Connect with us

ANALYSIS

‘Nightmare Scenario’ for Democracy: ‘Desperate’ GOP May Sink to New Depths to Fight Election Reform – With SCOTUS’s Help

Published

on

While Republicans in state legislatures are proposing voter suppression bills all around the U.S., Democrats are pushing the For the People Act at the federal level — a comprehensive voting rights bill that has passed in the U.S. House of Representatives but now faces a steep uphill climb in the U.S. Senate. Democrats have a narrow majority and must contend with the filibuster for most legislation. Far-right pundits have been railing against the act, known as HR1, on conservative media outlets like Fox News, Fox Business and Newsmax, and observers warn Republicans will take extreme efforts to fight any such reforms.

Some of these tactics were highlighted analysis by Crooked Media’s Brian Beutler and on the Democracy Docket website.

Beutler contemplates various scenarios and how they could affect voting rights if they come to pass. Some scenarios to consider, Beutler writes, include 82-year-old Justice Stephen Breyer’s seat on the U.S. Supreme Court becoming available, Democrats losing their narrow Senate majority, and the court attacking voting reforms if Democrats somehow manage to get them passed in the Senate.

“Here’s a nightmare scenario I encourage everyone — but particularly, Breyer and Senate Democrats — to imagine having to endure,” Beutler writes. “Through illness or untimely death, Democrats’ 50-50 Senate ‘majority’ becomes a 49-50 Senate minority. They don’t retain the seat. Joe Biden loses reelection. We’re all left hoping Breyer can survive into his 90s so that the Supreme Court doesn’t swing from 6-3 to 7-2. Mitch McConnell gets Charlie Kirk fitted for a robe.”

He continues: “Now consider this less speculative nightmare scenario. Democrats let bygones be bygones, leave court reform out of their larger democracy-reform project, change the filibuster rules, pass both HR 1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act — and the existing Supreme Court takes a hatchet to it. We should know to expect this, because Republicans declared the For the People Act ‘unconstitutional’ sight unseen, as a kind of bat signal to their allies on the courts to make sure democracy reform can’t take effect.”

Beutler adds, “We can’t know in advance which provisions of these bills the Supreme Court would invalidate, but it’s trivially easy to step into the shoes of conservative justices and extend the same pseudo-constitutional arguments they’ve used to degrade American election law over the last decade to new reforms. Campaign-finance regulations? Well, those obviously violate the 1st Amendment. Non-partisan gerrymandering? The federal government can’t dictate that kind of thing to the states!”

But Democrats don’t just face dangers from the right-wing Supreme Court. Republicans controlling key state legislatures, oftened heavily gerrymandered to protect their majorities from swings in public opinion, are actively considering how to thwart efforts to make elections fairer.

Democracy Docket, in a “legislation alert” published this week, describes Texas House Bill 4507 — which has been proposed by Republicans in the Texas House of Representatives and would “essentially create a two-tiered voter registration system, in an effort to evade federal voting rights protections that could pass into law this year.”

Democracy Docket explains, “HB 4507 establishes two different registration processes: one for federal elections, which would be required to comply with national legislation such as the For the People Act — and one for state elections, which Texas Republicans claim could ignore these federal requirements. Any voter registering to vote in a federal election would not be automatically registered for local and state elections, unless they meet the much stricter and more exclusionary requirements of Texas’ election code. Instead, they would have to apply and register again separately for their local elections.”

On Twitter, attorney Marc E. Elias, founder of Democracy Docket, described HB 4507 as an example of “how desperate Republicans are to prevent all voters from participating in elections”:

After liberal Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent tweeted Beutler’s Crooked Media column, law professor and election law expert Rick Hasan noted:

Image via Shutterstock

 

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

ANALYSIS

New WSJ Poll Is Devastating for DeSantis and His ‘Anti-Woke’ Policies

Published

5 days ago

on

March 27, 2023

By

“Florida is where woke goes to die,” according to the Sunshine State’s governor, Republican Ron DeSantis, who has based much of his expected 2024 presidential campaign on being “anti-woke.”

But a new poll from Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal is devastating to many of the policies being promoted and enacted by Governor DeSantis in his “free state of Florida,” calling into question how he and other Republicans who embrace his ideas will fare on the national stage.

“Patriotism, religious faith, having children and other priorities that helped define the national character for generations are receding in importance to Americans,” warns the WSJ, with some on social media pointing to a graphic that purports to capture how much America has changed in the past 25 years.

READ MORE: Trump Team’s Efforts to Rein Him ‘Wilted’ in Waco as He Invoked ‘Retribution and Violence’: Report

The importance of issues of patriotism, religion, having children, and community involvement have dropped dramatically across America. The one that has increased? Money.

One Democratic strategist calls it “eye-popping.”

Money is also the only issue on which Democrats and Republicans both agree.

But the real siren for Republicans comes in answers to so-called “culture war” questions.

The gap between Democrats and Republicans, expectedly, is huge, but DeSantis – should he launch a presidential run – will confront conservative and independent voters (not to mention, of course, Democrats) who aren’t as keen on, say, banning books, as he might like.

Asked, “Which of these concerns you more about schools today?,” a whopping 61% chose “some schools may ban books and censor topics that are educationally important.” Just 36% opted for “some schools may teach books and topics that some students or their parents feel are inappropriate or offensive.”

And more than half the country (56%) say they have some or a great deal of confidence in public schools. Just one-third (33%) said very little or none.

READ MORE: ‘Pits Parents Against Parents’: House Republicans Pass Anti-LGBTQ Florida-Style K-12 ‘Parents’ Bill of Rights’

DeSantis’ attempts to radically reshape the concept of public education in Florida made another dramatic move last week, when the Republican-majority legislature passed a bill the expands the school voucher program to every student. It could decimate enrollment in public schools, which would also reduce the amount of federal funding public schools in the Sunshine State get. Expected to cost billions, it could also lead to expansions of private and faith-based schools.

Monday morning, surrounded by school children, DeSantis signed it into law.

And yet nationally, according to the WSJ poll, a plurality of Americans oppose school vouchers.

“Do you favor, oppose, or neither favor nor oppose states giving parents tax-funded vouchers they can use to help pay for tuition for their children to attend private or religious schools of their choice instead of public schools?”

37% oppose the vouchers.
34% support them.

Democratic strategist and former Hillary Clinton campaign national spokesperson Josh Schwerin lists a “few findings from the new WSJ poll that should scare Republicans relying on ‘woke’ attacks”: “1) Tolerance is as important as money 2) Book banning is far worse than offensive content 3) Majorities think society has been about right or not gone far enough on range of DEI issues.”

For those who look at Trump rallies, watch right-wing news, or listen to GOP politicians or influencers, the idea that another “red wave” is coming next year may seem real, but even the right-wing Wall Street Journal found that a plurality of voters (44%) identify as Democrats – and just 38% identify as Republicans. 18% call themselves independents without leaning one way or another.

Nearly half the country (47%) identifies as moderate.

One issue from the poll DeSantis and the GOP do seem to have support on is diminishing the rights of transgender Americans, who are under attack every day.

Despite increased anti-trans hate crimes, despite the 430 anti-LGBTQ bills filed this year alone (according to the ACLU,) a plurality of Americans (43%) say society has “gone too far” in accepting transgender people. Just one-third say society hasn’t gone far enough.

But on other issues of equality, as Schwerin mentioned, nearly half the country (48%) say society has not gone far enough in promoting equality between men and women. And pluralities also say society has not gone far enough in accepting people who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual (37%), and businesses taking steps to promote racial and ethnic diversity (39%).

There’s another statistic that also flies directly in the face of DeSantis and his “where woke goes to die” motto.

Two-thirds of the country say society has either not gone far enough has been “about right” on “Schools and universities taking steps to promote racial and ethnic diversity.”

Just three in ten Americans (30%) say society has gone too far.

See the video and graphics above or at this link.

Continue Reading

ANALYSIS

‘A BFD’: Legal Experts Say Judge Ordering Ex-President’s Attorney to Testify Means ‘Trump Probably Committed Crimes’

Published

2 weeks ago

on

March 17, 2023

By

A federal judge Friday afternoon ordered an attorney for Donald Trump to testify in the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s special counsel’s investigation into the ex-president’s unlawful retention and refusal to return hundreds of documents with classified and top secret markings along with thousands of other items removed from the White House and sent to Mar-a-Lago.

Classifying the judge’s ruling as “monumental,” CNN reports U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ordered top Trump defense attorney Evan Corcoran to provide additional testimony, and “said in an order under seal that Justice Department prosecutors have met the threshold for the crime-fraud exception for Corcoran.”

Just one day ago ABC News reported the special counsel, Jack Smith, had been pushing for Judge Howell to order Corcoran to testify about a call between Trump and Corcoran.

“The alleged call would have been on the same day that investigators subpoenaed the Trump Organization for surveillance footage from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort as the government grew suspicious that Trump continued to hold onto classified materials even after one of his attorneys asserted in a sworn statement that he had complied with a subpoena requesting any remaining documents in his possession.”

READ MORE: Local, State, Federal Law Enforcement Preparing for Possible Trump Indictment ‘As Early as Next Week’: Report

The crime-fraud exception is the critical marker, one that legal experts have jumped on in commenting about Judge Howell’s order.

Laurence Tribe, the noted Harvard law professor (retired) who literally wrote the book on the U.S. Constitution, enthusiastically weighed in.

“In finding that Evan Corcoran’s communications with Trump about the Mar-a-Lago documents fell within the crime/fraud exception, the District Court has held that Trump probably committed crimes with respect to those top secret documents,” Tribe explained.

“That’s a BFD!” he exclaimed.

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti observed, “This is a remarkable ruling.”

“Judge Howell concluded that communications with Trump’s attorney are subject to the crime-fraud exception. Prosecutors must have significant evidence,” he said. “Judges are typically reluctant to pierce attorney-client privilege.”

Mondaire Jones, the former Democratic U.S. Congressman, an attorney, and a CNN political commentator wrote, “I don’t think people understand how rare it is to pierce the attorney-client privilege using the crime-fraud exception. This is serious stuff.”

Ryan Goodman, NYU and (former) Harvard professor of law, agrees with CNN’s “monumental” classification.

He explains, “Corcoran likely has direct evidence relevant to both core crimes under investigation: Willful retention of the documents [and] Obstruction,” he tweeted. “He apparently prepared false certification for DOJ. He led DOJ to storage room but refused access to boxes.”

READ MORE: International Criminal Court Issues War Crimes Arrest Warrant for Putin as Trump, DeSantis Accused of ‘Support’ for Russian President

Goodman goes on, pointing to a September 2022 New York Times article mentioning former Trump attorney Eric Herschmann:

“Worth recalling this report in which Eric Herschmann, pushing back against Corcoran in an email, quoted words from federal witness tampering statute.”

“Very serious,” concludes attorney and CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman.

Watch CNN’s report below and see tweets above or at this link.

 

Continue Reading

ANALYSIS

Legal Experts Say Pence Subpoena May Signal Special Counsel ‘About Ready to Make a Decision’ on Indicting Trump

Published

2 months ago

on

February 9, 2023

By

The “explosive” news that the Dept. of Justice’s independent special counsel Jack Smith has issued a subpoena to former Vice President Mike Pence could be an indication he is nearing making a decision on whether or not to indict and prosecute ex-president Donald Trump.

Smith was appointed back in November by Attorney General Merrick Garland in response to Trump announcing he was officially running for president, to avoid any possible appearance of bias.

Professor of law and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance explains that “Pence has always been the essential witness when it comes to establishing whether or not Trump’s involvement in the pressure campaign for the VP to interfere with the election result was criminal. Smith has to get his testimony before he can make a prosecutive decision.”

READ MORE: Santos Told Prosecutors He Worked for the SEC After Being Charged With Theft in 2017 Over $15,125 in Checks for ‘Puppies’: Report

“But,” she adds via Twitter, “pence does feel like a late in the game witness. Someone you want to talk to you after you have all of the other testimony, and when you’re just about ready to make a decision.”

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti on MSNBC called the news Pence has been subpoenaed “explosive.”

“I expect Pence is one of the *last* witnesses Smith would call if he was building a case around the electoral vote certification,” Mariotti added via Twitter. “For that reason, this suggests that Smith’s January 6th investigation is far along. It also suggests that he is pursuing that aspect of his investigation aggressively—he isn’t focusing largely on the Mar-a-Lago documents matter and putting January 6th on the back burner.”

READ MORE: Watch: House Democrat Says Santos Getting Access to ‘America’s Secrets’ Was ‘Final Straw’ for Filing Expulsion Resolution

Former prosecutor for the New York Attorney General’s Office, Tristan Snell, says, “why the subpoena? For cover. Witnesses often ASK to be subpoenaed, so they can say they were forced to comply.”

Pence is expected to announce a presidential run, and being perceived as complying with the investigation into Trump could be damaging for Pence with the ex-president’s base.

Snell appears to agree with Vance, stating: “Major step. The investigation of Trump’s January 6 Conspiracy is now entering its final phase.”

“If Smith and DOJ then have testimony and documents from Mark Meadows and Mike Pence — two of the people who were the closest to the center of the events from November 3, 2020 to January 6, 2021 — then the stage is set for subpoenaning Trump, or just indicting him,” Snell adds.

“This is pretty much the last step before you approach Trump,” former Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, Peter Strzok, said on MSNBC.

Image via Shutterstock

 

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.