Evelyn Reynolds

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    Wisconsin adopts new legislative maps, giving Democrats chance to win state

    The Wisconsin governor, Tony Evers, has signed into law a pair of new state legislative maps, undoing a Republican gerrymander that has shaped Wisconsin politics for more than a decade and giving Democrats a chance at winning control of the state in future elections.“It’s a new day for Wisconsin,” said Evers at a press conference on Monday to cheers from a room of anti-gerrymandering activists.His signature likely marks the end of a protracted fight over Wisconsin’s legislative lines and greatly reduces the Republican bias baked into the current maps. Republicans have enjoyed unchallenged control over the state assembly and senate for more than a decade because of legislative maps they drew to ensure that they would have large majorities in both chambers even in years Democrats won the majority of votes statewide.The new maps are the result of a December ruling from the Wisconsin supreme court that the current state assembly and senate maps are unconstitutional. The court ordered the state to adopt new legislative maps before the 2024 election. Evers, lawmakers in both parties and multiple outside groups submitted revised maps to the court for consideration. After consultants hired by the court to review them said that the maps drawn by the Republican lawmakers maintained their partisan gerrymander and “do not deserve further consideration,” Republicans lawmakers decided to adopt the maps Evers had proposed – which give them a slight edge at maintaining their majorities – rather than roll the dice on court-drawn maps that could benefit Democrats even more.“We kind of have a gun to our head,” said Republican state senator Duey Stroebel during the senate debate over the bill on 13 February.Republican lawmakers had done everything they could to avoid this outcome, even threatening to impeach supreme court justice Janet Protasiewicz, whose election in April 2023 created a liberal majority on the court. They dropped the threats only after a panel of former Wisconsin supreme court judges recommended against pursuing impeachment.View image in fullscreenEvers signed the bill despite pressure from powerful Democrats in the state to veto it. When the bill made its way through the legislature, Democratic lawmakers opposed it nearly uniformly, citing concerns about a line in the bill that leaves the current maps in place for recalls and special elections ahead of the November general election. And they have expressed concerns about possible future legal challenges to the legislative maps and general distrust of the Republican legislators who agreed to the law’s passage.“If you believe that WI Republicans are planning to run on Gov. Evers’ maps in November, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you,” wrote Democratic state senator LaTonya Johnson on the social media site X.But it’s not clear exactly what those legal challenges would look like.“I am extremely skeptical of this idea that there is a good basis for challenging the law, really on any grounds,” said Quinn Yeargain, a legal scholar who focuses on state constitutional law. “I’m as much of a partisan Democrat and progressive as anybody else is, but being intellectually honest about what’s going on here is also important.”Evers had previously said he would sign these maps into law, and stood by his word.“I did spend a lot of time talking to the folks who had differences of opinion,” said Evers, of legislative Democrats who opposed the bill. “But I felt at the end of the day this is the right thing to do for the people of the state of Wisconsin.”The maps were heralded by anti-gerrymandering activists in Wisconsin as a win.“We’re in the business of fair maps,” said Nick Ramos, the executive director of Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and an organizer with the group Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition. “And Governor Evers’ maps are good – like, really good. They’re going to do a lot for the state.” More

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    New York lobbyists ‘aiding and abetting’ climate crisis, research reveals

    New research reveals that dozens of New York universities, hospitals, museums and non-profits are employing lobbyists that also work for fossil fuel companies, which some say is blatantly “aiding and abetting” climate crisis.New York’s wealthiest lobbying firms work double-duty in the state capital, representing the political interests of both the victims and perpetrators of the climate crisis, according to a new report from F Minus, a database of state-level lobbying disclosures released last year, and LittleSis, a project created by the non-profit corporate and government accountability watchdog Public Accountability Initiative.The report analyzed the client rosters of six of the top lobbying firms in New York, revealing how the state’s cultural, business and educational leaders – many of whom tout their commitment to slowing climate crisis – are quietly linked to the fossil fuel industry.New York University, which proudly pledged to divest its $5bn endowment from coal, oil and gas companies last year, shares its lobbyists with six fossil fuel companies, including Valero and National Grid.Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund, a non-profit that offers education on the deadly health effects of cigarette smoke inhalation, works with the same New York-based lobbying firm as Koch Industries, known for its prolific history of climate denial and pollution of American air and water.The New Museum, which currently exhibits a series of paintings featuring endangered plants and animals, employs the same lobbying firm as BP America and the Williams Companies, the largest operator of gas pipelines in the country.“You have schools like NYU scrutinizing the energy efficiency of every single lightbulb on campus, but then they turn around and hire the same firms that represent the people who are causing the climate crisis,” said James Browning, executive director of F Minus.Browning said the clients of fossil fuel lobbyists are “aiding and abetting” climate change, lending their cultural cache and credibility to these lobbying firms.“If lobbyists only worked with fossil fuel clients, it would be much easier for lawmakers in Albany to dismiss them, close the door and not return any of their calls,” Browning said. “But because they have all these prestigious clients, clients that are a huge part of New York’s economy, it lends these lobbyists a kind of shield from scrutiny.”Last year, Brown & Weinraub, one of the top-paid lobbying firms in New York, helped the American Petroleum Institute oppose the creation of a superfund that would generate $3bn annually for disaster recovery and climate resiliency projects. Brown & Weinraub also works with Google, which last year ramped up its public commitment to environmental causes.A spokesperson for Google told the Guardian that the company has a proven track record of sustainability, investing in renewable energy and working to cut emissions.But Browning warns that Brown & Weinraub can use Google’s name to advance lobbying efforts for other, less politically attractive clients, like fossil fuel companies.“We know that in the capitol building, it’s pretty hard to say no to a meeting with the people who represent Google,” Browning said. “That’s why it’s worth investigating who else your lobbyist does business with.”The problem extends far beyond New York: in 2022 alone, Google shared lobbying firms with fossil fuel clients in 17 states.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNationwide, a whopping 1,500 lobbyists are working on behalf of fossil-fuel companies while simultaneously representing hundreds of Democratic cities, universities and tech giants. These outwardly left-leaning clients offer a kind of environmentally-conscious visage for lobbyists, allowing them to adopt the language of the environmental movement while still enjoying the deep pockets of the fossil fuel industry.Pittsburgh, notably, has embraced fossil fuel lobbyists more than any other major US city, according to a 2023 report from F Minus and LittleSis.Part of the issue, climate advocates say, is that companies and non-profits overestimate the ethical guardrails that exist for political lobbyists.“Laws regulating the relationship of lobbyists and their clients are scarce and not especially transparent,” said Carroll Muffett, president and CEO of the Center for International Environmental Law. “The rules regarding conflicts of interest for lobbyists are not nearly as stringent as they are for attorneys, for example.”Last month, in an email correspondence with the state commission on ethics and lobbying in government, F Minus confirmed that there is no provision in the New York Lobbying Act that “prohibits a lobbyist from working for and against a bill at the same time”.Without robust oversight of political lobbyists, firms are left to self-regulate conflicts of interest. It is unclear how a lobbying firm handles situations where one client supports climate-related legislation while another client opposes it.“In cases where there is a conflict of interest, but maybe not a direct one, there is this big question: where does your lobbyist’s true allegiance lie,” Muffett said. “You need to remember that question whenever you are dealing with a lobbying firm that is heavily invested in and funded by the fossil fuel industry.” More

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    Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib tells fellow Democrats: reject Biden in primary

    The progressive US congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has called on her fellow Michigan Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in the state’s presidential primary election – at the expense of the party’s incumbent, Joe Biden – in late February.Appearing in a video posted to X on Saturday by Listen to Michigan, a political campaign to encourage the state’s voters to vote “uncommitted” in the 27 February primary, Tlaib justified her stark display of displeasure with Biden by alluding to Israel’s military strikes on Gaza, which local authorities say have killed nearly 29,000 Palestinians since last October.Tlaib – Congress’s only Palestinian American lawmaker – also criticized the Biden White House’s support for Israel, which launched its military campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October Hamas attacks that killed about 1,200 Israelis.Speaking in front of the Ford Community & Performing Arts Center in Dearborn, which has one of the US’s largest populations of Arab Americans, Tlaib said: “It is important … to not only march against the genocide, not only make sure that we’re calling our members of Congress and local elected [officials], and passing city resolutions all throughout our country. It is also important to create a voting bloc, something that is a bullhorn to say, ‘Enough is enough.’”Tlaib added: “We don’t want a country that supports war and bombs and destruction. We want to support life. We want to stand up for every single life killed in Gaza … This is the way you can raise our voices. Don’t make us even more invisible. Right now, we feel completely neglected and just unseen by our government.“If you want us to be louder, then come here and vote uncommitted” rather than in support of Biden, the Democratic party’s presumptive nominee for November’s presidential election.The congresswoman’s message echoed the calls of Listen to Michigan, whose campaign manager is Tlaib’s sister Layla Elabed.Speaking to Business Insider, Elabed said: “Voting uncommitted is our way of demanding change, and this is going to be our vehicle to return political power back to us.”More than 30 elected officials across south-east Michigan have already pledged to vote “uncommitted” in the state’s 27 February primary elections. Those officials include the Dearborn mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, along with city council members and state representatives.A statement released by Listen to Michigan earlier in February said, “Let us be clear: we unequivocally demand that the Biden administration immediately call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. We must hold our president unaccountable and ensure that we, the American taxpayers, are no longer forced to be accomplices in a genocide that is backed and funded by the United States government.”It also said: “Therefore, we pledge to check the box for ‘uncommitted’ on our ballots in the upcoming presidential primary election. These are not empty words; they signify our steadfast commitment to justice, dignity, and the sanctity of human life, which is greater than loyalty to any candidate or party.”With the 81-year-old president facing increasing pressure over his handling of Israel’s military strikes in Gaza, as well as scrutiny over his age, Arab and Muslim Americans across multiple swing states – including Michigan – have organized campaigns under the slogan #AbandonBiden.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTlaib’s latest video announcement has received mixed responses.The former Ohio Democratic state senator Nina Turner tweeted, “Arab Americans do not want their tax dollars going to kill their family members. It’s unnerving to see the liberal response to that demand. Rashida Tlaib is absolutely justified to endorse this.”Meanwhile, in response to Tlaib’s endorsement of Listen Michigan, the conservative group Republicans Against asked on X who among Democrats would run against the congresswoman ahead of her running for re-election in November.Tlaib last year was censured by the Republican-led US House over her criticisms of Israel. She responded to the censure measure by saying that she would “not be silenced” and that “Palestinian people are not disposable”. More

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    Ronald Reagan’s daughter says he would be ‘appalled’ by current political tenor

    The daughter of former president Ronald Reagan has hit out at contemporary White House politics, saying she thinks her late father would be “appalled” by the personal tenor of current political discourse.“I think he’d be appalled … it was just more civilized,” Patti Davis told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “He didn’t understand lack of civility. He didn’t understand attacking another person. … He didn’t understand cruelty. And that’s what we’re dealing with now.“I think he would be really scared for our democracy,” Davis added.Davis, 71, supposed that her father – a former Republican California governor who served two terms as president beginning in 1980 and gained a reputation as “the great communicator” – would have sought to address voters rather than opposing candidates.“I think he would address the American people at what has divided us,” Davis – the author of a new book, Dear Mom & Dad – told Meet the Press. She added that she thought Reagan would interpret contemporary political division as fear that had translated into anger.“There are people on the public stage and on the political front who understand very well that synergy between fear and anger and who are masterful at exploiting it,” Davis remarked.Reagan was 69 when he took office and 77 when he stepped down – four years younger than Democratic incumbent Joe Biden and the same age as the presumptive Republican nominee to challenge him, former president Donald Trump.Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1994 but may have been suffering from aspects of dementia during his second term.Davis said that cognitive tests for presidential candidates was “probably” appropriate.Her comment on cognitive tests came as the Biden White House continued to push back on a special counsel Robert Hur, who assessed the president to be a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” in a report declining to prosecute Biden over his retention of some classified documents before his presidency.Trump, too, has faced questions about his mental acuity after, for instance, confusing Biden with Barack Obama as well as his fellow Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley with former Democratic US House speaker Nancy Pelosi.Davis said: “We know about what age can do. It doesn’t always do that, but it would probably be a good idea.” More

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    New York governor seeks to quell business owners’ fears after Trump ruling

    The New York governor has told business owners in her state that there is “nothing to worry about” after Donald Trump was fined $355m and temporarily banned from engaging in commerce in the state when he lost his civil fraud trial Friday.In an interview on the New York radio show the Cats Roundtable with the supermarket billionaire John Catsimatidis, Kathy Hochul sought to quell fears in some quarters that the penalties handed to Trump for engaging in fraudulent business practices could chill the state’s commercial climate.Asked if businesspeople should be worried that if prosecutors could “do that to the former president, they can do that to anybody”, Hochul said: “Law-abiding and rule-following New Yorkers who are businesspeople have nothing to worry about because they’re very different than Donald Trump and his behavior.”She added that the fraud case against Trump resulted from “really an extraordinary, unusual circumstance”.Hochul’s comments were directed at some New York business leaders who said they were concerned that the attorney general Letitia James’s case against Trump could deter businesses and investment from coming to the state. Hochul noted James’s case demonstrated how Trump and some allies obtained favorable bank loans and insurance rates with inflated real estate values.The governor said most New York business owners were “honest people, and they’re not trying to hide their assets and they’re following the rules”.Hochul said most business owners would not merit state intervention.“This judge determined that Donald Trump did not follow the rules,” Hochul added. “He was prosecuted and truly, the governor of the state of New York does not have a say in the size of a fine, and we want to make sure that we don’t have that level of interference.”Trump, who denied wrongdoing in the case and maintained there were no victims, now has 30 days to come up with a non-recoverable $35m to secure a bond – a third-party guarantee – against his real estate holdings to show that he can pay the full fine if his appeals fail.Alternatively, he could put the $355m into an escrow account but would get the money back if he wins on appeal.Either way, the ruling is a blow to the developer-politician whose sense of self is tied to financial success. And James has said Trump is actually in line to pay more than $463m when interest is taken into account.In September, Trump’s former lawyer Christopher Kise argued in court that the decision against the ex-president would cause “irreparable impact on numerous companies”. It would also threaten 1,000 employees within the Trump empire, Kise maintained.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut the judge, Arthur Engoron, who found the former president liable for fraud and assessed the fine and three-year disqualification from doing business in New York, dropped an earlier ruling to dissolve all the companies that Trump owns in the state that could have led to a liquidation.“This is a venal sin, not a mortal sin,” Engoron wrote in a 92-page ruling that allowed the Trump businesses to keep operating and appointed two overseers to monitor “major activities that could lead to fraud”.Engoron said he could renew his call for “restructuring and potential dissolution” based on “substantial evidence”.Trump has lashed out at the ruling, vowing to appeal and calling James and Engoron “corrupt”.But James said on Friday: “This long-running fraud was intentional, egregious, illegal.” She added: “There cannot be different rules for different people in this country, and former presidents are no exception.” More

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    Nikki Haley condemns Trump for not commenting on Alexei Navalny death

    Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley on Sunday criticized her party’s leading contender for the White House nomination, Donald Trump, for avoiding meaningful comment on the death of Alexei Navalny, the imprisoned political nemesis of Russian leader Vladimir Putin.“Either he sides with Putin and thinks it’s cool that Putin killed one of his political opponents – or he just doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal,” Haley said Sunday on ABC News This Week. “Either one of those is concerning. Either one of those is a problem.”The attack which Haley aimed at Trump with respect to Navalny came six days before her home state of South Carolina was scheduled to host its Republican presidential preference primary. With the rest of the Republican field having dropped out, polls show Haley, the ex-governor of South Carolina, trails the former president by more than 30 percentage points.Haley joined other prominent US politicos – including Democratic president Joe Biden – in blaming Putin for Navalny’s death Friday at a Russian penal colony. Trump, on the other hand, has declined to directly remark on the death of Navalny, which authorities reportedly explained to his mother as occurring from “sudden death syndrome”.The former president – who once appointed Haley to serve as his ambassador to the United Nations – has only pledged on social media to “bring peace, prosperity and stability” if he is given another term in the Oval Office.Haley on Sunday said that Trump’s response had not gone nearly far enough.“I think it’s important to stand with the Russian people who believe Navalny was really talking for them,” Haley told the host of This Week, Jonathan Karl. “I mean you look at this hero – he was fighting corruption, he was fighting what Putin does. And what did Putin do? He killed him just like he does all his political opponents. And I think that’s very telling.”Haley added that the 47-year-old Navalny’s death was an opportunity for political leaders in the US “to remind the American people that Vladimir Putin is not our friend”.“Vladimir Putin is not cool. This is not someone we want to associate with,” Haley said. “This is not someone we want to be friends with. This is not someone that we can trust.”Haley’s remarks alluded to how Trump – during his presidency from 2017 to 2021 – demonstrated favor and, arguably, subservience to Putin. They also came a little more than a week after Trump caused global alarm with a campaign speech in South Carolina during which he declared that he would encourage Russia to attack any Nato allies whom he considered to have not paid enough to maintain the alliance.The former UN ambassador on Sunday called Trump’s earlier Nato comments “bone chilling”.“All he did in that one moment was empower Putin,” Haley said.Throwing in a reference to Russia’s jailing of Wall Street reporter Evan Gershkovich on espionage charges which the US have dismissed as bogus, Haley continued: “All [Trump] did in that one moment was he sided with a guy who kills his political opponents – he sided with a thug that arrests American journalists and holds them hostage.“And he sided with a guy who wanted to make a point to the Russian people: ‘Don’t challenge me in the next election, or this will happen to you, too.’”Haley said Americans needed to “start waking up to what this means”, and she called it essential for Ukraine to fend off the invasion Russia launched nearly two years earlier.Trump was entering the South Carolina primary under indictment on more than 90 criminal charges, including for trying to illegally nullify his defeat to Biden in the 2020 election. He is also faced with having to pay civil judgments in excess of half a billion dollars after being adjudicated a business fraudster as well as being found liable for sexually abusing and defaming magazine columnist E Jean Carroll.Nonetheless, polls at the moment show Trump enjoys a relatively slight advantage with the American electorate over Biden. More

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    Is Joe Biden too old to be president? – podcast

    At 81 years old, Joe Biden has a wealth of experience to draw on. There is just four years difference between him and Donald Trump. And his rival is as well known as the president for misspeaking and making gaffes. Yet something has changed. Unease has been growing about Biden’s perceived frailty and his mental acuity – and that was before a bombshell report by the US Justice Department’s special counsel. In the report Robert Hur, the Republican special counsel, said Biden would not face criminal charges for mishandling classified documents. The ruling should have been good news for Biden, except the reason given – that Biden would appear to any jury as a “sympathetic well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory” – was so damning. Biden hit back in a press conference slamming the inference that he was old and doddery. But as he did so he managed to mix up the names of the presidents of Mexico and Egypt. Biden’s supporters argue that Trump is just as prone to making mistakes and is hardly more reliable, the Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief, David Smith, notes. Yet somehow the mistakes Biden makes are all taken to be a sign he is losing his grip. Michael Safi asks why the same charges against Trump don’t stick and how Biden’s campaign can prove the president is fit and sharp enough for another four-year term. More

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    Want to come up with a winning election ad campaign? Just be honest | Torsten Bell

    There are so many elections this year but how to go about winning them? Labour has a sub-optimal, but impressively consistent strategy: waiting (usually a decade and a half in opposition).It’s paying off again with huge swings to them in last week’s two byelections. But this approach requires patience and most parties around the world are less keen on waiting that long. So they spend a lot of time and money trying to win, which means election adverts. In the US, TV ads are centre stage. In the UK, those are largely banned (even GB News is meant to be providing news when Tory MPs interview each other) but online ads are big business.Those involved in politics have very strong views about the kind of ads that work. They absolutely have to be positive about your offer. Or negative about your ghastly opponent. It’s imperative they’re about issues, not personalities. Or the opposite. The only problem with those election gurus’ certainties? Different kinds of ads work at different times and places. So found research with access to an intriguing data source: experiments conducted by campaign teams during 2018 and 2020 US elections to test ad options before choosing which to air; 617 ads were tested in 146 survey experiments.Researchers showed that quality matters – it’s not unusual for an advert to be 50% more or less persuasive than average. But one kind is not generally more persuasive and the type of ads that worked in 2018 didn’t have the same effect in 2020.So, if you’re trying to get yourself elected, my advice is to base your campaign on the evidence, not just your hunch. See it as good practice. After all, we’d ideally run the country that way. More