Category Archives: Republican

Elected Republican officials in a conservative Michigan county who gave themselves bonuses totalling $65,000 with federal Covid-19 relief funds said they would return the money following days of criticism.

The Shiawassee county commissioners acted after a prosecutor said the payments were illegal, the Argus-Press reported.

The Michigan state constitution bars additional compensation for elected officials after services had already been rendered, prosecutor Scott Koerner said.

The commissioners voted on 15 July to award themselves $65,000 as part of a plan to give $557,000 to 250 county employees as hazard pay for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

The smallest amounts for recipients were $1,000 to $2,000. But the chairman of the county board, Jeremy Root, got $25,000. Two commissioners received $10,000 each, while four received $5,000 each.

The vote was 6-0 with one commissioner absent.

The commissioners awarded money to other elected officials, including the prosecutor, the sheriff and the county clerk all Republicans too. They also said they would give it back.

Since these payments were made, confusion about the nature of these funds has run rampant, a statement said.

[We] deeply regret that this gesture has been misinterpreted, and have unanimously decided to voluntarily return the funds to the county, pending additional guidance from the state of Michigan.

One commissioner, Marlene Webster, insisted she had no idea she had voted to pay herself. She returned the money last week, posting a copy of the check on Facebook. She criticized the latest statement, saying there was no misinterpretation.

Thats an insult to the citizens of Shiawassee county, Webster said.

Two Michigan congressmen, a Democrat and a Republican, said federal virus aid was not intended to reward elected officials.

A judge set a hearing for Monday in a lawsuit aimed at rescinding bonuses for the officials, filed before the latest action.

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Michigan Republicans will return Covid relief funds used to pay own bonuses - The Guardian

Photo: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag

In the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection, when both parties agreed on the need for an investigation into the attack, the shorthand that entered the lexicon was 9/11-style commission. When, on January 12, Illinois Republican Rodney Davis introduced a bill to create a commission, he noted that the commissions structure is in line with the 9/11 Commission. Momentum is growing on Capitol Hill for an independent 9/11-style commission, reported The Hill later that month.

But when media accounts these days describe the political wrangling over the investigation, the once-ubiquitous term now rarely appears. The reason for this is that the entire political context for the investigation has changed. The insurrection was briefly considered an event akin to 9/11: an outside attack, which in its horror would unite the parties.

Now Republicans see the insurrection as an action by their political allies. Some of them are embarrassed by the insurrection and wish to avoid discussing it, while others see its members as noble martyrs. But almost none of them actually have the stomach to denounce the rioters any more.

That broader context has been obscured by a series of maneuvers over the investigating committee first by Republicans appointing Jims Banks and Jordan, two ardent Trumpists, followed by Democrats rejecting the Republicans appointments, followed by Republicans boycotting the committee and calling for their own. Two months ago, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy opposed a bipartisan commission as duplicative, and now he has proposed to counter the committee by creating a literal duplicate.

Politico reporter Rachel Bade suggests the squabbles over the commissions members comes down to whether silencing GOP voices is the right way to go in convincing GOP voters. But at this point, this is not convincing. The Republican strategy was set long ago: It is to discredit the investigation and deflect attention onto Nancy Pelosis alleged failure to prepare, or Antifa violence, or anything they can throw at the wall other than the effort by a pro-Trump mob to forcibly cancel the election.

In the weeks since Washington briefly came together in shared outrage, Republicans have considered, and then rejected, impeaching Donald Trump over the attempted coup, then voted down a bipartisan commission in the Senate.

Trump, for his part, has energetically written the history of the episode.He has described the mob as a a loving crowd desiring only a fair outcome who were ushered in by the police only to be savagely attacked and murdered.

Not all, or even most, Republicans have gone so far as to affirmatively endorse this delusional revisionist narrative. But they have no desire either to revive their short-lived attempt to write the rioters out of the Republican party or to refute Trumps campaign of lies about it.

Banks has dismissed the investigation as an effort to malign conservatives. He is not wrong, though there is a circularity to his reasoning. In the immediate aftermath of the insurrection, conservatives attacked it forcefully. Had they maintained that position, the investigation would not have threatened them. But since they have decided instead to defend it, anything that casts the riot in a bad light will necessarily besmirch the party that defends the rioters. That is a political choice, not an impersonal law of political physics.

The scrambling and confusion is the result of the fact that the January 6 commission was conceived in a political context that no longer exists. Congress never would have had a 9/11-style commission if the hijackers had been supporters of, and had received support from, one of the political parties.

Analysis and commentary on the latest political news from New York columnist Jonathan Chait.

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Imagine a 9/11 Commission If the Hijackers Had Allies in Congress - New York Magazine

Across the United States, Republican state party officials are taking unprecedented steps to discourage or even purge critics of Donald Trump and promote potential allies of the former president.

These efforts are the latest sign of Trumps ongoing stranglehold over areas of the Republican party that are usually neutral and reflect his intense popularity with a wide slice of the Republican base, despite his scandal-strewn four years in power and his loss to Joe Biden in 2020.

Traditionally state Republican parties have taken pains to avoid favoritism within primaries and intra-party battles. The mission of those groups and their members is generally to help get Republicans elected, regardless of which party sect they align with.

In Oklahoma, the state Republican party chairman endorsed a challenger to Senator James Lankford, an incumbent Republican, over Lankfords last-minute decision to not object to the 2020 presidential election results on 6 January.

In Wyoming, a Republican party official sent out a plea to members of Congress to vet primary challengers to Congresswoman Liz Cheney, one of Trumps favorite obsessions since leaving office.

In Alaska, the state Republican party is backing Kelly Tshibaka, the former commissioner of administration, to take Lisa Murkowskis Senate seat about a month after Trump himself endorsed Tshibaka. Some of Tshibakas consultants are high-ranking veterans of Trumps unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign.

These latest moves are a continuation of a trend of activism among state GOP officials to side with Trump and spurn elected officials and prominent Republicans some of whom are otherwise popular who have antagonized Trump. Republican parties in Arizona, Illinois, Maine and Ohio have also censured party members who split with Trump on certifying the election results.

But rank-and-file Republican officials actively working to tip the scales to placate the whims of a one-term president are breaking new ground.

Were in a period now with a former president who has grievances of his own party and hes using his clout and his megaphone and his power to attempt to exact revenge on those individuals. And in certain states where Trump is popular or where an incumbent political figure has taken a deeply unpopular political position, you are seeing some internal opposition, said Matt Mackowiak, the chairman of the Travis county GOP, in Texas.

He added: I think were living in a time now where party officials dont feel as duty-bound to support every member of the party, particularly if theyve gone in a different direction on a fairly important issue.

Suspicions of candidate loyalty within party infrastructure are not unheard of or unique to the Republican party. During the last open race for Democratic National Committee chair in 2017, Democratic activists sometimes theorized that Barack Obama or other establishment state party chairs were subtly trying to support certain candidates and discourage others. But those suspicions only extended so far.

Theres little historical precedent for party chairs intervening in primaries, said Matt Moore, a former South Carolina Republican party chairman. Usually theres great deference given not only to elected officials but also to the state committees that elect chairs.

The impact of the help these state Republican party members provided is unclear.

Alaskas Senator Murkowski, for instance, has survived serious challenges from conservatives in the past and this financial quarter she out-raised Tshibaka a sign that the Trump-endorsed primary challengers chances of winning are not assured. In Wyoming, Cheney is facing a handful of challengers who could split the anti-Cheney vote.

Moore argued that the involvement of officials in Trumps efforts to undermine his opponents could actually undermine the state parties.

I would argue it actually weakens the party in the long term. It reduces the credibility of chairs, especially when they endorse crackpot candidates against serious US senators, Moore said. The big success of the party in the past decade is improved infrastructure, so when sitting US senators dont play ball with the party it reduces the quality of the infrastructure like field programs, data, etc.

Even more unusual, these internal Republican party conflicts have little to do with a broad swath of policy disagreements.Instead they are often about whether a candidate supported Trumps false claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent.

Whats happened is historically odd, Moore said. Weve seen senators over the years attacked by party chairs or the party in general, but never over one vote. Its very strange.

Its now clear that incumbent Republicans who have crossed Trump have done so at their peril. In Georgia for example, the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, the top elections official in the state and a Republican, faces a primary challenge from congressman Jody Hice after refusing to help Trump undermine the 2020 election results.

Across the country Republicans realize that their biggest electoral dangers come not necessarily from a strong Democratic opponent, but from their standing with Trump, even though he is out of office.

Here its a 100% purity test, said state representative Landon Brown of Wyoming.

The Wyoming state party has passed bylaws that bar the state party from giving a lawmaker money unless that lawmaker votes in line with the Wyoming Republican partys platform 80% of the time, Brown said. The Wyoming party gives lawmakers scorecards and lets them know if they are failing. Brown summed up the partys ideology: If you are not aligned with Trump, you are not a Republican.

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State Republicans shun lawmakers critical of Trump and his big lie - The Guardian

Im a huge believer in the usefulness of social science, especially studies that use comparisons across time and space to shed light on our current situation. So when the political scientist Henry Farrell suggested that I look at his fields literature on cults of personality, I followed his advice. He recommended one paper in particular, by the New Zealand-based researcher Xavier Mrquez; I found it revelatory.

The Mechanisms of Cult Production compares the behavior of political elites across a wide range of dictatorial regimes, from Caligulas Rome to the Kim familys North Korea, and finds striking similarities. Despite vast differences in culture and material circumstances, elites in all such regimes engage in pretty much the same behavior, especially what the paper dubs loyalty signaling and flattery inflation.

Signaling is a concept originally drawn from economics; it says that people sometimes engage in costly, seemingly pointless behavior as a way to prove that they have attributes others value. For example, new hires at investment banks may work insanely long hours, not because the extra hours are actually productive, but to demonstrate their commitment to feeding the money machine.

In the context of dictatorial regimes, signaling typically involves making absurd claims on behalf of the Leader and his agenda, often including nauseating displays of loyalty. If the claims are obvious nonsense and destructive in their effects, if making those claims humiliates the person who makes them, these are features, not bugs. I mean, how does the Leader know if youre truly loyal unless youre willing to demonstrate your loyalty by inflicting harm both on others and on your own reputation?

And once this kind of signaling becomes the norm, those trying to prove their loyalty have to go to ever greater extremes to differentiate themselves from the pack. Hence flattery inflation: The Leader isnt just brave and wise, hes a perfect physical specimen, a brilliant health expert, a Nobel-level economic analyst, and more. The fact that hes obviously none of these things only enhances the effectiveness of the flattery as a demonstration of loyalty.

Does all of this sound familiar? Of course it does, at least to anyone who has been tracking Fox News or the utterances of political figures like Lindsey Graham or Kevin McCarthy.

Many people, myself included, have declared for years that the G.O.P. is no longer a normal political party. It doesnt look anything like, say, Dwight Eisenhowers Republican Party or Germanys Christian Democrats. But it bears a growing resemblance to the ruling parties of autocratic regimes.

The only unusual thing about the G.O.P.s wholesale adoption of the Leader Principle is that the party doesnt have a monopoly on power; in fact, it controls neither Congress nor the White House. Politicians suspected of insufficient loyalty to Donald Trump and Trumpism in general arent sent to the gulag. At most, they stand to lose intraparty offices and, possibly, future primaries. Yet such is the timidity of Republican politicians that these mild threats are apparently enough to make many of them behave like Caligulas courtiers.

Unfortunately, all this loyalty signaling is putting the whole nation at risk. In fact, it will almost surely kill large numbers of Americans in the next few months.

The stalling of Americas initially successful vaccination drive isnt entirely driven by partisanship some people, especially members of minority groups, are failing to get vaccinated for reasons having little to do with current politics.

But politics is nonetheless clearly a key factor: Republican politicians and Republican-oriented influencers have driven much of the opposition to Covid-19 vaccines, in some cases engaging in what amounts to outright sabotage. And there is a stunning negative correlation between Trumps share of a countys vote in 2020 and its current vaccination rate.

How did lifesaving vaccines become politicized? As Bloombergs Jonathan Bernstein suggests, todays Republicans are always looking for ways to show that theyre more committed to the cause than their colleagues are and given how far down the rabbit hole the party has already gone, the only way to do that is nonsense and nihilism, advocating crazy and destructive policies, like opposing vaccines.

That is, hostility to vaccines has become a form of loyalty signaling.

None of this should be taken to imply that Republicans are the root of all evil or that their opponents are saints; Democrats are by no means immune to the power of special interests or the lure of the revolving door.

But the G.O.P. has become something different, with, as far as I know, no precedent in American history although with many precedents abroad. Republicans have created for themselves a political realm in which costly demonstrations of loyalty transcend considerations of good policy or even basic logic. And all of us may pay the price.

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Opinion | Republicans Have Their Own Private Autocracy - The New York Times

GETTY IMAGES

Do you see yourself as a political anomaly?

In todays politics, certain voting groups are often portrayed as monolithic, or only voting one way, even though thats never the full story. We want to interrogate that narrative and talk to people who dont believe they check a set box.

Think you might fit the bill? Here are some of the types of people were interested in talking to: Gen Zers (or young millennials) who backed former President Donald Trump last year; older, Black progressive voters; and Democrats who live in more rural areas of their state. But were not stopping there. There are tons of identities worth exploring, and were interested in unpacking the many divides in groups of voters often portrayed as homogeneous.

With our reporting, FiveThirtyEight hopes to show that large groups of voters are not a monolith by highlighting various voting blocs that have interesting tensions within. Were not trying to predict electoral trends and outcomes; rather, we hope to tell stories about how different people are processing politics.

To tell these stories better, we want to hear from you. Fill out the surveybelow and tell us a little bit about yourself and why you think you check a unique box. We might get in touch with you!

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Are You A Gen-Z Republican? A Democrat In A Rural State? If So, You Might Be A Political Anomaly, And We Want To Hear From You. - FiveThirtyEight

Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) speaks during a news conference in the Capitol on Tuesday, July 20, 2021. (Bill Clark / CQ Roll Call via AP Images)

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Utah Senator Mike Lee, a raving hypocrite who abandoned his stated principles to play lackey to Donald Trump, is fond of saying, Were not a democracy. Lee thinks thats a good thing. Hes written: Democracy isnt the objective: liberty, peace, and prospefity [sic] are. When Lee says these things, hes not merely playing the role of an overzealous high school social studies teacher trying to use cool facts to deflect the hail of spitballs. Hes also channeling the deepest fears of the slavers and colonists who wrote the Constitution. Those guys understood, as Lee does, that a true democracy, in which everybody gets to vote and participate in self-government, would be a threat to white male hegemony in the New World.

Theyre not wrong. The founders and Lee and Jefferson Davis and Ron DeSantisand all the other white guys who have stood against the right to vote throughout American historyare correct in their assessment that universal suffrage and equal representation are the surest ways to end white male political supremacy.

That is why the right to vote is not spelled out in the Constitution, and why voting rights are under near-constant attack by conservative forces. Its almost certainly why Lee thought that HR 1, the bill designed to restore and secure voting rights, was written in hell by the devil himself.

Its no accident that the current assault on voting rights started not with the failed reelection of Donald Trump but with the successful election of Barack Obama. After the 2010 midterm elections and the new US census that followed, Republicans promptly used the gains theyd made to go on a gerrymandering rampage. Their allies on the Supreme Court then used two casesShelby County v. Holder (2013) and Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (2021)to effectively neuter the Voting Rights Act.

Those moves set the stage for the legislative attacks on democracy that white conservatives have launched this year. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 17 states have enacted 28 new laws to restrict voting access. A total of 48 states have proposed a staggering 389 voter restriction bills, which run the gamut from obtuse (requiring notaries to sign absentee ballots), to cruel (denying water to voters waiting in line), to downright racist (excluding from early voting the times Black people get out of church).

The GOPs current eruption of voter suppression is unrelenting and ferocious, but its not a new phenomenon and should not have been unexpected. Everybody knows that voting rights were initially restricted to wealthy white males and only grudgingly doled out to additional humans after war, outrage, or mass grassroots movements.

The solution to these cyclical outbursts has never been incremental change. Radical legislative interventions (the Voting Rights Act), new constitutional protections (the 15th and 19th amendments), and a judiciary willing to uphold them (Earl Warren protected the voting rights John Roberts is now destroying) have been some of the ways people have fought to limit the antidemocratic instincts of the white men in power.Current Issue

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But the current Democratic Party cant take such bold action. Even though the mass of the partys Congress members are willing to do whatever it takes, including nuking the filibuster, to ensure that Jim Crowstyle voter restrictions never come back, they are all too easily hamstrung by a few timid white senators who seem to think that full and equal access to the rights of citizenship is just one option among many and that basic democratic rights should be put on the bargaining block in the name of bipartisanship.

There are too many people who seem to be willing to give the Biden administration and the national Democratic party a pass if it cant convince Joe Manchin (and the cabal of spineless Democratic Senators he speaks for) to do the right thing. Given the stakesthe existence of democratic self-governmentI dont think the president can just throw up his hands and say Welp, I tried. Nobody looks back on Rutherford B. Hayes, who presided over the end of Reconstruction and the institution of Jim Crow, and says good effort. Texas Democrats are fleeing their state in an ultimately futile effort to stop new voter suppression laws; I think its fair to expect more than a speech (not even in prime time from the Oval Office but on a random afternoon) from President Biden.

In this speech, Biden was reduced to making a moral appeal to the bigots in the minority. We will be asking my Republican friendsin Congress, in states, in cities, in countiesto stand up, for Gods sake, and help prevent this concerted effort to undermine our elections and the sacred right to vote, Biden said, adding: Have you no shame?

If thats all hes got, were going to lose. Because conservative white people have no shame. Theyve never had any. Throughout American history, they have shamelessly regarded the right to vote as the ultimate white privilege.

We are not a democracy. The question has always been whether enough white people even want one.

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Republicans Hate Voting Rights Because They Threaten White Power - The Nation

Schiff (D-Calif.) led the prosecution during President Donald Trumps first impeachment, and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) was the lead House manager in Trumps second impeachment trial.

Legislation to create a select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol was approved by the House, 220-190, in June.

Before its creation, an independent bipartisan commission was moving forward in May but was thwarted by Senate Republicans, who led the years first filibuster. Six GOP senators did vote to advance the proposed commission, which would have had five Democrats and five Republicans.

For the select committee, Pelosi maintains veto power over any McCarthy appointments. Early this month, she named her appointments to the committee, including Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). Cheney, a strong critic of Trump who has refused to downplay the events of Jan. 6, was one of two Republicans who voted to establish the committee.

Read more from the original source:

McCarthy not yet sold on naming Republicans to Jan. 6 investigation - POLITICO

The recent investigative report on the 2020 election from Michigan Republicans was one small but significant step for truth. Your editorial Yes, Trump Really Did Lose Michigan (July 3) recommends that Republicans give it a look and stop peering down a rabbit hole of 2020 conspiracy theories.

To make it a huge leap for truth, the other Republican-run states that President Trump accused of massive voter fraud should follow Michigans lead. They can heed Mr. Trumps June 5 advice: The only way youre going to be able to really solve that problem is to figure out exactly what happened. If the other five states investigate, they will find, as did Michigan, that there was no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud in their states prosecution of the 2020 election. Coming from Republican-controlled state legislatures, this would close up Mr. Trumps rabbit hole of false accusations with concrete truth.

Pete Thurlow

Bernardsville, N.J.

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Republicans, Investigate the 2020 Election and Tell the Truth About It - The Wall Street Journal

Gov. Gavin Newsom holds a press conference for the official reopening of the state of California at Universal Studios Hollywood on June 15. | Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

California

To drive turnout, recall backers are encouraging any and all GOP entrants to join the race.

By CARLA MARINUCCI

07/13/2021 08:31 PM EDT

OAKLAND California recall backers are embracing an unorthodox strategy to oust Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom: the more Republican candidates, the better.

Republicans face long odds given a severe registration disadvantage and a brand still associated with former President Donald Trump, who remains deeply unpopular in this blue state. If they stand any chance, they need as many disgruntled voters as possible to remove Newsom.

To drive turnout, recall backers are encouraging any and all GOP entrants to join the race especially those who can bring large followings. During an internal strategy session this week, recall proponents suggested that the high-profile candidates like reality TV show star Caitlyn Jenner and national talk show host Larry Elder could draw hundreds of thousands, perhaps even a million voters each, according to a person on the call who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Two other notable GOP candidates have joined the high-stakes political throwdown in recent days Assemblymember Kevin Kiley and state tax board member Ted Gaines, both conservative Republicans with legislative experience who come from the same suburban area near Sacramento.

State GOP Chair Jessica Millan Patterson and two key recall organizers fundraiser Anne Hyde Dunsmore, chair of the RescueCalifornia.org recall drive, and founder Tom Del Beccaro have made no secret of their belief that a robust field of candidates will attract waves of energized voters for the Sept. 14 special election.

You have these candidates from some of the largest cities in California pulling in constituents, you knit it all together and it makes a yes vote very possible, Del Beccaro said.

Newsom is in position to defend his office as Californias economy opens and voters remain opposed to the recall in public and private polls. But Dunsmore said in an interview that a bigger candidate field represents a better chance to oust the Democratic governor elected in a 2018 landslide.

While newcomers are piling into the race ahead of a Friday filing deadline, former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, 2018 GOP gubernatorial candidate John Cox, former Rep. Doug Ose and Jenner have been campaigning for months.

The more people that get in the race, that make a serious attempt to get over 250,000 votes and some of our candidates are going to be getting 2 and 3 million votes you start adding all that up, Dunsmore said. We need to get to 6-1/2 million votes in order to get the yes to pass on a 60 to 70 percent turnout model.

The recall ballot features two questions, and Republicans need a majority of yes votes on the first one: Do you think Gov. Gavin Newsom should be recalled? The critical threshold represents an all-or-nothing cause for Republicans, since a failure on the first question means the second question who should replace Newsom would become moot.

But Democratic strategist Garry South called that strategy delusional. He was a longtime adviser to Gray Davis, who in 2003 became the only California governor to be recalled as voters replaced him with A-list movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Weve seen this movie before, South warned. If you have a super-galvanizing candidate in the race like Arnold Schwarzenegger, that does change the equation, but this field doesnt have an Arnold. Its a bunch of Lilliputians.

South also argues that the short time frame until the mid-September election means challengers have no time to match the large donations pouring into Newsoms war chest, which is now beyond $27 million.

None of these recall candidates are going to have two nickels together, he said, and the worst time to raise money is in the dog days of August.

A flood of GOP candidates could also help drive the Newsom message that the recall is driven by Trump-aligned Republicans in a state where President Joe Biden beat Trump by nearly 30 percentage points last year.

The reality is that theyre only attracting Republican support, said Newsom campaign spokesperson Nathan Click. And they cant get past 40 percent support on the first question. Thats not going to do the job for them.

Democrats say that the recall election will be unable to overcome the favorable political winds that have blown Newsoms way in the past months. Californias infection rates plummeted this spring, and Newsom lifted most Covid-19 restrictions in mid-June. Many aspects of life, from family gatherings to sporting events and summer camps, are returning to normal. And California enjoyed a revenue windfall this year on the strength of its tech economy, allowing the governor to hand out $600 checks to two-thirds of state residents.

Besides that, Newsom is using the power of his pulpit like few governors before. He staged a massive rally Tuesday afternoon in Southern California built around his signing of a major budget bill, complete with rows of supporters and children behind him holding California ROARS BACK signs as he boasted about the states economy.

Some Republicans are skeptical that the hurdles can be overcome no matter how many candidates jump in.

I dont know that more is necessarily bad because more messengers means more amplification of the attacks against Newsom, said GOP strategist Rob Stutzman, an adviser to Schwarzenegger during the 2003 election. But people aren't going to engage in the recall because of the candidate. I think that just sounds backwards.

He allows that its entirely possible" that several thousand voters in the Los Angeles market may get fired up by the entry of Elder, whose core radio audience is in that region. And maybe they werent going to vote in the recall, but now they are, he said. But for the most part, I dont think any of these [Republican] candidates are driving voters to the polls.

Still, Dunsmore cited public and internal polls showing that Republicans are nearly twice as energized as Democrats to vote in the recall and said the party is betting on passion to overcome its disadvantages.

Seventy percent of the Republicans voting beats 33 percent of the Democrats voting right out of the gate, she said.

Read more:

Why Republicans want to pack the California recall ballot - POLITICO

The first day of the Texas Legislature's special session began last week at the Capitol in Austin. Republicans, who control the state, are attempting to pass new voting laws that will add penalties and make it more difficult to cast a ballot. Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images hide caption

The first day of the Texas Legislature's special session began last week at the Capitol in Austin. Republicans, who control the state, are attempting to pass new voting laws that will add penalties and make it more difficult to cast a ballot.

Texas Republicans introduced another set of sweeping bills that voting rights advocates say could make it harder to vote in a state that already has some of the most restrictive election laws in the country. Democrats left the state on Tuesday in a second effort to block the legislation from moving forward.

The bills House Bill 3 and Senate Bill 1 were filed during the special legislative session called by Gov. Greg Abbott, which started last week. Republican leaders vowed to take another pass at approving voting legislation after Texas House Democrats blocked a previous effort in May to pass more voting restrictions.

HB 3 and SB 1, however, do not include some of the more controversial measures that were added to that previous bill in the final hours of the legislative session in May. Those included a provision that would have restricted voting on Sundays as well as a measure that would have allowed election officials to overturn election results if there are voter fraud allegations.

The bills are part of a nationwide effort by state-level Republicans to enact more restrictive voting laws following former President Donald Trump's loss in the 2020 election. Trump and his allies have falsely claimed that the election was stolen. Twenty-eight restrictive voting laws in 17 states have been enacted since January, according to the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice.

The latest bills in Texas include new identification requirements for people voting by mail and prohibit local election officials from sending a vote-by-mail application to someone who hasn't requested one.

They also ban drive-through voting and extended hours during early voting. Republicans in the state argue that these innovations which were mostly used by Houston officials during the pandemic opened the door to voter fraud.

James Slattery, a senior staff attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, said voters of color and shift workers benefited the most from these methods of voting last year.

"And so you can consider the bans on those forms of voting to be a direct attack on voters of color in particular," he said.

In addition, the bills expand what partisan poll watchers can observe during elections and prohibits poll watchers from being removed for violating election law. If passed, these bills would also create new criminal penalties for any election worker who "intentionally or knowingly refuses to accept a [poll] watcher."

Slattery said these bills basically give a host of new powers to partisan poll watchers.

"Both bills make it harder to control disruptive partisan poll watchers when they are acting aggressively or disrupting voting," he said.

The bills also create a slew of new criminal penalties and requirements for folks who assist voters at the polls, or people who assist others planning to vote by mail.

For example, they require that people fill out paperwork if they are taking someone who is not a relative to vote in person. And they require people to exit a car if there is someone voting curbside in that vehicle.

And while Republicans have backtracked on another provision that would have made it easier to overturn election results, Slattery said these bills kept other parts of that measure.

He said that includes a way for losing candidates to "harass winning candidates in court" through a new election contest process that allows the former to allege various kinds of voter fraud. Slattery said this process could mire the results of an election.

"When you think about it, what this is, this is part of the efforts that we have seen especially in other states after the 2020 election to undermine the legitimacy of election results," he said.

Republicans in Texas have argued that concerns about election integrity are serious and should be addressed, even though they haven't offered evidence of any widespread problem with voting in the state.

State Rep. Travis Clardy, a Republican from Nacogdoches who is a member of the Texas House Elections Committee, told NPR in June that he has "zero doubt about the legitimacy of elections" in the state.

"This is a preventative measure for us," he said. "We do have and heard testimony throughout our session of problems of voter irregularities, of voter fraud, of cases currently being investigated. It is an issue. It is a real thing. But I think it's our job to make sure that doesn't blossom into a problem."

Slattery said the provisions in these bills, however, do nothing to make elections more secure in Texas and would instead further the false claims Trump and his allies have made that the 2020 election was stolen.

"There isn't any election security benefit to nearly any of these provisions," he said. "It's all in service of the big lie and enshrining the big lie even further into the laws of this most restrictive state in the country."

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Texas Republicans Have A New Voting Bill. Here's What's In It - NPR