Elections

Members of the United Automobile Workers union have voted decisively to change the way they choose their president and other top leaders, opting to select them through a direct vote rather than a vote of delegates to a convention, as the union has done for decades.The votes on the election reform proposal were cast in a referendum open to the union’s roughly one million current workers and retirees and due by Monday morning. Nearly 64 percent of the roughly 140,000 members who cast valid ballots favored a direct-election approach, according to a court-appointed independent monitor of the union.“It is time to move forward on behalf of the over one million members and retirees of the U.A.W. in solidarity,” the union said in a statement.The referendum was required by a consent decree approved this year between the union and the Justice Department, which had spent years prosecuting a series of corruption scandals involving the embezzlement of union funds by top officials and illegal payoffs to union officials from the company then known as Fiat Chrysler.More than 15 people were convicted as a result of the investigations, including two recent U.A.W. presidents.Reformers within the U.A.W. have long backed the one member, one vote approach, arguing that it would lead to greater accountability, reducing corruption and forcing leaders to negotiate stronger contracts. A group called Unite All Workers for Democracy helped organize fellow members to support the change in the referendum.“The membership of our great union has made clear that they want to change the direction of the U.A.W. and return to our glory days of fighting for our members,” said Chris Budnick, a U.A.W. member at a Ford Motor plant in Louisville, Ky., who serves as recording secretary for the reform group, in a statement Wednesday evening. “I am so proud of the U.A.W. membership and their willingness to step up and vote for change.”David Witwer, an expert on union corruption at Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg, said the experience of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which shifted from voting through convention delegates to direct election in 1991, after an anti-racketeering lawsuit by federal prosecutors, supported the reformers’ claims.Dr. Witwer said the delegate system allowed seemingly corrupt union leaders to stay in power because of the leverage they had over convention delegates, who were typically local union officials whom top leaders could reward or punish.“Shifting the national union election process from convention delegates to membership direct voting was pivotal in changing the Teamsters,” he said by email.At the U.A.W., leadership positions have been dominated for decades by members of the so-called Administration Caucus, a kind of political party within the union whose power the delegate system enabled.Some longtime U.A.W. officials credit the caucus with helping to elevate women and Black people to leadership positions earlier than the union’s membership would have directly elected them.But the caucus could be deeply insular. The Justice Department contended in court filings that Gary Jones, a former U.A.W. president who was sentenced to prison this year for embezzling union funds, used some of the money to “curry favor” with his predecessor, Dennis Williams, while serving on the union’s board.Union officials have said Mr. Williams, who was recently sentenced to prison as well, later backed Mr. Jones to succeed him, helping to ensure Mr. Jones’s ascent. More

With a presidential election looming, French presidential hopefuls are hardening their positions against immigration even as other countries compete for migrant workers.PARIS — An out-of-control influx of immigrants. A threat to French identity and stability. A reason to urgently close France’s frontiers.The issue of immigration is dominating political debate in the country five months before presidential elections, as candidates on the right as well as the left harden their positions. The drowning last week of 27 migrants off France’s northern coast has only added to the argument that migration must be checked.Despite the fierce words on the campaign trail, the reality is far different: Nearly all of France’s neighbors have a greater proportion of immigrants in their populations. In the past decade, immigration has grown less in France than in the rest of Europe or in other rich nations worldwide.The figures show that the migration situation in France is “rather ordinary, rather moderate,’’ said François Héran, a leading expert on migration who teaches at Collège de France. “We’re really not a country overrun by immigration,’’ Mr. Héran said.That has not stopped pledges by politicians to impose a moratorium on immigration, hold a referendum on the issue or simply close the borders — in contrast to moves by other wealthy nations, like Germany and Australia, to attract migrant workers to fill labor shortages exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. As French restaurants, hotels, construction companies and other services face a shortage of workers, politicians across the ideological spectrum have proposed raising wages — but not the number of immigrants allowed into the country.“In France, we never talk about the economy when we talk about immigration,’’ said Emmanuelle Auriol, an economist at the Toulouse School of Economics and the co-author of a recent government-sponsored report that described how France’s growth has been hampered by its immigration policies. “All the talk is about national identity.’’As French restaurants, hotels and other services face a shortage of workers, politicians across the ideological spectrum have proposed raising wages — but not loosening immigration policies.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesFears that traditional French identity is threatened by Muslim immigrants from Africa — fanned for decades, either openly by the extreme right or with winks and dog whistles by others — have long consumed discussions about immigration. A series of terrorist attacks in recent years, some perpetrated by children of immigrants who grew up in France, have heightened those fears.These concerns have had a cumulative effect in France — making any embrace of immigration political suicide, obstructing badly needed reforms to attract qualified workers from abroad and pushing inward a country once known as a global crossroads.“We’re in a new phase,’’ said Philippe Corcuff, an expert on the far right who teaches at the Institute of Political Studies in Lyon. “What we’re seeing is the result of what has been happening in France for the past 15 years: the collapse of the left, which is now silent on immigration, and the rise of the extreme right, which ultimately may not win the elections but is setting the terms of the debate.”Candidates among the Republicans, the main party of the center right, are agreed on the need to “retake control” of the borders and to tighten immigrants’ eligibility for social benefits. One candidate, Michel Barnier, who served as the European Union’s negotiator with Britain during the Brexit talks, even proposed changing France’s constitution to be able to impose a “moratorium on immigration” for three to five years.On the left, while most candidates have chosen to remain silent, a former economy minister pledged to block remittances sent home by migrants via Western Union to countries that he said refused to repatriate citizens who are in France illegally. The proposal followed President Emmanuel Macron’s recent announcement that he would tackle the problem by slashing the number of visas issued to citizens of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.Michel Barnier, a center-right party presidential primary candidate, proposed changing France’s constitution to be able to impose a “moratorium on immigration” for three to five years.Gonzalo Fuentes/ReutersOn the far right, Éric Zemmour, the writer and TV personality who on Tuesday announced a run for the presidency in next year’s elections, has said France’s very survival is at stake because immigration from Muslim nations threatens its Christian heritage.“We won’t allow ourselves to be dominated, turned into vassals, conquered, colonized,” Mr. Zemmour said in a video announcing his candidacy. “We won’t allow ourselves to be replaced.”With Mr. Zemmour’s candidacy, the previously taboo topic of the “great replacement” — a conspiracy theory accusing politicians like Mr. Macron of using immigration to replace white, Christian people — has become part of the election discourse. Mr. Zemmour accused successive French governments of hiding “the reality of our replacement’’ and has said that Mr. Macron “wants to dissolve France in Europe and Africa.’’During a recent prime-time debate, while center-right candidates hesitated to embrace the expression — which has been cited by white supremacists in mass shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso, Tex. — they indicated that the threat of replacement represented a real problem facing France.According to a recent poll, 61 percent of French respondents said they believed that Europe’s white and Christian population would be subjected to a “great replacement’’ by Muslim immigrants.The intensity of the election rhetoric stands in contrast to the recent elections in Germany, where immigration was not an issue — even though Germany has led Europe in accepting refugees in recent years.“Immigration was missing from the campaign in Germany,’’ said Jean-Christophe Dumont, the head of international migration research for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or O.E.C.D.A regional training hub in Dortmund, Germany. To deal with a labor shortage, Germany is trying to improve how it integrates both asylum seekers and migrant workers.Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times“There is a French obsession with immigration issues,’’ Mr. Dumont added. “In reality, France is not a major country for immigration.’’In 2020, France’s share of immigrants in its population — 13 percent — was below the average of O.E.C.D. nations. That proportion grew 16 percent between 2010 and 2020.By contrast, immigrants made up 16 percent of Germany’s population — a 30 percent increase during the same period.France stopped taking in huge numbers of workers from its former colonies in northern Africa as a long period of economic growth came to an end in the mid-1970s — a few years before the rise of the far-right, anti-immigrant National Front, now known as the National Rally, which helped make immigration a radioactive subject in French politics.Since then, migrant workers have accounted for only a small share of new immigration, which has been dominated by foreign students and family-linked arrivals.“We take in immigrants, not to work, but to join their spouses,’’ said Ms. Auriol, the economist.The result is that France’s immigration population is much less diversified than in other rich nations. In 2019, more than 40 percent of all arrivals came from Africa, especially Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, according to government data.That lack of diversity — coupled with the concentration of new immigrants in urban areas like Paris — fuels anxieties related to immigration, said Patrick Weil, a historian of immigration who teaches at Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris and at Yale.While anti-immigrant sentiments played a role in former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign in 2016, immigration in France — closely linked to its colonial history, especially in Algeria and other Muslim nations — makes it an even more combustible topic, Mr. Weil said.“In France, there is a link between immigration and religion, whereas in the United States they are separate,” Mr. Weil said.Éric Zemmour, center, who is running for the presidency in next year’s elections, said that France’s very survival is at stake because immigration from Muslim nations threatens the country’s Christian heritage.Yoan Valat/EPA, via ShutterstockFanned by the right, the fears surrounding immigration and a supposed threat to France’s Christian heritage make it extremely difficult to hold any discussions about reforming to attract qualified foreign immigrants, said Ms. Auriol, the economist.Current immigration policies, she added, stifles economic growth and the economic recovery from the pandemic.Modest changes have been carried out in recent years. But they are insufficient to attract the kind of motivated, skilled immigrants that France desperately needs to bring innovation and fresh thinking, Ms. Auriol said. Given the anti-immigrant climate, France also attracts relatively few citizens of other European Union nations, who can move freely to France, and suffers from a low retention of foreign students after graduation, she said.“In the 20th century, all the world’s talented people came to Paris,’’ she added. “Immigrants who contributed to France’s economic greatness, its scientific greatness and its cultural greatness. We were an open country. What happened to us?”Léontine Gallois More

The two Georgia workers were falsely accused of manipulating ballots by Trump allies and right-wing news sites. Election officials said the workers did nothing wrong.Two Georgia election workers who were the targets of a right-wing campaign that falsely claimed they manipulated ballots filed a defamation lawsuit on Thursday against one of the nation’s leading sources of pro-Trump misinformation.The suit against the right-wing conspiratorial website The Gateway Pundit was filed by Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, both of whom processed ballots in Atlanta during the 2020 election for the Fulton County elections board. It follows a series of defamation claims filed by elections equipment operators against conservative television operators such as Fox News, Newsmax and One America News.The lawsuit from Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss is among the first to be filed by individual election workers who found themselves unwittingly dragged into the alternate universe of far-right media that claimed, and still does, that Donald J. Trump won last year’s presidential election.“I want the defendants to know that my daughter and I are real people who deserve justice, and I never want them to do this to anyone else,” Ms. Freeman said in a statement.Ms. Moss, who continues to work for the Fulton County elections board, and Ms. Freeman, a temporary employee during the 2020 election, were ensnared by the Trump-supporting media and Mr. Trump himself after Gateway Pundit published dozens of false stories about them, starting last December and continuing through this November. The stories called the two women “crooked Democrats” and claimed that they “pulled out suitcases full of ballots and began counting those ballots without election monitors in the room.”Investigations conducted by the Georgia secretary of state’s office found that the two women did nothing wrong and were legally counting ballots.It all began one month after the 2020 election, on Dec. 3, when a lawyer for Mr. Trump’s campaign played a spliced segment of surveillance video footage for a Georgia Senate committee. The lawyer falsely claimed Fulton elections workers pulled 18,000 fraudulent ballots from a suitcase and illegally fed them through the voting machines.The accusation, which was quickly debunked by Fulton County and Georgia elections officials, was nevertheless amplified by Rudolph W. Giuliani and other Trump allies. A week after the first Gateway Pundit story, Mr. Giuliani compared Ms. Moss and Ms. Freeman to drug dealers and called for their homes to be searched during a hearing with Georgia state legislators.Mr. Trump himself invoked Ms. Freeman’s name 18 times during his Jan. 3 call with Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state. The call at the time was among the president’s most egregious efforts to overturn the results of the election he lost to Joseph R. Biden Jr., who defeated Mr. Trump in Georgia by 11,779 votes.The Gateway Pundit is published by twin brothers, James and Joseph Hoft. The Hoft brothers did not respond to requests for comment.The lawsuit, filed in a Missouri circuit court in St. Louis, where James Hoft lives, articulates a litany of trauma the two women and their family suffered after Gateway Pundit began its campaign against them.They received death threats, unending harassment from phone calls and text messages, and unsolicited pizza deliveries to their homes. Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss, both of whom are Black, were also subjected to racial slurs.The harassment was detailed in a Reuters article published Wednesday that included recordings of 911 calls Ms. Freeman made when Trump supporters came to her home and banged on her door last December.According to Reuters, Ms. Moss earns about $36,000 a year for her full-time job with Fulton County. Ms. Freeman, a temporary worker, was paid $16 per hour. Ms. Freeman was forced to shut down her online business selling fashion accessories once she became inundated with threats.On Jan. 6, as thousands of Trump supporters gathered in Washington for a rally that led to the storming of the Capitol in an effort to block the congressional certification of Mr. Biden’s victory, another crowd surrounded Ms. Freeman’s home in suburban Cobb County, the suit read, “some on foot, some in vehicles, others equipped with a bullhorn.”But, according to the lawsuit, Ms. Freeman had by then fled her home on the advice of the F.B.I. She did not return to her home for two months.The harassing calls to Ms. Moss came on a cellphone she had given her teenage son. He turned the phone’s cellular data off to stop the unsolicited calls, but he was unable to do so during school hours. He used the phone as a mobile hot spot to connect his computer to the internet for his virtual high school classes during the coronavirus pandemic.Her son failed his classes; Ms. Moss enrolled him in summer school to catch up, according to the suit.Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss are represented in their suit by Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan group focused on resisting authoritarianism in the United States. Protect Democracy has also sued Project Veritas, the conservative group that conducts undercover sting operations, on behalf of a Pennsylvania postmaster who was falsely accused of tampering with election returns.Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss did not specify an amount they are seeking from the Hoft brothers. They asked for compensatory and punitive damages “to be determined at trial.” More

Focus groups with Virginia voters led to a bluntly worded memo on what Democrats need to do going into the midterms.Brian Stryker, a Democratic pollster, didn’t work for Terry McAuliffe’s campaign in the Virginia governor’s race. But Mr. McAuliffe’s narrow defeat in a liberal-leaning state alarmed him and most every Democratic political professional.That defeat also prompted a centrist group, Third Way, to have Mr. Stryker convene focus groups to examine why Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin won in a state that President Biden had carried by 10 points last year.Mr. Stryker drafted and posted a bluntly worded memo with his analysis from the focus groups, and that memo has circulated widely in his party.The participants hailed from the suburbs of Washington and Richmond and had the same political profile: Each supported Mr. Biden in 2020, and either voted for Mr. Youngkin in November or strongly considered supporting him.In an interview with The Times, Mr. Stryker expanded on what he learned from the voters and the course correction he believes Democrats must take.This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.What was the first thing you told your partners after you got done with the groups — what was your big takeaway?I was surprised by how dominant education was in this election. I was also struck by how much it was this place for all of these frustrations for these suburban voters, where they could take out their Covid frustrations in one place..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}So if you’re advising a Democratic client running in 2022, what do you tell them?I would tell them that we have a problem. We’ve got a national branding problem that is probably deeper than a lot of people suspect. Our party thinks maybe some things we’re saying aren’t cutting through, but I think it’s much deeper than that.What is that branding problem, in a nutshell?People think we’re more focused on social issues than the economy — and the economy is the No. 1 issue right now.What drives this perception that Democrats are fixated on cultural issues?We probably haven’t been as focused on the economy as we should be. I think some of that is voters reading us talking about things that aren’t economic issues. Part of it is just a natural reaction, too: We’re in an economy they feel is tough. It’s hard for them to think we’ve solved problems when they see so many.How do Democrats balance a commitment to core constituencies while at the same time addressing economic issues that voters are confronting every day?The No. 1 issue for women right now is the economy, and the No. 1 issue for Black voters is the economy, and the No. 1 issue for Latino voters is the economy. I’m not advocating for us ignoring social issues, but when we think broadly about voters, they actually all want us talking about the economy and doing things to help them out economically.So what can Democrats do going into the midterms?A big part of the problem was that people didn’t feel they knew enough about McAuliffe and what he had done. Governors, in particular, during Covid were on TV all the time, talking to people about Covid. So it’s all anybody knows of what they’ve done. So you need to tell your story about what you’ve been doing, to the press and in paid communications, outside of Covid. And that applies to members of Congress, state legislators, everyone on down.Is there any silver lining to be found for Democrats?If the country is in a better place next year, we’re likely to be rewarded for that. Voters are responding to real-world frustrations; this isn’t some manufactured narrative.I want to cite a few things from your memo that struck me, one of which was that the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which became law in March, may as well not exist.Voters don’t remember things. They have short attention spans. One bright spot, though: If we have an economy that voters feel like is starting to pick up, being able to point back and remind them, “Hey I did XYZ, and that really got things rolling.”So you think Democrats next year should spend the bulk of their time trumpeting their legislative accomplishments from this year?We should spend 2022 talking about things we’ve done to lower costs for working families and to get people back to work. Some of those things may be in a piece of legislation; others are things the White House did. Some are constituent services.Voters don’t think Democrats are addressing big issues in their lives?They just see costs going up and don’t feel like there’s any progress being made yet.How much of that is driven by the day-to-day lived experiences of people?A ton of it. They drive by the pump. They know what the cost of a pound of ground beef is supposed to be, or boneless skinless chicken breast. Those are the things they talk about, meat and groceries — those are the things they really see.Let’s come back to the schools issue. How much of what drove that for Mr. Youngkin is that we’re 18 months into Covid, and voters are simply fatigued and want somebody to blame?Voters don’t think that in general a lot of Democrats felt really bad about closing the schools or felt like it was really a negative on people. I think showing some empathy on that could go a long ways in terms of: Yes, closing schools was hard on kids and hard on parents.One of the things you also said in the memo was that McAuliffe’s strategy of linking Mr. Youngkin to former President Donald Trump was ineffective. What in the conversations with your groups made that clear?The respondents kind of laughed at that approach. They said, “Oh, these silly ads that compared Youngkin to Trump — he just doesn’t seem like that guy.” The thing that these people disliked about Trump was that they didn’t like Donald Trump the person; it wasn’t Donald Trump the constellation of policies. That may very well have been the best message that McAuliffe had, but if we are in that position again, we’re going to lose a ton of races. We’ve got to have something better.How much does Mr. Biden himself take the blame with these voters? Is his name invoked?It’s Biden, Democrats — they all come together.But it’s not like with Trump, where voters single him out?No, and also none of these people regretted their choice and wish they had voted for Trump.Did you ask that question?I asked it a couple of different ways: “Do you think you made a mistake last year?” or, “If you had the choice in a year, would you change your vote?” Nobody was interested in Trump. It was not even a question for them. More

Workers at three plants owned by the luxury apparel-maker Canada Goose in Winnipeg, Manitoba, have voted overwhelmingly to unionize, according to results announced by the union on Wednesday.Workers United, an affiliate of the giant Service Employees International Union, said it would represent about 1,200 additional workers as a result of the election.Canada Goose, which makes parkas that can cost more than $1,000 and have been worn by celebrities like Daniel Craig and Kate Upton, has union workers at other facilities, including some in Toronto, and has frequently cited its commitment to high environmental and labor standards. But it had long appeared to resist efforts to unionize workers in Winnipeg, part of what the union called an “adversarial relationship.”The company denied that it sought to block unionization, and both sides agree that it was neutral in recent weeks, in the run-up to the election. The union said 86 percent of those voting backed unionization.“I want to congratulate the workers of Canada Goose for this amazing victory,” Richard A. Minter, a vice president and international organizing director for Workers United, said in a statement. “I also want to salute the company. No employer wants a union, but Canada Goose management stayed neutral and allowed the workers the right to exercise their democratic vote.”Reacting to the vote, the company said: “Our goal has always been to support our employees, respecting their right to determine their own representation. We welcome Workers United as the union representative for our employees across our manufacturing facilities in Winnipeg.”Canada Goose was founded under a different name in the 1950s. It began to raise its profile and emphasize international sales after Dani Reiss, the grandson of its founder, took over as chief executive in 2001. Mr. Reiss committed to keeping production of parkas in Canada.The private equity firm Bain Capital purchased a majority stake in the company in 2013 and took it public a few years later.The union vote came after accusations this year that Canada Goose had disciplined two workers who identified themselves as union supporters. Several workers at Canada Goose’s Winnipeg facilities, where the company’s work force is mostly immigrants, also complained of low pay and abusive behavior by managers.The company has denied the accusations of retaliation and abuse and said that well over half its workers in Winnipeg earned wages above the local minimum of about 12 Canadian dollars (about $9.35).Workers United is also seeking to organize workers at several Buffalo-area Starbucks stores, three of which are in the middle of a mail-in union election in which ballots are due next week.Nearly 30 percent of workers are unionized in Canada, compared with about 11 percent in the United States. More

Capitol attack panel recommends contempt prosecution for Jeffrey ClarkFormer Trump DoJ official punished for refusal to comply with subpoena but gets last chance after 11th-hour statement The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack recommended on Wednesday the criminal prosecution of the former Trump justice department official Jeffrey Clark, over his refusal to comply with a subpoena in the inquiry into the 6 January insurrection.The select committee approved the contempt of Congress report unanimously. The resolution now heads to the full House of Representatives, which could refer Clark for prosecution in a vote that could come as soon as next week.Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, said at the vote to report Clark in contempt that the panel was seeking his criminal prosecution to demonstrate their resolve in enforcing subpoenas, and to warn other Trump aides about the penalties for non-compliance.Trump called aides hours before Capitol riot to discuss how to stop Biden victoryRead more“The select committee has no desire to be placed in this situation but Mr Clark has left us no other choice. He chose this path. He knew what consequences he might face if he did so. This committee and this House must insist on accountability,” Thompson said.But the select committee gave Clark one final opportunity to escape a referral to the justice department for prosecution by appearing at a new deposition on Saturday, after his attorney said in an 11th-hour letter that Clark now intended to claim the fifth amendment.“The committee would certainly consider that we will not finalize his contempt process if Mr Clark genuinely cures his failure to comply with the subpoena this Saturday,” the vice-chair of the select committee, Liz Cheney, said at the vote.The reprieve for Clark means that the select committee may ultimately take no action against him, even if he claims the fifth amendment – his right to protect himself against self-incrimination – for almost every question put before him at the deposition on Saturday.“The fifth amendment is part of the constitution. Our committee is here to defend the constitution against a violent assault,” said the select committee member Jamie Raskin. “So we’re not going to begrudge anyone an honest invocation of the fifth amendment.”“If he thinks that his communications with Trump or anyone else reveal criminal activity, and he has a reasonable fear that that can be used against him, then he’s got an opportunity to exercise the fifth amendment,” Raskin said. That could mean House investigators learn nothing more about Clark’s role in Trump’s scheme. But if Clark testifies under immunity, he would then have to respond truthfully to all questions asked by the select committee.Raskin told reporters after the vote that the contempt report would next go to the House rules committee, which would prepare it for a full House vote, which remains on the table should Clark not cooperate to a satisfactory degree at his new deposition.The select committee’s recommendation could bring grave consequences for Clark: if the report is passed by the House, the justice department is required to take the matter before a federal grand jury, which last month indicted the former Trump adviser Steve Bannon over his subpoena defiance.In his opening statement before the vote, Thompson noted that Clark’s attorney had sent a letter to the select committee late on Monday night stating that Clark had experienced a late change of mind and would claim fifth amendment protection.But Thompson said even though the select committee would provide Clark an opportunity to assert that protection at a second deposition on Saturday, he viewed the move as “a last-ditch attempt to delay the select committee’s proceedings” and would proceed with the vote to recommend his prosecution.The select committee would only move to halt the contempt of Congress proceeding if Clark demonstrated that he intended to fully cooperate with House investigators, Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the select committee said in her opening statement.A successful contempt prosecution could result in up to a year in federal prison, $100,000 in fines, or both – although the misdemeanor offense may not ultimately lead to his cooperation, and pursuing the charge could still take years.The select committee subpoenaed Clark last month as it sought to uncover the extent of his role in Donald Trump’s scheme to subvert the results of the 2020 election and stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win on 6 January.Thompson said at the time that the subpoena, which followed a Senate judiciary committee report detailing Clark’s efforts to abuse the justice department for Trump, also sought to identify who else in the Trump administration had been involved in the scheme.But after Trump issued a directive to former aides to refuse to cooperate with the investigation, even though Clark agreed to appear before investigative counsel at a deposition, he declined to answer questions broadly citing attorney-client and executive privileges.The select committee on Tuesday rejected those arguments, saying Clark had no basis to refuse his subpoena on grounds of privilege because Trump had never formally asserted the protections – but also because Clark tried to use executive privilege for non-privileged material.“Mr Clark refused to answer questions regarding whether he used his personal phone or email for official business, when he met a specific member of Congress, and what statements he made to media,” the contempt report said, “none of which involve presidential communication.”The contempt report added that even if the select committee had accepted his executive privilege claim, the law made clear that even senior White House officials advising sitting presidents don’t have the kind of immunity from congressional inquiries being claimed by Clark.The select committee also objected to the argument by Clark’s counsel that he could not respond to the panel’s questions until the courts resolved whether Trump could use executive privilege to block the National Archives from turning over White House documents.“This is not a valid objection to a subpoena, and the select committee is not aware of any legal authority that supports this position,” the report said. “The issues raised in the National Archives litigation are wholly separate and distinct from those raised by Mr Clark.”Ahead of the select committee’s vote to recommend prosecution, Clark’s attorney, Harry MacDougal, disagreed and told Thompson in a letter that Clark could not testify until the National Archives case was decided.“He is duty-bound not to provide testimony to your committee covering information protected by the former president’s assertion of executive privilege,” MacDougalsaid of Clark in the letter. “Mr Clark cannot answer deposition questions at this time.”The Senate report found Clark had played a leading role in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, leveraging his role at the justice department to do Trump’s bidding and pressure the then acting attorney general, Jeff Rosen, to avow debunked claims of fraud.It detailed, for instance, a 2 January confrontation during which Clark demanded that Rosen send Georgia election officials a letter that falsely claimed the justice department had identified fraud – and threatened to push Trump to fire him if he refused.The move to recommend the criminal prosecution of Clark for contempt marks the second such confrontation, after the select committee last month voted unanimously to hold Bannon in contempt of Congress for also ignoring his subpoena in its entirety.Bannon also cited Trump’s directive, first reported by the Guardian, for former aides and advisers to defy subpoenas and refrain from turning over documents, in his refusal to cooperate with the select committee’s investigation.Bannon was indicted on two counts of contempt of Congress by a federal grand jury earlier in November. He has pleaded not guilty and vowed to “go on the offense” against Biden and the select committee.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Both sides anticipate that a Supreme Court decision scaling back abortion rights would roil next year’s elections, with Democrats sensing an advantage.WASHINGTON — A Supreme Court ruling to weaken or overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in the middle of next year’s midterm election campaign would immediately elevate abortion rights into a defining issue and most likely reinvigorate efforts to overhaul the court itself.Even as the justices weigh the case of the Mississippi law barring most abortions after 15 weeks, the political clash is already intensifying, with Democrats warning supporters that the court is poised to reverse access to abortion 50 years after it was recognized as a constitutional right.“What is fundamentally at stake is that every woman in our country should be able to make her own health care decisions and chart her own destiny and have the full independence to do that,” said Senator Maggie Hassan, Democrat of New Hampshire, who is seeking re-election in a race with significant implications for control of the Senate.As the court heard arguments in the Mississippi case on Wednesday, it appeared that the six conservative justices were likely to uphold the state’s law despite the precedent set in 1973 by Roe, which held that states could not bar abortion before fetal viability, now judged to be around 22 to 24 weeks.Several of the justices suggested that they were willing to go another step and overturn Roe entirely, leaving states free to impose whatever bans or restrictions they choose. The court is likely to release its decision in the case at the end of its term in June or early July, just as campaigning in the midterms is getting into full swing.While the subject of abortion and the Supreme Court has traditionally been seen as more of an energizing issue for Republican and evangelical voters, Democrats say that situation could be reversed should the court undermine Roe, raising the possibility that abortion could be banned or severely limited in many states.That outcome, Democrats said, would transform the long fight over abortion rights from theory to reality and give new resonance to their arguments that a Democratic Congress is needed to protect access to the procedure and seat judges who are not hostile to abortion rights.Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and fellow Democrats have repeatedly criticized state Republicans for cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood and instituting new abortion restrictions.Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times“There is no question that should the decision be one that would overturn Roe v. Wade, it will certainly motivate our base,” said Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “Quite frankly, we know that a majority of the people in this country continue to believe it should be the law of the land.”“It will be an incredibly powerful issue,” Mr. Peters said.Republicans see advantages as well, saying it will validate their decades-long push to limit if not outlaw abortion and show that they should not back away from their efforts when they are succeeding.“Today is our day,” Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 House Republican, told abortion opponents outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday. “This is what we’ve been working for.”Aware that a decision undermining abortion access has political risks for them as well, Republicans say the fight will be just part of their 2022 message as they seek to tie Democrats to inflation, the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and other subjects where they see a greater edge.“There’s a lot of issues out there,” said Senator Rick Scott, Republican of Florida and the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, suggesting the significance of abortion will vary from state to state. “Everybody’s going to take a position.”But it was quickly clear that some Republicans would embrace the drive against Roe.“I’m pro-life. I’m anti-Roe v. Wade,” Senator John Kennedy, the Louisiana Republican who is seeking a second term next year, said in a fund-raising appeal sent hours after the court debate. “There is not much else I can say other than that.”In addition to the congressional elections, how the justices dispose of the case holds potentially grave implications for the court itself. The stature and credibility of the court were prominent subtexts of Wednesday’s arguments, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointedly asking how the court would “survive the stench” of overturning Roe in what many would see as a blatantly political act.Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana, in September. “Today is our day,” he told abortion opponents outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesAfter Senate Republicans in 2016 blocked President Barack Obama from filling a Supreme Court vacancy with almost a year left in his term, progressives began calling for adding seats to the court or setting term limits on the now-lifetime appointments to offset what they saw as an unfair advantage seized by Republicans. Then, when Republicans seated Justice Amy Coney Barrett just days before the 2020 election, those calls intensified.However, President Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been lukewarm to the idea of tinkering with the court, and a commission he formed to study the idea is not expected to embrace significant changes.Understand the Supreme Court’s Momentous TermCard 1 of 5Mississippi abortion law. More

Ms. Abrams, a Democratic voting rights activist, will aim to unseat Gov. Brian Kemp in a rematch of their contentious 2018 race for governor.Stacey Abrams, the Georgia Democrat whose narrow loss in the governor’s race in 2018 catapulted her to national prominence as a voting rights advocate, said Wednesday that she would run again for governor in 2022, setting up a high-profile potential rematch with Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican.Three years after Ms. Abrams lost to Mr. Kemp — a longtime political rival — by about 55,000 votes, her candidacy ensures that voting rights will remain at the center of the political conversation in Democratic circles and in Georgia, where Republicans enacted a sweeping law of voting restrictions this year.Ms. Abrams’s campaign also carries historic significance: If she is successful, she would become the first Black governor of Georgia and the first Black woman to serve as governor of any state.“Opportunity in our state shouldn’t be determined by ZIP code, background or access to power,” Ms. Abrams said on Twitter, posting an announcement video with the slogan “One Georgia.”Her prospective face-off with Mr. Kemp — along with a critical Senate race and several important House contests — means that Georgia will again be a major political battleground in 2022. Last year, the state backed a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time since 1992, held two runoff elections that gave Democrats control of the Senate and was a central focus of former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to overturn the election.Democrats had widely expected the announcement by Ms. Abrams, a former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives who has come to embody the state’s changing racial and political makeup and was previously considered to be President Biden’s running mate. Though some Democrats and activist groups have courted her to pursue a Senate seat or run for president, her long-held goal has been to become governor of Georgia, according to longtime allies.Ms. Abrams has often rejected strict ideological labels in interviews, and she has been embraced by members of both the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic Party. Activist groups have highlighted her focus on voting rights and her political strategy, which emphasizes cross-racial voter turnout in an increasingly diverse state.Moderate Democrats point to her policy stances, which have often stopped short of embracing left-wing litmus tests on issues like single-payer health care and a Green New Deal to combat climate change. Ms. Abrams’s first campaign video took a hyperlocal approach, showcasing the breadth of Georgia’s diversity and describing what she has done since the 2018 race, with a nod to the coronavirus pandemic.“We helped finance small businesses trying to stay afloat,” she says in the video. “And I spoke up for families being left behind.”The candidacy of Ms. Abrams, who was not on the ballot in 2020 but was a visible figure in the Democratic presidential primary contest and also completed a book tour, ensures another cycle of closely watched Georgia races that will attract millions of dollars from grass-roots donors and advocacy groups..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democratic civil rights activist and pastor who won a special election in 2020 and became the first Black senator to be elected in Georgia, is expected to run for a full term. Georgia’s congressional district lines are still in flux, but Republican state lawmakers may pit some of the state’s Democrats against one another, in an aggressive redistricting maneuver.Mr. Trump also remains an important figure who could upend Republican unity, motivate the party’s base, inspire backlash among Democrats or some combination of all three. The former president targeted Mr. Kemp and Georgia’s top election official, Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, during the 2020 election aftermath.In a statement on Wednesday evening, Mr. Trump sent the governor a warning shot, taking credit for the 2018 victory over Ms. Abrams and saying that a Republican triumph in 2022 could be “hard to do with Brian Kemp, because the MAGA base will just not vote for him after what he did with respect to Election Integrity and two horribly run elections.”Mr. Trump added that “some good Republican will run, and some good Republican will get my endorsement, and some good Republican will WIN!”While several high-profile Republicans in Georgia have been floated as possible contenders for governor next year, including former Senator David Perdue, none have yet entered the race. Without a viable challenger to Mr. Kemp, the former president has backed the Senate run of Herschel Walker, a former University of Georgia football star.Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican who has caused several controversies in Congress, has also disrupted the state’s political class in the name of Mr. Trump’s grievances.After Ms. Abrams’s announcement, Republicans immediately sought to cast her as an out-of-touch national figure and the face of the Democratic Party.Mr. Kemp wrote on Twitter that if Ms. Abrams had been governor during the pandemic, “Georgia would have shut down, students would have been barred from their classrooms, and woke politics would be the law of the land and the lesson plan in our schools.”He added that “next November’s election for Governor is a battle for the soul of our state,” reversing a theme Mr. Biden used in his 2020 campaign.Dueling statements issued on Wednesday by governors’ groups from both parties made clear that Democrats and Republicans now had their marquee matchup for 2022. Less than an hour after Ms. Abrams announced her bid, the Democratic Governors Association said that “it’s clear Brian Kemp’s days as governor are numbered.” People for the American Way, a progressive advocacy group, endorsed her within 90 minutes.On the Republican side, party leaders sought to present a united front, irrespective of Mr. Trump and his personal vendettas. In January, the state’s Republicans had been split among loyalties to Mr. Kemp, Mr. Raffensperger, the state’s two Senate incumbents and Mr. Trump.In recent months, according to Republicans in Georgia, Mr. Kemp and his allies have staved off a credible primary challenger — and sought to win back Mr. Trump’s base — by positioning Mr. Kemp as the only person capable of beating Ms. Abrams.“Stacey Abrams is once again using Georgia to boost her own star while she plots a path toward her real career goal: President of the United States,” Maddie Anderson, a spokeswoman for the Republican Governors Association, said in a statement. “Stacey Abrams spent her time touring the country in search of fame and fortune.”Over the last decade, Ms. Abrams has risen quickly from toiling voting rights activist and Democratic state legislator in the Republican bastion of Georgia to a household political name nationally.At the end of 2013, she founded the New Georgia Project, a nonprofit voting rights group, which claimed to have registered more than 200,000 voters in the run-up to her candidacy for governor in 2018. Before the 2020 election, Ms. Abrams leveraged both the New Georgia Project and her second organization, Fair Fight Action, to expand registration efforts.By last year’s election, the groups said they had registered roughly 800,000 voters in Georgia, and Democrats credited them with helping lay the groundwork for flipping the state blue at the presidential level. Two Democratic victories in Georgia’s Senate runoff in January only enhanced Ms. Abrams’s status among Democratic voters, complete with a new mantra: “Trust Black women.”In an interview with The New York Times after the election, Ms. Abrams said the iconography had made her uncomfortable, as did the phrase.“I appreciate the necessity of that battle cry,” she said. “And in my approach, in Georgia in particular, Black women have been instrumental. But I chafe at this idea that we then objectify one group as both savior and as responsible party” if Democrats lose elections.Voting rights will again become a dominant electoral issue in a state that has a long history of discrimination at the polls, and that has sought to restrict voting access in recent years. From 2012 to 2018, for example, Georgia shuttered more than 214 voting precincts around the state, according to an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Of the 53 counties that have closed voting locations, more than half have significant African American populations, making up at least 25 percent of residents.Ms. Abrams sued the state of Georgia after her loss to Mr. Kemp in 2018. The lawsuit is ongoing, and a trial date has been set for next year.In addition to her political advocacy, Ms. Abrams has also published two books since 2018, the latest in a line of published works that has included both nonfiction and romance novels — often under the pen name of Selena Montgomery.Ms. Abrams published “Our Time Is Now,” a nonfiction book about voter suppression and political strategy, in 2020. Her political thriller “While Justice Sleeps,” about a law clerk who becomes the legal guardian of a gravely ill Supreme Court justice, came out in May 2021.“One is struck by Abrams’s considerable powers of invention,” read a review of the thriller in The Times. “Her narrative never pauses for breath — let alone contemplation.”Ultimately, it concluded, “those desirous of perils and surprises will encounter them in abundance.”Nick Corasaniti More