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#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentLatest UpdatesTrump AcquittedHow Senators VotedSeven Republicans Vote to ConvictAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPolitical MemoDon’t Care for This Impeachment? Wait Until Next YearLeaders of both political parties suggest that impeachments, Electoral College standoffs and Supreme Court nomination blockades may become frequent fights in American politics.Representative Jamie Raskin, center, and other House impeachment managers spoke on Saturday after the Senate voted to acquit former President Donald Trump at his second impeachment trial.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesFeb. 16, 2021Updated 4:17 a.m. ETWASHINGTON — The second season of impeachment had ended less than a day earlier, but Republicans were already talking about next season. It sounded ominous.“I don’t know how Kamala Harris doesn’t get impeached if the Republicans take over the House,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said Sunday morning on Fox News.Mr. Graham seemed to be suggesting that the vice president might be punished because she had expressed support for a bail fund for Black Lives Matter protesters in Minnesota last summer. “She actually bailed out rioters,” Mr. Graham charged. That statement was false, but his threat was plain: Republicans can impeach, too.In recent days, former President Donald J. Trump’s defenders have darkly accused Democrats of opening a “Pandora’s box” of partisan retribution — leading to a kind of anything-goes future in politics, where impeachments get volleyed back and forth between the two parties like a tennis match, depending on which side controls Congress. “Partisan impeachments will become commonplace,” said Bruce L. Castor Jr., one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, as he argued the former president’s case before the Senate on Tuesday.There’s an element of plausibility here, given the hyperpartisan fervor that’s gripped American politics. But in the ensuing environment, Republicans seem to be saying that even the most outlandish accusations against a president — such as those hurled at President Biden by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican of Georgia in her first days in Congress — should be treated the same as what Democrats impeached Mr. Trump over.In a broader sense, officials of both parties have suggested that regular impeachments may just become one of several regular features of a new and bitter normal in our politics. Previously rare or unthinkable measures could simply start happening all the timeDemocrats argue that, in fact, Republicans have opened several Pandora’s boxes in recent years. They have taken unprecedented actions, led by Mr. Trump, that have abused certain norms to a degree that has destabilized a set of once-reliable government traditions. Senate Republicans’ blockade of President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland to the Supreme Court in 2016, for instance, cast doubt on any future president’s ability to fill a Supreme Court vacancy when the opposing party controlled the Senate.By refusing to concede an election he clearly lost, and then maintaining repeatedly it had been stolen from him, Mr. Trump shattered what had been an undisturbed American custom ensuring a peaceful transfer of power between administrations.Mr. Trump’s false claims have persuaded a majority of Republican voters that Mr. Biden had not been legitimately elected, and led 147 Republican members of the House and the Senate to vote against the Jan. 6 certification of Electoral College votes. This level of support to overturn the election result raises the prospect of whether the once-pro forma exercise of certification might now devolve every four years into a heated partisan spectacle — or, worse, riots.Two of former President Trump’s impeachment lawyers, Michael van der Veen and Bruce Castor, spoke on Saturday after the trial concluded.Credit…Alyssa Schukar for The New York TimesIt was the deadly assault on the Capitol, of course, that set into motion Mr. Trump’s second impeachment proceeding. His lawyers attributed the rebuke not to their client’s actions on Jan. 6 but rather to his opponents’ irrational “hatred of President Trump.” They implied impeachment was a vindictive and frivolous maneuver.Democrats bristle at such notions — that they have overused and thus cheapened the power of impeachment, a tool that has been employed only four times in 244 years, but twice in the last 14 months. They agreed that impeachment should be reserved for extraordinary circumstances, but argued that Mr. Trump had engaged in an extraordinary degree of dereliction.“Look, there’s a reason there’s been two impeachments of the same man,” said Senator Robert P. Casey Jr., Democrat of Pennsylvania, in an interview Friday, on the eve of the final vote. “Trump has engaged in conduct that presidents of either party would never engage in.”It’s not like anything about this has been fun, he added. “The last thing I wanted to do these last five days is sit there and listen to this hour after hour instead of working on a full range of issues,” he said.Mr. Casey and others suggest that the Republican Party is now dominated by a former president who has convinced much of the party that any opposition to them is driven by “bad, sick and corrupt people” and should be met with extreme tactics.“The expectation from our base is for retribution,” said former Representative Tom Rooney, a Republican of Florida who did not seek re-election in 2018, in part to escape the extreme partisanship that has overtaken Congress. When asked if his former Republican colleagues would move to impeach Mr. Biden next year if they won back the House, even for something minor, Mr. Rooney rated the prospect as “absolutely possible.”“It might not necessarily be what some of those guys want to do, but it might be what the base expects,” he said. “People want Armageddon.”Let the healing begin!Or not. For as much as Impeachment II ended on Saturday with a significant number of Republican senators (seven) voting to convict Mr. Trump — and was accompanied by tough statements from some who voted not guilty, including the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell — other defenders of the former president turned their focus to a bitter future of impeachment roulette.Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, suggested on Friday that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton might start looking around for a good impeachment lawyer (because, really, what would partisan Armageddon be without the Clintons?).Mr. Rubio framed his statement around a somewhat tortured rhetorical question: “Is it not true that under this new precedent, a future House facing partisan pressure to ‘lock her up’ could impeach a former secretary of state and a future Senate forced to put her on trial and potentially disqualify from future office?”It was not exactly clear whether Mr. Rubio was criticizing Mr. Trump for whipping up his supporters into a frenzy that led to irrational demands to imprison Mrs. Clinton, or whether he was accusing Democrats of acting irrationally themselves by impeaching Mr. Trump a second time in two years.What was evident, however, was that Mr. Rubio was assuming the worst intentions by the opposition — and the feeling appears extremely mutual. Cable and social media chatter have been awash in bleak scenarios.“If Republicans take Congress, they could not only impeach Biden and/or Harris,” Jon Favreau, a speechwriter for President Obama, tweeted on Sunday, “they could potentially succeed in overturning the results of the 2024 election.”Not everyone believes partisanship has reached the point where Election Day will now merely become the start of a two-month brawl every four years that will build to a potentially ugly climax in January.“I don’t think we’re there yet,” said Brendan Buck, a Republican media strategist and former top leadership aide to two former Republican speakers of the House, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin and John A. Boehner of Ohio. He said that many House Republicans wound up voting against Mr. Biden’s Electoral College certification only because they knew it would not pass. If the result was more in doubt, he contended, they would have voted to certify.Trump supporters climbed the walls of the Capitol on Jan. 6.Credit…Jason Andrew for The New York TimesStill, Mr. Buck allowed that the current political and media environment rewarded behavior by lawmakers — and candidates — that is extreme or even unheard-of. “We’re in an era where you need to make loud noises and break things in order to get attention,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what you’re breaking — as long as you’re creating conflict and appeasing your party, anything goes.”Mr. Trump himself is the exemplar of anything goes, both in terms of how effective and destructive the approach can be, said Adam Jentleson, who was a deputy chief of staff to former Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, and author of “Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy,” a new book about legislative leadership dynamics.Mr. Jentleson said Republicans had abandoned any coherent policy goals in lieu of pursuing a “negative partisanship” agenda — which he defines as “doing simply whatever will terrorize your opponents the most.” In essence, Trumpism.This shows no signs of abating anytime soon. “That’s clearly what Republicans will continue to run on,” Mr. Jentleson said. “And that includes impeaching whoever is in power on the other side.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentLatest UpdatesTrump AcquittedHow Senators VotedSeven Republicans Vote to ConvictAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNorth Carolina Republicans Censure Richard Burr Over Impeachment VoteThe senator, who is retiring, is one of seven Republicans who voted with Democrats to find Donald J. Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection at the Capitol.Senator Richard Burr on the last day of the Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald J. Trump.Credit…Erin Scott/ReutersFeb. 16, 2021, 12:15 a.m. ETThe North Carolina Republican Party voted unanimously on Monday to censure Senator Richard M. Burr for voting to convict former President Donald J. Trump in his second impeachment trial.The rebuke was the latest fallout for the seven Republicans who sided with Democrats in an unsuccessful effort to find Mr. Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6, when a mob of Trump supporters rampaged through the Capitol.The vote by Mr. Burr, 65, who will retire after three terms in the Senate, came as a surprise after he had earlier voted against moving forward with the impeachment trial because of a Republican challenge that the Senate lacked jurisdiction to try a former president.The North Carolina Republican Party said in a statement on Monday that the decision to censure Mr. Burr had been made by its central committee.The party “agrees with the strong majority of Republicans in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate that the Democrat-led attempt to impeach a former president lies outside the United States Constitution,” the statement said.Mr. Burr released a brief statement in response saying that it was a “truly sad day” for Republicans in his state.“My party’s leadership has chosen loyalty to one man over the core principles of the Republican Party and the founders of our great nation,” he said.Mr. Trump was acquitted on Saturday by a vote of 57 guilty to 43 not guilty that fell short of the two-thirds threshold for conviction. The result was not a surprise because only six Republicans had joined Democrats in clearing the way for the case to be heard by narrowly rejecting a constitutional objection.Of the seven Republican senators who voted to convict, Mr. Burr is not the only one to face rebuke. The Republican Party of Louisiana, for instance, said after the impeachment vote that it was “profoundly disappointed” by the guilty vote from its home-state senator, Bill Cassidy.Of the seven, only Mr. Burr and Senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, who is also retiring, will not face voters again. Mr. Toomey was rebuked by several county-level Republican officials in his state in recent days.Neither senator was particularly vocal in criticizing Mr. Trump while he was in office.In 2019, Mr. Burr, then the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, subpoenaed testimony from Donald Trump Jr. as part of his work conducting the only bipartisan congressional investigation into Russian election interference. The former president’s son responded by starting a political war against Mr. Burr, putting him and the Intelligence Committee on their heels.On the day of the vote in the impeachment trial, Mr. Burr laid out his rationale for his guilty vote by saying that the president “bears responsibility” for the events of Jan. 6.“The evidence is compelling that President Trump is guilty of inciting an insurrection against a coequal branch of government and that the charge rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors,” he said. “Therefore, I have voted to convict.”The chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, Michael Whatley, released a statement the same day calling Mr. Burr’s vote to convict “contradictory.”“North Carolina Republicans sent Senator Burr to the United States Senate to uphold the Constitution and his vote today to convict in a trial that he declared unconstitutional is shocking and disappointing,” Mr. Whatley said.Mr. Burr’s impeachment vote added fuel to speculation that Lara Trump, Mr. Trump’s daughter in-law, will seek the North Carolina Senate seat that Mr. Burr will vacate after the 2022 election. Ms. Trump, who is married to Eric Trump, grew up in the state and has been floating herself as a possible Burr successor for months.Ms. Trump, 38, is a former personal trainer and television producer who grew up in Wilmington, N.C. A senior Republican official with knowledge of her plans said that while the Jan. 6 riot had soured Ms. Trump’s desire to seek office, she would decide over the next few months whether to run as part of a coordinated Trump family comeback.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDavid Perdue Files to Run Against Raphael Warnock for Georgia Senate SeatMr. Perdue, who lost a runoff election last month against Senator Jon Ossoff, is taking the first step in the Republican Party’s effort to try to win back a Senate seat in 2022.David Perdue, who was a Republican senator from Georgia until last month, took a first step on Monday to set up a run for Senate in 2022.Credit…Audra Melton for The New York TimesFeb. 15, 2021Updated 8:56 p.m. ETDavid Perdue, the one-term U.S. senator from Georgia who lost a runoff election last month against Senator Jon Ossoff, filed paperwork on Monday night indicating that he plans a comeback effort — this time against Georgia’s other new senator, Raphael Warnock.Mr. Perdue, a former businessman who first ran for office as an outsider, and later became one of former President Donald Trump’s closest allies in the Senate, filed documents with the Federal Election Commission to establish a “Perdue for Senate” campaign committee.The move, first reported by Fox News, was viewed as a first step in the Republican Party’s effort to try to reclaim one of the Senate seats lost in Georgia’s historic runoff elections on Jan. 5.Mr. Warnock and Mr. Ossoff prevailed in those runoffs — not only the first time a Democrat had won a Georgia Senate seat since 2000, but also a victory that handed Democrats control of the Senate. The two parties have 50 seats each in the chamber, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tiebreaking vote.Mr. Perdue’s loss to Mr. Ossoff followed a bitter campaign and that ended with Mr. Perdue forced off the trail following a coronavirus exposure. An election eve appearance in the state by Mr. Trump failed to ignite sufficient Republican turnout, leaving questions about whether it was depressed by Mr. Trump’s repeated allegations of fraud in the election there.Mr. Ossoff received 50.6 percent of the vote to 49.4 percent for Mr. Perdue, who waited two days to concede, prompting speculation that he might contest the outcome.Mr. Warnock prevailed over Senator Kelly Loeffler in their runoff, 51 percent to 49 percent. The two were running in a special election to fill a six-year term; the winner of the 2022 Senate race will serve a full term.Georgia was already set to be one of the major focal points of the 2022 elections, with a hotly contested race for governor that could feature a rematch between the Republican incumbent, Brian Kemp, and his 2018 Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams. Ms. Abrams narrowly lost that race, but went on to lead a voting rights organization that was crucial to registering and mobilizing Democrats who helped turn Georgia blue for President Biden and Mr. Warnock and Mr. Ossoff. Ms. Abrams has not announced whether she will run for governor again.Mr. Trump has already strongly indicated that he plans to get involved in the Georgia elections in 2022: He has been sharply critical of Mr. Kemp, as well as of the state’s secretary of state and lieutenant governor, for not supporting his false claims of election fraud in Georgia, and wants them to lose if they run for re-election.Given Mr. Perdue’s ties with Mr. Trump, it is possible that the former president may be a presence campaigning for Mr. Perdue and against Mr. Kemp next year.Still, it’s not entirely clear that a Republican Senate candidate should welcome Mr. Trump’s future assistance.Bill Crane, a Georgia political operative and commentator, said on Monday that the former president’s appearances on behalf of the two Republicans appeared to have worked against them in January — with Republican turnout depressed in the two congressional districts where Mr. Trump campaigned. Mr. Crane, who has worked for both Republican and Democratic candidates, said he would not be surprised if Mr. Perdue runs against Mr. Warnock given the close results in his January race, adding that, to win, Mr. Perdue would have to change his strategy.“He would need to be speaking on occasion to women, non-aligned, libertarian and more centrist voters, not just the Republican Party base, Mr. Crane said. Working in Mr. Perdue’s favor is a significant war chest — about $5 million left over from his campaign available for a 2022 race, according to a federal elections report. Neither Mr. Warnock, who is completing a term vacated by former Senator Johnny Isakson, a Republican, nor Mr. Ossoff’s offices immediately responded to messages seeking comment. Spokesmen for Mr. Perdue and the Georgia Republican Party also were unavailable. AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

“For the last four and a half years, the only spokesman for the Republican Party has been Donald Trump,” said Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. “It’s time to present an alternative narrative and fight for the soul of the party.”Credit…Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesAdam Kinzinger’s Lonely MissionCensured by his party and shunned by family members, Mr. Kinzinger, a six-term Illinois congressman, is pressing Republicans to leave Donald Trump behind — and risking his career doing so.“For the last four and a half years, the only spokesman for the Republican Party has been Donald Trump,” said Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. “It’s time to present an alternative narrative and fight for the soul of the party.”Credit…Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyFeb. 15, 2021Updated 5:05 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — As the Republican Party censures, condemns and seeks to purge leaders who aren’t in lock step with Donald J. Trump, Adam Kinzinger, the six-term Illinois congressman, stands as enemy No. 1 — unwelcome not just in his party but also in his own family, some of whom recently disowned him.Two days after Mr. Kinzinger called for removing Mr. Trump from office following the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, 11 members of his family sent him a handwritten two-page letter, saying he was in cahoots with “the devil’s army” for making a public break with the president.“Oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God!” they wrote. “You have embarrassed the Kinzinger family name!”The author of the letter was Karen Otto, Mr. Kinzinger’s cousin, who paid $7 to send it by certified mail to Mr. Kinzinger’s father — to make sure the congressman would see it, which he did. She also sent copies to Republicans across Illinois, including other members of the state’s congressional delegation.“I wanted Adam to be shunned,” she said in an interview.A 42-year-old Air National Guard pilot who represents a crescent-shaped district along the Chicago’s suburbs, Mr. Kinzinger is at the forefront of the effort to navigate post-Trump politics. He is betting his political career, professional relationships and kinship with a wing of his sprawling family that his party’s future lies in disavowing Mr. Trump and the conspiracy theories the former president stoked.Kinzinger Family LetterA hand-written letter from several members of Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s family. The Times has redacted the names of some family members who signed the letter but whom we did not interview.Read Document 2 pagesMr. Kinzinger was one of just three House Republicans who voted both to impeach Mr. Trump and strip Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia from her committee posts. During the House impeachment debate, he asked Democrats if he could speak for seven minutes instead of his allotted one, so that he could make a more authoritative and bipartisan argument against the president; the request was denied.He has taken his case to the national media, becoming a ubiquitous figure on cable television, late-night HBO programming and podcasts. He began a new political action committee with a six-minute video declaring the need to re-format the Republican Party into something resembling an idealized version of George W. Bush’s party — with an emphasis on lower taxes, hawkish defense and social conservatism — without the grievances and conspiracy theories that Mr. Trump and his allies have made central to the party’s identity.To do so, Mr. Kinzinger said in an interview, requires exposing the fear-based tactics he hopes to eradicate from the party and present an optimistic alternative.“We just fear,” he said. “Fear the Democrats. Fear the future. Fear everything. And it works for an election cycle or two. The problem is it does real damage to this democracy.”Mr. Kinzinger said he was not deterred by the Senate’s failure on Saturday to convict Mr. Trump in the impeachment trial.“We have a lot of work to do to restore the Republican Party,” he said, “and to turn the tide on the personality politics.”Representatives Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois were two of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesMr. Kinzinger now faces the classic challenge for political mavericks aiming to prove their independence: His stubborn and uncompromising nature rankles the very Republicans he is trying to recruit to his mission of remaking the party.His anti-Trump stance has angered Republican constituents in his district, some of whom liken him to a Democrat, and frustrated Republican officials in Illinois who say he cares more about his own national exposure than his relationship with them.“There doesn’t seem to be a camera or a microphone he won’t run to,” said Larry Smith, the chairman of the La Salle County G.O.P., which censured Mr. Kinzinger last month. “He used to talk to us back in the good old days.”Mr. Kinzinger is unapologetic about his priorities.“Central and northern Illinois deserve an explanation and deserve my full attention, and they’ll get it,” he said. “But to the extent I can, I will also focus on the national message because I can turn every heart in central and northern Illinois and it wouldn’t make a dent on the whole party. And that’s what I think the huge battle is.”Mr. Kinzinger has drawn praise from Democrats, but he is not anyone’s idea of a progressive. His campaign website trumpets his longstanding opposition to the Affordable Care Act, and he is an opponent of abortion rights and increased taxes. He first won his seat in Congress with Sarah Palin’s endorsement. Raised in a large central Illinois family — his father, who has 32 first cousins, ran food banks and shelters for the homeless in Peoria and Bloomington — Mr. Kinzinger was interested in politics from an early age. Before he’d turned 10 he predicted he would one day be governor or president, Ms. Otto said, and he won election to the McLean County Board when he was a 20-year-old sophomore at Illinois State University.He joined the Air Force after the Sept. 11 attacks and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Upon his discharge he joined the Air National Guard, where he remains a lieutenant colonel. In the 2010 Republican wave Mr. Kinzinger, then 32, beat a Democratic incumbent by nearly 15 percentage points and, two years later, with support from Eric Cantor, then the House majority leader, ousted another incumbent, 10-term Republican Don Manzullo, in a primary following redistricting.But Mr. Kinzinger soon became dispirited by a Republican Party he believed was centered around opposition to whatever President Barack Obama proposed without offering new ideas of its own.“His frustration level has been rising ever since he got to Congress and I think the Trump era has been difficult for him to make sense of and participate in,” said former Representative Kevin Yoder of Kansas, who was one of Mr. Kinzinger’s closest friends in Congress before losing a 2018 re-election bid. When loyalty to Mr. Trump became a litmus test for Republican conservatism, Mr. Yoder said, “that became a bridge too far for him.”Mr. Kinzinger, left, during a meeting with Republican lawmakers and Donald J. Trump at the White House in 2018 in Washington. Credit…Al Drago for The New York TimesWhile Mr. Kinzinger never presented himself as a Trump loyalist, he rarely broke with the former president on policy grounds, but he was critical of him dating back to the 2016 campaign, when he was a surrogate for Jeb Bush.Mr. Trump was aware of Mr. Kinzinger’s lack of fealty. At a fund-raiser in the Chicago suburbs before the 2016 election, Mr. Trump asked Richard Porter, a Republican National Committee member from Illinois, how Mr. Kinzinger would do in his re-election bid. He didn’t have an opponent, Mr. Porter recalled telling the future president.Mr. Trump, Mr. Porter said, poked his finger in his chest and told him to deliver to Mr. Kinzinger a vulgar message about what he should do with himself. When Mr. Porter relayed the comment to Mr. Kinzinger during a conversation on Election Day, Mr. Kinzinger laughed and invited Mr. Trump to do the same.In Illinois, Republicans have been struggling to guess what Mr. Kinzinger’s next move may be. In the interview, Mr. Kinzinger said he’s unlikely to pursue the 2022 nomination for governor or the Senate. Right now, he’s leaning toward running for re-election, but with redistricting looming this fall, it’s unclear how the state’s Democratic-controlled legislature will rearrange his district.What is clear is that Mr. Kinzinger has found himself on the wrong side of rank-and-file Republicans at home. John McGlasson, the committee member for Mr. Kinzinger’s district, said the congressman had been “insulting with his comments” since Jan. 6.Republican voters interviewed in the district last week lambasted Mr. Kinzinger for turning on Mr. Trump.“If you want to vote as a Democrat, vote as a Democrat,” Richard Reinhardt, a 63-year-old retired mechanical engineer, said while eating lunch at a Thai restaurant in Rockford. “Otherwise, if you’re a Republican, then support our president. Trump was the first president who represented me. The stuff he did helped me.”Mr. Kinzinger predicted “the hangover’’ of Mr. Trump’s post-impeachment popularity “will kind of wear off.’’Former Gov. Bruce Rauner, the last Republican to win statewide office in Illinois, in 2014, said Mr. Kinzinger could find himself a casualty of the bitter schism dividing the party. “The only winners in the war between Trump and Republicans will be Democrats,” Mr. Rauner said. “For some voters, character matters. For most, it doesn’t.”Mr. Kinzinger films an ad for his PAC, Country First, at Whiskey Acres Distilling Co. on Friday in DeKalb, Ill., as his wife, Sofia Boza-Holman Kinzinger, right, looks on. Credit…Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesMr. Kinzinger said he has little desire to reach out to the loudest critics in his district’s Republican organizations, whom he hasn’t spoken to in years and said hold little sway over voters. The letter-writers in his family, he said, suffer from “brainwashing” from conservative churches that have led them astray.“I hold nothing against them,’’ he said, “but I have zero desire or feel the need to reach out and repair that. That is 100 percent on them to reach out and repair, and quite honestly, I don’t care if they do or not.”As to his own future in the party, Mr. Kinzinger said he will know by the end of the summer whether he can remain a Republican for the long term or whether he will be motivated to change his party affiliation if it becomes clear to him that Mr. Trump’s allies have become a permanent majority.“The party’s sick right now,” he said. “It’s one thing if the party was accepting of different views, but it’s become this massive litmus test on everything. So it’s a possibility down the road, but it’s certainly not my intention, and I’m going to fight like hell to save it first.”Ellen Almer Durston contributed reporting from Rockford, Ill. Kitty Bennett contributed research.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpiniónSupported byContinue reading the main storyComentarioEn Ecuador debemos vencer al caudillismoLas elecciones ecuatorianas aún no están definidas. Los dos candidatos que buscan un lugar en la segunda vuelta, y representan a la derecha y la izquierda, deben ver que en estos comicios se juega más que un enfrentamiento ideológico: lo que está en la línea es el regreso de un proyecto autoritario.Los dos candidatos a la presidencia de Ecuador que se disputan el segundo lugar en el balotaje, a celebrarse en abril. A la izquierda, Yaku Pérez, el candidato de la izquierda indígena; a la derecha, Guillermo Lasso, candidato de la derecha.Credit…Jose Jacome/EPA vía ShutterstockEs periodista ecuatoriana.15 de febrero de 2021 a las 11:34 ETLas elecciones de Ecuador aún no están definidas. Los candidatos que se disputan su pase a la segunda vuelta, que será en abril, acordaron un recuento parcial de los votos.Es una novedad inusual en la política de mi país: dialogar, negociar y conciliar han sido palabras ajenas al diccionario de nuestra democracia por mucho tiempo. Los últimos cuatro años han sido una saga melodramática de disputa entre el presidente Lenín Moreno y su antiguo aliado y jefe, el expresidente Rafael Correa. Y antes, experimentamos los diez años de correísmo, caracterizados por polarización y caudillismo.Así que cuando, al final del largo escrutinio inicial, Guillermo Lasso —el exbanquero de derecha que busca la presidencia por tercera vez y que terminó con una ventaja de más de 33.000 votos—, accedió a un diálogo con Yaku Pérez —el candidato de la izquierda indígena— y aceptaron un recuento, fue una sorpresa. Una buena señal que no debería esfumarse, especialmente después del cruce de trinos de ambos durante el fin de semana que apunta a desconocer lo acordado. No solo deberían respetar su inusual acuerdo, que es tan buena noticia en Ecuador, sino que deberían saber que una posible alianza los ayudaría a vencer al candidato que impulsa el correísmo.El recuento es una medida deseable en un país en donde el sistema electoral ha estado en entredicho y la palabra “fraude” ha sido recurrente en los procesos electorales. Hace cuatro años, el propio Lasso puso en duda la transparencia del Consejo Nacional Electoral cuando impugnó los resultados. Ahora, tras las votaciones del 7 de febrero, la palabra fue pronunciada por Pérez, quien parecía que pasaría a la segunda vuelta con Andrés Arauz, el aspirante que apoya Correa.Los seguidores de Pérez, igual que los partidarios de Lasso hace cuatro años, ya empezaban a pasear su descontento en las calles del país. Pero al final de la semana pasada, ambos candidatos acordaron el recuento del 100 por ciento de los votos en Guayas, la provincia con más inconsistencias, y el 50 por ciento de los votos en 16 de las 24 provincias del Ecuador.Al final, tanto Lasso como Pérez, igual que muchos ecuatorianos, deben ver que en estas elecciones se juega más que un enfrentamiento entre izquierda y derecha. Lo que se juega es el regreso del correísmo. Aunque Correa no estaba en la papeleta él y su movimiento están cerca del poder otra vez. A Lasso y a Pérez no se les puede pedir que tengan coincidencias ideológicas, pero sí que reconozcan que hay un rival mayor, el hombre fuerte que dominó la vida política ecuatoriana por una década.Correa llegó al poder en 2007 como el presidente de una izquierda que prometía redistribuir la riqueza. Yo, como muchos ecuatorianos, coincidimos con su lista de prioridades: igualdad, combate a la pobreza y lucha contra la corrupción y las élites. Su mandato fue parte de la marea rosada, la tendencia regional en la que varios mandatarios izquierdistas ganaron elecciones y aprovecharon el auge de los precios de las materias primas para instaurar políticas de enorme gasto público que les aseguraron una amplia base popular.Correa no aprovechó los tiempos de bonanza para generar cambios estructurales que disminuyeran la pobreza a largo plazo; limitó la independencia de las instituciones democráticas ecuatorianas, asedió a la prensa independiente y limitó la autonomía de la justicia. Su larga estadía en el poder le permitió afianzar su poder y lograr que buena parte de la vida política dependiera de él.El movimiento con espíritu caudillista que lideró Correa desconoció muchas de las banderas que enarbolan los dos candidatos que ahora pelean por un lugar en el balotaje: la defensa del medioambiente, la lucha de las mujeres por la igualdad, el sentir de las comunidades indígenas acosadas por el extractivismo, los reclamos de las cámaras de producción, el papel de las entidades bancarias. Lo ideal sería que quien llegue a la segunda vuelta (Lasso o Pérez) encuentre la manera de sumar a su plataforma algunas de las promesas de su contrincante.El candidato que finalmente enfrente a Arauz también tiene que encontrar la manera de incluir a las personas que esta vez asistieron a las urnas para buscar el regreso de Correa. No se trata de ecuatorianos desmemoriados, como han dicho algunos. Al contrario, tienen mucha memoria de lo que recibieron durante los diez años del correísmo, como esos aproximadamente 1,9 millones de ecuatorianos que salieron de la pobreza porque recibieron transferencias monetarias durante los años de su gobierno.Los candidatos y nosotros debemos entender que tenemos la oportunidad de romper con ese pasado autoritario que desmanteló la institucionalidad democrática del país.Digo esto porque yo misma he estado ausente de las últimas elecciones. La última vez que voté fue para validar la Constitución de Correa en 2008, que fue una cosa en el papel y otra en la práctica. Fue ese cambio constitucional el que amparó a Correa para extender los límites presidenciales y desde entonces comenzó a hacer más claro que pretendía limitar los pocos contrapesos que existían al poder del ejecutivo.De ahí en adelante, solo la “traición” de uno de los suyos pudo pararlo. Moreno, quien ganó las elecciones presidenciales hace cuatro años bajo la sombra de Correa, de quien fue vicepresidente y aliado cercano, se distanció de su mentor y permitió la apertura de procesos judiciales en contra del expresidente, actualmente acusado de corrupción y autoexiliado en Bélgica.Con la caída de los precios del petróleo, a Moreno le resultó difícil mantener las políticas populistas de su antecesor. Sus éxitos como presidente han sido pírricos y quizás más retóricos que tangibles (como su promesa de “Casas para todos”: prometió entregar más de 300.000 viviendas y, según un escueto informe de la página web oficial, se han construido solo 1397 casas). En cambio, se acercó a la clase empresarial e impuso una política de austeridad económica que lo acerca más a un conservador que a un izquierdista.Entre Correa y Moreno ya suman un periodo de 14 años y no nos ha ido bien ni con la izquierda populista de Correa ni con la moderación de centroderecha que trajo Moreno. Así que ahora, con el candidato de correísmo como favorito, los aspirantes que pelean por estar en el balotaje tienen una alternativa a favor de Ecuador.A Pérez y Lasso no se les pide que dejen de responder a sus bases, pero sí que piensen que hay un país que necesita rehacerse alejado de un movimiento con señas hegemónicas. Todos debemos empezar a usar palabras como concesión, diálogo y acuerdo, incluso con candidatos que no representan lo que queremos, pero que prometen más democracia.Y en democracia todos debemos escucharnos. Hay propuestas de Pérez que en el papel aún no tienen sustento y que podrían hallarlo al cruzarlas con las ideas de Lasso. Un ejemplo es la necesidad de financiamiento de proyectos de reactivación agrícola que plantea el candidato indígena que bien se pueden unir a los créditos agropecuarios que ofrece Lasso al 1 por ciento de interés y a 30 años plazo. También hay coincidencias en temas de ética y educación. Somos los votantes los que tememos cruzar ciertas líneas.A buena parte de los simpatizantes de Pérez —1.795.046 personas en el primer conteo— les costará votar por el hombre que representa el capital financiero. Igualmente a muchos de los votantes de Lasso —1.828.383— les costará votar por un indígena. Pero ya va siendo hora de pensar en un solo país y recordar que tenemos herramientas para fiscalizar a los que hemos votado. Entre los dos sumaron más votos que Arauz y haciendo concesiones podrían unir a dos sectores muy distintos, pero ambos abandonados o atacados por el correísmo.Ya habrá tiempo de pedir que los derechos ganados se mantengan y de reclamar los que hacen falta (como el aborto). Pero ahora necesitamos que el recuento de votos termine y los candidatos que se disputan esos votos asuman el resultado final y lleguen a acuerdos para enfrentar al enemigo mayor.Soraya Constante es periodista ecuatoriana independiente; ha publicado en Univisión Noticias, Vice News y El País.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPennsylvania G.O.P.’s Push for More Power Over Judiciary Raises AlarmsAfter fighting the election results, state Republicans are trying to increase their control of the courts. Outraged Democrats and good government groups see it as a new kind of gerrymandering.The Pennsylvania Capitol building, which houses chambers for the State Supreme Court. Under a Republican proposal, the legislative branch would have more control over the courts. Credit…Hilary Swift for The New York TimesFeb. 15, 2021Updated 10:29 a.m. ETWhen the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously rejected a Republican attempt to overturn the state’s election results in November, Justice David N. Wecht issued his own pointed rebuke, condemning the G.O.P. effort as “futile” and “a dangerous game.”“It is not our role to lend legitimacy to such transparent and untimely efforts to subvert the will of Pennsylvania voters,” wrote Justice Wecht, a Democrat who was elected to a 10-year term on the bench in 2016. “Courts should not decide elections when the will of the voters is clear.”Now Pennsylvania Republicans have a plan to make it less likely that judges like Justice Wecht get in their way.G.O.P. legislators, dozens of whom supported overturning the state’s election results to aid former President Donald J. Trump, are moving to change the entire way that judges are selected in Pennsylvania, in a gambit that could tip the scales of the judiciary to favor their party, or at least elect judges more inclined to embrace Republican election challenges.The proposal would replace the current system of statewide elections for judges with judicial districts drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature. Those districts could empower rural, predominantly conservative areas and particularly rewire the State Supreme Court, which has a 5-to-2 Democratic lean.Democrats are now mobilizing to fight the effort, calling it a thinly veiled attempt at creating a new level of gerrymandering — an escalation of the decades-old practice of drawing congressional and state legislative districts to ensure that political power remains in one party’s hands. Democrats are marshaling grass-roots opposition, holding regular town hall events conducted over Zoom, and planning social media campaigns and call-in days to legislators, as well as an enormous voter education campaign. One group, Why Courts Matter Pennsylvania, has cut a two-minute infomercial.Republicans in Pennsylvania have historically used gerrymandering to maintain their majority in the legislature, despite Democratic victories in statewide elections. Republicans have controlled the State House of Representatives since 2011 and the State Senate since 1993.Current schedules for the legislature make it unlikely the Republicans could marshal their majorities in the House and Senate to pass the bill by Wednesday and put the proposal before voters on the ballot in May. Passing the bill after that date would set up a new and lengthy political war for November in this fiercely contested state.Republicans have some history on their side: Pennsylvania voters tend to approve ballot measures.“You should be very suspicious when you see a legislature who has been thwarted by a Supreme Court in its unconstitutional attempts to rig the democratic process then trying to rig the composition of that Supreme Court,” said Wendy Weiser, the director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.She added, “It is way too much control for one branch to have over another branch, particularly where one of its charges is to reign in the excesses of the legislative branch.”If the Republican bill becomes law, Pennsylvania would become just the fifth state in the country, after Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and Illinois, to wholly map its judicial system into electoral districts, according to the Brennan Center. And other states may soon join Pennsylvania in trying to remake the courts through redistricting.Republicans in the Texas Legislature, which is also controlled by the G.O.P., recently introduced a bill that would shift districts for the state appellate courts by moving some counties into different districts, causing an uproar among state Democrats who saw the new districts as weakening the voting power of Black and Latino communities in judicial elections and potentially adding to the Republican tilt of the Texas courts.Gilberto Hinojosa, the chair of the Texas Democratic Party, called the bill a “pure power grab meant to keep Blacks and Latinos from having influence on courts as their numbers in the state grow.”These judicial redistricting battles are taking shape as Republican-controlled legislatures across the country explore new restrictions on voting after the 2020 elections. In Georgia, Republicans in the state legislature are seeking a host of new laws that would make voting more difficult, including banning drop boxes and placing sweeping limitations on mail-in voting. Similar bills in Arizona would restrict mail-in voting, including barring the state from sending out mail ballot applications. And in Texas, Republican lawmakers want to limit early voting periods.The nationwide effort by Republicans follows a successful four-year drive by the party’s lawmakers in Washington to reshape the federal judiciary with conservative judges. Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, until recently the majority leader, and Mr. Trump, the Senate confirmed 231 federal judges, as well as three new Supreme Court justices, over the former president’s four-year term, according to data maintained by Russell Wheeler, a research fellow at the Brookings Institution.In a state like Pennsylvania, which has two densely populated Democratic cities and large rural areas, this could give outsize representation to sparsely populated places that lean more conservative, particularly if the legislature resorts to a gerrymandering tactic similar to one used in Pennsylvania in 2011.“Republicans have been good at gerrymandering districts in Pennsylvania, or good in the sense that they’ve been successful,” said State Senator Sharif Street, a Democrat. “I think they would like to remain successful, and they are confident that they can gerrymander judicial districts.”Republicans in the state legislature argue that their proposed move would give different regions of Pennsylvania more representation.Russ Diamond, the Republican state representative who is sponsoring the bill, said in an email that regional representation was necessary for the judiciary “because the same statewide consensus which goes in making law should come to bear when those statutes are heard on appeal, are applied in practical real-life situations, and when precedent is set for the future of the Commonwealth.”State Representative Russ Diamond during a town hall meeting in Llewellyn, Pa. He sponsored the bill to reshape the judiciary, after first introducing a similar one in 2015. Credit…Lindsey Shuey/Republican-Herald, via Associated Press“The overall goal is to include the full diversity of Pennsylvania’s appellate courts,” Mr. Diamond added. “There is no way to completely depoliticize the courts, other than choosing judges via random selection or a lottery system. Every individual holds some political opinion or another.”Geographic diversity, however, rarely equates to racial diversity in the courts. The four states that use judicial districts in state Supreme Court elections — Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi and Kentucky — have never had more than one justice of color on the court at any given time, according to data from the Brennan Center.While eight states use some form of judicial districts to elect judges, Pennsylvania’s proposal remains an outlier on a few key elements. First, a partisan legislature would have the power to redraw the districts every 10 years, whereas those elsewhere remain for longer or are based on statute. Additionally, the judicial districts in Pennsylvania would not be bound by or based on any existing legislative or congressional districts, created from scratch by the Republican-controlled legislature.The move has caught the attention of national Democratic groups that are at the forefront of redistricting battles across the country.“A decade ago, Pennsylvania Republicans gerrymandered themselves into majorities in the legislature and congressional delegation,” said Eric H. Holder Jr., the former United States attorney general and current chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “Now that their grip on power has been forcibly loosened by the courts, they want to create and then manipulate judicial districts in a blatant attempt to undermine the independence of the judiciary and stack the courts with their conservative allies.”Because the bill has already passed the House once, in 2020, it needs only to pass both chambers of the state legislature again to make it on the ballot.Further stoking Democrats’ fears: The bill does not need the signature of Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat. Since it would be an amendment to the Constitution, it would head to the ballot as a referendum question to be voted on in the next election (if the bill passes before Wednesday, it would go to voters during the May primary). Historically, Pennsylvania voters have voted more in favor of ballot measures than against them, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.Good government groups have teamed up with Democrats to mount a huge voter education campaign, anticipating that the judicial question may soon be on the ballot. Progressive groups including the Judicial Independence Project of PA, a new coalition that includes the voting rights group Common Cause, have been holding digital town halls about the judicial redistricting proposal, with attendance regularly topping 100 people.On a Thursday evening late last month, more than 160 people logged into Zoom to hear from coalition leaders about the bill and to hatch plans to further mobilize against it. Rebecca Litt, a senior organizer from a local Indivisible group, proposed a call-your-legislator day. Ricardo Almodovar, an organizing director with We the People PA, another progressive group, noted the graphics and other social media campaigns already underway to help educate voters.“We’re also trying to humanize the courts,” Mr. Almodovar explained during a smaller session with southeastern Pennsylvania residents, sharing stories of how specific court decisions “impact our lives.”Throughout the full, hourlong meeting, organizers repeatedly sought to make the stakes very clear.“We are in the last legislative session of this,” said Alexa Grant, a program advocate with Common Cause. “So we are the last line of defense.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyThe conversationMitch McConnell Is So Over Trump That He Voted to Absolve HimOn the impeachment front, it was an exciting — if sometimes perplexing — weekend.Gail Collins and Ms. Collins and Mr. Stephens are opinion columnists. They converse every week.Feb. 15, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETCredit…Alexander Drago/ReutersBret Stephens: What a wild week, Gail. Should we feel pleased that seven Republican Senators voted to convict Donald Trump of incitement — six more than in the last impeachment — or appalled that the other 43 didn’t?Another way of putting the question is whether the G.O.P.’s cup is 14 percent full or 86 percent empty.Gail Collins: It was certainly an interesting show. It’ll be a long time before I forget Mitch McConnell’s speech about the “outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.”It was, by McConnell standards, very passionate. Of course it’d have been a heck of a lot more moving if he hadn’t just voted against any punishment.Bret: The other day I listened to a Malcolm Gladwell podcast on the Yiddish word “chutzpah.” The word has two distinct connotations. In its American usage, it suggests audacity, as in, “It took a lot of chutzpah for her to walk into her boss’s office back in 1962 and demand a raise, but — guess what? — she got it!” In the Israeli sense, it usually means gall and shamelessness, as in, “First the boy murders his parents. Then he pleads for mercy in court because he’s an orphan.”Anyway, McConnell’s speech was chutzpah in the Israeli sense. He wanted to have his outrage and eat it, too. He wanted to ease whatever conscience he has left by denouncing Trump in a way that had no consequences, while using a legal dodge to advance his political interests in the way that really matters. Just pathetic.Gail: Maybe we can call it the McConnell Two-Step.Bret: Or maybe the “Mitch Macarena.” Where is Ted Sorensen when you need him to ghostwrite “Profiles of Invertebrates?” It’s the story of today’s Republican Party and conservative establishment, minus Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Lisa Murkowski and the other brave ones.Gail: But about the G.O.P’s cup — I ought to ask you. Where do you see your party going from here? Engineering a post-Trump turnaround or just sticking to the same brain-dead script that’ll probably force you to vote Democratic again in 2024?Bret: Gail, it isn’t my party any longer, and you’re obviously delighting in the thought of my being forced to vote for Democratic presidential candidates for three election cycles in a row. It might suggest a pattern.Right now I’m working on a longish piece making the case that America needs a Liberal Party, albeit in the European sense of the term. I mean parties that are for free markets, civil liberties and small government, without being hostile to immigration and cultural change.Gail: If that means a three-party system, we’re going to have a lot to fight about.Bret: We should fight more. As for the G.O.P., it’s probably a lost cause. My guess is that Trump’s luster will fade in the party because a lot of Republicans know he’s crazy and are ashamed of what happened on Jan. 6. But Trumpism as the politics of nativism, rage and conspiracy theory is going to be a dominant strain in the G.O.P., especially if Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton or one of the Trump kids is the next nominee.Gail: Eric for president!Credit…Jessica Mcgowan/Getty ImagesBret: To return to Yiddish: Oy vey. Of course there’s Nikki Haley. But after reading Tim Alberta’s long profile of her in Politico, I can’t decide whether she’s crazy like a fox or too clever by half.Gail: What do you think her slogan would be: Served the Trump administration loyally except secretly she always hated him?Bret: From a political standpoint, she’s played her cards pretty astutely. She might be the only potential G.O.P. candidate who can unite the party. She’s smart, charismatic, has a great personal story, did the right thing as governor of South Carolina by getting rid of the Confederate flag from the State House soon after the Charleston church slaughter, and was effective as U.N. ambassador. If she wins the nomination she’d be a formidable challenger to the Democratic nominee, whoever that winds up being.Gail: Wow, Kamala vs. Nikki.Bret: Interesting that Kamala ’24 already seems like a foregone conclusion. Shades of Hillary ’08?Back to Haley. Her dodges and maneuvers are a bit too transparent. And her brand of mainstream Republican conservatism is just out of step for a party that is increasingly out of its mind.Gail: Still, you’ve got me obsessing about an all-female presidential race.Bret: About time.Gail: But back for a minute to the Senate. Do you think they should have called witnesses so the country could have listened to a description of Trump ignoring the real physical danger to Mike Pence and other top Republicans, and defending the rioters when he was begged to call them off?Bret: Not really, no. What more does the country need to know than the evidence the House managers presented? Calling witnesses would have dragged out the trial for weeks on end, forcing us all to watch those despicable Trump lawyers. And we both know it wouldn’t have changed the result.Gail: Yeah, and we really need to get on to Biden’s agenda. There’s a rumor about some kind of pandemic …Bret: Also, the trial introduced the country to some new Democratic stars. Stacey Plaskett deserves an immediate promotion to a big administration job. And Jamie Raskin should be a future contender for attorney general. That he was able to perform with so much grace under pressure, after a terrible family tragedy, made him that much more admirable.Gail: Agreed.Bret: So it’s time for the country to move on. Since I’m grooving on Jewish tropes today, let’s just say, “Trump Came, He Tried to Destroy Us, We Won, Let’s Eat.”Let me switch subjects on you this time. Should Andrew Cuomo be impeached for being, er, highly parsimonious with the truth about the nursing home Covid deaths?Gail: This is Andrew Cuomo. Punishment would be not letting him run for a fourth term in 2022. But New York definitely needs a new crop of executives. Try mentioning Bill de Blasio to a socially distanced friend and watch eyes glaze over from six feet away.Bret: Or, in my case, head exploding. De Blasio is to managerial competence what Yogi Berra was to the syllogism. He’s the guy who redeems the memory of Abe Beame. He makes Trump’s handling of the coronavirus situation seem relatively competent. He’s the nation’s unintentional uniter, bringing everyone from Cuomo to Ted Cruz together into shared contempt.Gail: I thought I was good at complaining about de Blasio, but you win the medal.Bret: I’m keeping fingers crossed that Andrew Yang or some other reasonably competent character can bring the city back from moving further toward 1970s-style insolvency, disorder, crime and decay.Gail: Here’s my last question, Bret. In a couple of weeks it’ll be March. Which won’t change much, pandemic-wise. But as it starts to get warmer, do you think we’ll all start to feel more optimistic? Walking through parks, picnics on the terrace? Our last Trumpian chapter over?Bret: I’m enjoying this continual blanket of snow and wouldn’t mind if it stretched into April. Maybe it will help everyone chill out and calm down. And it’s an excellent excuse for doing as little exercise as possible and binge-watching this French spy thriller, “The Bureau,” that an old friend of mine just got me into.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPennsylvania G.O.P.’s Push for More Power Over Judiciary Raises AlarmsAfter fighting the election results, state Republicans are trying to increase their control of the courts. Outraged Democrats and good government groups see it as a new kind of gerrymandering.The Pennsylvania Capitol building, which houses chambers for the State Supreme Court. Under a Republican proposal, the legislative branch would have more control over the courts. Credit…Hilary Swift for The New York TimesFeb. 15, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETWhen the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously rejected a Republican attempt to overturn the state’s election results in November, Justice David N. Wecht issued his own pointed rebuke, condemning the G.O.P. effort as “futile” and “a dangerous game.”“It is not our role to lend legitimacy to such transparent and untimely efforts to subvert the will of Pennsylvania voters,” wrote Justice Wecht, a Democrat who was elected to a 10-year term on the bench in 2016. “Courts should not decide elections when the will of the voters is clear.”Now Pennsylvania Republicans have a plan to make it less likely that judges like Justice Wecht get in their way.G.O.P. legislators, dozens of whom supported overturning the state’s election results to aid former President Donald J. Trump, are moving to change the entire way that judges are selected in Pennsylvania, in a gambit that could tip the scales of the judiciary to favor their party, or at least elect judges more inclined to embrace Republican election challenges.The proposal would replace the current system of statewide elections for judges with judicial districts drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature. Those districts could empower rural, predominantly conservative areas and particularly rewire the State Supreme Court, which has a 5-to-2 Democratic lean.Democrats are now mobilizing to fight the effort, calling it a thinly veiled attempt at creating a new level of gerrymandering — an escalation of the decades-old practice of drawing congressional and state legislative districts to ensure that political power remains in one party’s hands. Democrats are marshaling grass-roots opposition, holding regular town hall events conducted over Zoom, and planning social media campaigns and call-in days to legislators, as well as an enormous voter education campaign. One group, Why Courts Matter Pennsylvania, has cut a two-minute infomercial.Republicans in Pennsylvania have historically used gerrymandering to maintain their majority in the legislature, despite Democratic victories in statewide elections. Republicans have controlled the State House of Representatives since 2011 and the State Senate since 1993.Current schedules for the legislature make it unlikely the Republicans could marshal their majorities in the House and Senate to pass the bill by Wednesday and put the proposal before voters on the ballot in May. Passing the bill after that date would set up a new and lengthy political war for November in this fiercely contested state.Republicans have some history on their side: Pennsylvania voters tend to approve ballot measures.“You should be very suspicious when you see a legislature who has been thwarted by a Supreme Court in its unconstitutional attempts to rig the democratic process then trying to rig the composition of that Supreme Court,” said Wendy Weiser, the director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.She added, “It is way too much control for one branch to have over another branch, particularly where one of its charges is to reign in the excesses of the legislative branch.”If the Republican bill becomes law, Pennsylvania would become just the fifth state in the country, after Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and Illinois, to wholly map its judicial system into electoral districts, according to the Brennan Center. And other states may soon join Pennsylvania in trying to remake the courts through redistricting.Republicans in the Texas Legislature, which is also controlled by the G.O.P., recently introduced a bill that would shift districts for the state appellate courts by moving some counties into different districts, causing an uproar among state Democrats who saw the new districts as weakening the voting power of Black and Latino communities in judicial elections and potentially adding to the Republican tilt of the Texas courts.Gilberto Hinojosa, the chair of the Texas Democratic Party, called the bill a “pure power grab meant to keep Blacks and Latinos from having influence on courts as their numbers in the state grow.”These judicial redistricting battles are taking shape as Republican-controlled legislatures across the country explore new restrictions on voting after the 2020 elections. In Georgia, Republicans in the state legislature are seeking a host of new laws that would make voting more difficult, including banning drop boxes and placing sweeping limitations on mail-in voting. Similar bills in Arizona would restrict mail-in voting, including barring the state from sending out mail ballot applications. And in Texas, Republican lawmakers want to limit early voting periods.The nationwide effort by Republicans follows a successful four-year drive by the party’s lawmakers in Washington to reshape the federal judiciary with conservative judges. Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, until recently the majority leader, and Mr. Trump, the Senate confirmed 231 federal judges, as well as three new Supreme Court justices, over the former president’s four-year term, according to data maintained by Russell Wheeler, a research fellow at the Brookings Institution.In a state like Pennsylvania, which has two densely populated Democratic cities and large rural areas, this could give outsize representation to sparsely populated places that lean more conservative, particularly if the legislature resorts to a gerrymandering tactic similar to one used in Pennsylvania in 2011.“Republicans have been good at gerrymandering districts in Pennsylvania, or good in the sense that they’ve been successful,” said State Senator Sharif Street, a Democrat. “I think they would like to remain successful, and they are confident that they can gerrymander judicial districts.”Republicans in the state legislature argue that their proposed move would give different regions of Pennsylvania more representation.Russ Diamond, the Republican state representative who is sponsoring the bill, said in an email that regional representation was necessary for the judiciary “because the same statewide consensus which goes in making law should come to bear when those statutes are heard on appeal, are applied in practical real-life situations, and when precedent is set for the future of the Commonwealth.”State Representative Russ Diamond during a town hall meeting in Llewellyn, Pa. He sponsored the bill to reshape the judiciary, after first introducing a similar one in 2015. Credit…Lindsey Shuey/Republican-Herald, via Associated Press“The overall goal is to include the full diversity of Pennsylvania’s appellate courts,” Mr. Diamond added. “There is no way to completely depoliticize the courts, other than choosing judges via random selection or a lottery system. Every individual holds some political opinion or another.”Geographic diversity, however, rarely equates to racial diversity in the courts. The four states that use judicial districts in state Supreme Court elections — Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi and Kentucky — have never had more than one justice of color on the court at any given time, according to data from the Brennan Center.While eight states use some form of judicial districts to elect judges, Pennsylvania’s proposal remains an outlier on a few key elements. First, a partisan legislature would have the power to redraw the districts every 10 years, whereas those elsewhere remain for longer or are based on statute. Additionally, the judicial districts in Pennsylvania would not be bound by or based on any existing legislative or congressional districts, created from scratch by the Republican-controlled legislature.The move has caught the attention of national Democratic groups that are at the forefront of redistricting battles across the country.“A decade ago, Pennsylvania Republicans gerrymandered themselves into majorities in the legislature and congressional delegation,” said Eric H. Holder Jr., the former United States attorney general and current chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “Now that their grip on power has been forcibly loosened by the courts, they want to create and then manipulate judicial districts in a blatant attempt to undermine the independence of the judiciary and stack the courts with their conservative allies.”Because the bill has already passed the House once, in 2020, it needs only to pass both chambers of the state legislature again to make it on the ballot.Further stoking Democrats’ fears: The bill does not need the signature of Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat. Since it would be an amendment to the Constitution, it would head to the ballot as a referendum question to be voted on in the next election (if the bill passes before Wednesday, it would go to voters during the May primary). Historically, Pennsylvania voters have voted more in favor of ballot measures than against them, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.Good government groups have teamed up with Democrats to mount a huge voter education campaign, anticipating that the judicial question may soon be on the ballot. Progressive groups including the Judicial Independent Project of PA, a new coalition that includes the voting rights group Common Cause, have been holding digital town halls about the judicial redistricting proposal, with attendance regularly topping 100 people.On a Thursday evening late last month, more than 160 people logged into Zoom to hear from coalition leaders about the bill and to hatch plans to further mobilize against it. Rebecca Litt, a senior organizer from a local Indivisible group, proposed a call-your-legislator day. Ricardo Almodovar, an organizing director with We the People PA, another progressive group, noted the graphics and other social media campaigns already underway to help educate voters.“We’re also trying to humanize the courts,” Mr. Almodovar explained during a smaller session with southeastern Pennsylvania residents, sharing stories of how specific court decisions “impact our lives.”Throughout the full, hourlong meeting, organizers repeatedly sought to make the stakes very clear.“We are in the last legislative session of this,” said Alexa Grant, a program advocate with Common Cause. “So we are the last line of defense.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More