the horizon, individual Republicans are going to be in a position to help determine the course of the GOP and the future of the American democracy. According to filmmaker Ken Burns, in the American experience, "There are three great crises before this: The Civil War, the Depression, and World War II. This is equal to it."

Is it now alls fair in love and war? Or should it be more of its how you play the game? About how you accept the results without blaming someone else and whining or changing the rules.

The fate of the republic hangs in the balance.

The columnist is publisher of Howey Politics Indiana atwww.howeypolitics.com. Find Howey on Facebook and Twitter @hwypol.

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HOWEY: Individual Republicans hold the fate of the republic - WTHR

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) The big field of Republicans running for governor of Pennsylvania is increasingly unsettled, with more candidates joining it, few leading party figures picking favorites and persistent talk that one of the most senior state Republican lawmakers may run.

Perhaps the most-asked question among Republican lawmakers, donors and strategists is whether Jake Corman, the state Senates president pro tempore, will declare his candidacy for governor.

In a brief interview in a Capitol corridor, Corman would not say whether he is considering running, or if it had crossed his mind.

Its crossed my mind that we need a good candidate, someone who can win, Corman said.

Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, R-Centre. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, file)AP

But Corman, 57, the son of a state senator and whose district includes Penn States main campus in Happy Valley, suggested that, even if he does decide to run, he wont talk about it until after the municipal election on Nov. 2.

Well start talking about 2022 after the election, Corman said.

Corman may be waiting, but in the space of a few weeks three more candidates, all from suburban Philadelphia, have said they are running.

One, Guy Ciarrocchi, who just stepped down as president and CEO of the Chester County Chamber of Business and Industry, said the big Republican primary field did not dissuade him from joining it.

Thats because, he said, nobody was talking about what we are all talking about at our kitchen tables, which is reopening businesses after the pandemic-related shutdowns and keeping them open.

The latest to enter is Dave White, who runs a large plumbing and HVAC firm in Delaware County and is a former county councilman who lost reelection in 2017. He has strong connections to blue-collar labor unions, is a third-generation union steamfitter and employs union steamfitters, plumbers and sheet metal workers.

White, who has helped marshal building-trades union support for Republican candidates behind the scenes, said he has traveled the state to meet party figures and is putting $2 million of his own money into the race.

He is also expected to have support from prominent party donors and fundraisers from southeastern Pennsylvania.

He said he will make a formal announcement in the near future.

At the outset, he is framing himself as the blue-collar candidate in the race, a champion of working families and an outsider who is not afraid to take on the system.

Meanwhile, state Sen. Dan Laughlin, R-Erie, also said this week that he plans to declare his candidacy soon.

Laughlin, who in March had said he was considering running, may be the most centrist candidate.

He has expressed support for raising the minimum wage and legalizing marijuana, and is bucking party orthodoxy not to mention practically every other candidate for governor in bluntly scorning former President Donald Trumps baseless claims about a rigged election.

On the Democratic side, two-term state Attorney General Josh Shapiro has said he will run, and his presumed candidacy has thus far cleared the field of rivals. While he hasnt formally declared his candidacy, he may soon, in mid-October.

Pa. Attorney General Josh Shapiro.Dan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive.com, file

Shapiro told attendees at a fundraiser Monday in Philadelphia that he could have more to say about his candidacy in the next couple weeks, his campaign confirmed.

The Republican field is double-digits deep, and includes Lou Barletta, a former Hazleton mayor and four-term member of Congress who was the Republican nominee in his 2018 loss to Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey.

Nobody has nailed down a critical mass of support and, with such a big and growing field just a few months before the state GOPs winter meeting, its hard to see the party giving an endorsement, said Arnold McClure, the Republican Party chair from Huntingdon County.

McClure sees no favorite in the race, and few party leaders picking favorites.

Its way too early, McClure said. We feel there are too many people running, even though many of them are real good candidates. The governors nomination is up for grabs.

See more here:

Republican nomination for Pa. governor is up for grabs with several candidates, no favorite - PennLive

Imam Mohamed Herbert of the Islamic Society of Tulsa, the city's only mosque, whose congregation is preparing to aid in resettling the 850 Afghan refugees bound for the city. Chris Polansky /Public Radio Tulsa hide caption

Imam Mohamed Herbert of the Islamic Society of Tulsa, the city's only mosque, whose congregation is preparing to aid in resettling the 850 Afghan refugees bound for the city.

In a cavernous warehouse in Tulsa, Okla., Kathy Clarke is digging through a big produce crate filled with bedsheets, keeping a tally on a clipboard.

"They're bringing in a bunch of stuff and then we're sorting through it," Clarke says. "Right now, we're doing twin sheets and counting them as we put them in there."

The warehouse is normally where Catholic Charities of Eastern Oklahoma stages donations for its food pantry. Today, though, Clarke is one of dozens of volunteers surrounded by donated mattresses, vacuum cleaners, shower curtains anything a family might need to completely start over.

Clarke, a recently retired college administrator, says she was drawn to volunteer with Catholic Charities for the first time after seeing news reports of what the refugees had gone through to escape their home country.

"I hope that whoever sleeps on these sheets has a good life," she says, becoming emotional. "I do. They deserve it."

Catholic Charities is the sole refugee resettlement agency in Oklahoma, and they're gearing up for the arrival of around 1,800 Afghans in the days and weeks to come. That's the third most in the country, after only California (5,255) and Texas (4,481). Tulsa alone is set to take in 850, more than most states.

Preparing for the refugees' arrival has fallen largely on the shoulders of the city's faith leaders. On a residential block a few miles from the warehouse, First United Methodist Church lead pastor Jessica Moffatt unlocks the front door to one of six houses her congregation is fixing up and leasing to the Afghans at no cost.

Donated items are sorted in a warehouse for incoming families. Chris Polansky/Public Radio Tulsa hide caption

"We just talk all the time about being aware of opportunities to provide what I call 'holy hospitality' to anyone who comes our way," she says.

The city's spiritual leaders from various denominations and faiths are in agreement about helping the Afghans, she says.

"And there's not a lot we can say that we all agree on," she says.

Mohamed Herbert, imam at the Islamic Society of Tulsa, politely disagrees.

"I've seen that a lot in Tulsa," says the leader the of city's only mosque, which draws roughly 2,000 worshippers weekly.

"Of course this is not to say we don't have problems, everybody's got problems," says Herbert, a Baltimore native who moved to Tulsa two years ago after graduating seminary in Dallas. "But from my own unique personal experience, I've seen nothing but, you know, people just opening their hearts and their hands to anyone that's new."

Public sentiment in Oklahoma seems to mirror recent NPR/Ipsos polling that finds most Americans support resettling the Afghans. But there is some loud dissent.

In multiple Facebook videos, Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman John Bennett says the party does not consider the refugees to be welcome in the state.

"Oklahomans, I encourage you to call and email the governor, call and email your legislators, and tell them: Do not allow Afghan refugees into Oklahoma," Bennett says.

A spokesperson for conservative Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt says in a statement that he "welcomes Afghans fleeing the terrorist Taliban regime to come to Oklahoma and live in the freedom we hold so dearly."

Tulsa's Republican Mayor G.T. Bynum also says he's eager to welcome the Afghans.

"I don't think the state Republican Party is speaking on behalf of most Republicans I talk to, and certainly not the elected officials," Bynum says.

The mayor has asked the city to redirect furniture bound for surplus auction to furnish refugees' new homes, and has arranged for the local transit agency to provide them with free bus passes. Bynum has even signed up for volunteer shifts himself.

"My hope is that these refugees who are coming to our city, that's what they recognize about their new home, is that this is a city where we help each other out, whether you've lived here your whole life or you just got off the plane from Afghanistan," Bynum says.

Deacon Kevin Sartorius, the local Catholic Charities CEO, says all the refugees will be greeted at Tulsa International Airport by an interfaith welcoming committee wearing shirts reading "WELCOME!" in English as well as Dari and Pashto, Afghanistan's two most-spoken languages.

"I know that if my great-grandparents, who came over from Germany, had someone waiting for them with a shirt in German that said "Willkommen," I think they would have been happy and it would have put a smile on their face," Sartorius says. "So let's hope we can do the same thing for these people."

Back at the mosque, Imam Herbert says volunteers there will be cooking halal meals and simply helping their new neighbors adjust to life in the U.S.

"You know, they're coming from a different culture, a different way of life. You know, where do you go to get your food? Where do you go to get your clothes, you know? They're coming from Afghanistan there isn't Walmart in Afghanistan," Herbert says.

Herbert says he hopes the refugees feel just as welcome in Oklahoma as he has.

He'll know soon if that wish comes true. The very first refugee touched down on Friday, with hundreds set to follow in the days and weeks to come.

Originally posted here:

Oklahoma Welcomes Afghan Refugees, Even If The State Republican Party Disagrees - NPR

A Republican redistricting operative whose clandestine work helped drag Wisconsin into a legal morass last decade appears to now be on the payroll of the Texas Legislature as lawmakers work to redraw maps that will determine the distribution of political power for years to come.

The operative, Adam Foltz, was part of the team that helped craft Wisconsins legislative maps after Republicans took control of that state Legislature in 2010. Foltz played a key role in a tight-lipped and questionable redrawing process that shut out Democrats and drew the condemnation of federal judges who described it as needlessly secret, according to court records.

Foltz may now be playing a behind-the-scenes role in Texas. The Capitols internal staff directory, to which The Texas Tribune obtained access, shows Foltz is working for the House Redistricting Committee. His office and phone number in that directory match those of the committees staff office in the Capitol basement, but at least one Democrat on the committee said they had not been advised of his involvement. Foltz has not been a visible part of the committee's public-facing work.

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Though Foltz is assigned to the House Redistricting Committee, state employment records show that Foltz is actually on the payroll of the Texas Legislative Council, a nonpartisan state agency that supports the Legislature in drafting and analyzing proposed legislation and manages the internal mapping tool lawmakers use to redraw political maps. During the redistricting process, the council also plays a crucial role in providing demographic and election results for lawmakers proposed maps.

Records show Foltz was hired by the agency under the title of legislative professional on May 17 at a $120,000 annual salary. But Kimberly Shields, the council's assistant executive director, said in an email that Foltz reports to state Rep. Todd Hunter, the Corpus Christi Republican who chairs the redistricting committee.

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"While Mr. Foltz is on the legislative council payroll, he is considered an employee of the House Redistricting Committee, and his hiring and duties are entirely within the purview of Chairman Hunter," Shields said in an email. "The council provides support on request to the house and senate in many situations, including occasionally covering the salary of a staff member. We don't have any other committee employees on our payroll."

Hunter did not respond to questions about Foltzs involvement in the mapping process.

The work of redistricting is never easy, but I am fully committed to a fair process and I look forward to working with my fellow members of this committee on the task at hand, Hunter said in a February statement when he was first appointed to chair the committee by House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont.

A request for comment to the staff email assigned to Foltz also went unanswered. A spokesperson for Phelan declined to comment and referred questions to Hunter.

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Texas lawmakers are currently in session in Austin to redraw the states legislative and congressional maps to reflect a decades worth of population growth. The census showed people of color were behind 95% of the state's growth since 2010 about 4 million new residents with Hispanic Texans responsible for half of that growth.

The redistricting process has always been complex and contentious in Texas, requiring repeated federal intervention to protect Hispanic and Black voters. In each of the last four redistricting cycles, either a federal court or the U.S. Department of Justice determined that Texas did not comply with federal protections for those voters. This years effort will mark the first time in decades that Texas lawmakers Republicans are again in full control of the process will be allowed to redraw maps without the federal supervision that prevented states with discriminatory track records from enacting new maps until they were reviewed to ensure they didnt pull back on the voting rights of people of color.

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Foltzs involvement in Wisconsins 2011 redistricting was shrouded in controversy. He was hired as a staff member for the Speaker of the Assembly to help redraw the states maps following the 2010 census. Though he was an aide to the speaker, Foltz and another staffer worked out of a law firm that was also brought on to help with the process.

He held meetings there under what a federal court called a cloak of secrecy with every Republican member of the State Assembly but no Democrats who were each required to sign confidentiality agreements that bound them from discussing what was said. Despite Republican efforts to keep them secret, documents released during the litigation over the maps Foltz helped draw showed that he was also asked to help witnesses prepare their public testimony in support of them.

A federal court that considered the states maps eventually found violations of the Voting Rights Act in two assembly districts where map drawers improperly diluted the vote of Latinos. In that ruling, the court said the drafting of the maps was needlessly secret, regrettably excluding input from the overwhelming majority of Wisconsin citizens.

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As the case dragged on over legal squabbles about emails Republicans had not initially turned over, the court criticized the secretive process in which Foltz was involved while he worked on the maps from the offices of the private law firm.

"Without a doubt, the Legislature made a conscious choice to involve private lawyers in what gives every appearance of an attempt albeit poorly disguised to cloak the private machinations of Wisconsin's Republican legislators in the shroud of attorney-client privilege, the court said in a 2012 ruling. What could have indeed should have been accomplished publicly instead took place in private, in an all but shameful attempt to hide the redistricting process from public scrutiny."

The 2021 Texas Tribune Festival, the weeklong celebration of politics and policy featuring big names and bold ideas, wrapped on Sept. 25, but theres still time to tune in. Explore dozens of free, on-demand events before midnight Thursday, Sept. 30, at tribfest.org.

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Correction, Sept. 29, 2021: A previous version of this story misspelled the name of the Texas Legislative Councils assistant executive director. She is Kimberly Shields, not Kimberley Shields.

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Texas appears to be paying a secretive Republican political operative $120,000 annually to work behind the scenes on redistricting - KPRC...