US Politics

Bid to recall San Francisco DA could be bellwether for progressive prosecutors Chesa Boudin says effort to oust him, backed by wealthy donors, is part of ‘Republican-led playbook’Chesa Boudin, San Francisco’s chief prosecutor, elected on an agenda of tackling mass incarceration, is facing a recall election that could have ramifications for criminal justice reform efforts across the US.A former public defender and the son of two leftist Weather Underground radicals who spent decades in prison, Boudin pledged to undo the harms of racism in the system, hold police accountable for misconduct and end the criminalization of poverty. After his election in November 2019, he became one of the most prominent leaders in a growing movement to elect progressive prosecutors.Boudin, 41, enacted many campaign promises: he became the first San Francisco district attorney to charge an officer for on-duty manslaughter; created a wrongful conviction unit that freed a man imprisoned for decades; stopped prosecuting contraband cases stemming from minor traffic stops; eliminated cash bail; and reduced jail and prison populations.But amid escalating anxieties about crime during the pandemic, Boudin has faced intensifying opposition from law enforcement, conservatives, tech investors and some constituents and elected Democrats in the city, including the mayor. Critics have blamed Boudin for the city’s struggles with violence, homelessness and addiction and have called for a law enforcement crackdown and harsher punishments.San Francisco’s progressive district attorney will face recall election Read moreAfter an initial recall campaign failed to get enough signatures last summer, a newly formed committee of his opponents, called San Franciscans for Public Safety, in November succeeded in placing the measure on the 7 June ballot. If the recall succeeds, the mayor will appoint a successor.Recall backed by the ultra-wealthyConservative-backed recalls have become increasingly popular in California, where the barrier to getting a recall on the ballot is lower than in many other states and where voters can petition to remove a politician for any reason.The campaign to recall Boudin has a financial advantage, backed by ultra-wealthy donors, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, including Ron Conway, an early DoorDash investor; Garry Tan, an Instacart investor; David Sacks, a former PayPal executive; and William Oberndorf, a billionaire and Republican mega-donor.The recall has painted a bleak picture of violence in San Francisco, saying crime is “surging” and has “hit an embarrassing high”. During the pandemic, homicides in the city have increased, mirroring national trends, though overall violent and property crimes have decreased and are lower than they were decades prior, according to the Chronicle.“This is a Republican- and police union-led playbook to undermine and attack progressive prosecutors who have been winning elections across the country,” Boudin said in a recent interview with the Guardian. “The playbook involves delegitimizing and fear-mongering and recalling. It’s a tactic being used by folks who are increasingly unable to prevail in elections when they put forward their views about public safety and justice.”Progressive prosecutors in Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia have also been threatened with recall attempts, in some cases after they were re-elected.“If these folks who are attacking my administration have the courage, they can run for district attorney next year and put their record, credentials and policy ideas to voters and see if their views are popular,” Boudin said.The backlash against progressive prosecutors is rooted in the false premise that DAs directly affect crime trends, said Sandra Mayson, a University of Pennsylvania law professor: “There’s an almost universal misperception prosecutors control crime rates, but they don’t. Crime rates are a function of complex socio-economic forces.”Boudin’s office noted that some of the California regions with “tough on crime” conservative DAs relying on harsh punishments had experienced some of the state’s highest crime rates.“Chesa has been focusing on tackling the root of violence in our cities,” John Legend, the musician and criminal justice activist, who is supporting Boudin, said in a recent interview, noting Boudin’s lawsuit against the manufacturers of untraceable “ghost guns” and his efforts to expand victims’ services. “He’s creating diversion programs to ensure we’re not overusing incarceration as a solution, when there are better solutions available that don’t disrupt families. He’s done what he promised to do for San Francisco.”‘This will be a bellwether’Boudin also argued that some attacks against him were rooted in misinformation. Several widely cited cases where he was accused of being “soft on crime” have fallen apart under scrutiny. In one instance, a local reporter claimed the DA had dropped charges against a teenager who had allegedly attacked an elderly woman, but it came out a month later that charges had never been dropped.In another, a 69-year-old man sued Boudin after he was attacked by a father and his “teenage” son, who allegedly used a baseball bat. The father pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery, which the man said was a “slap on the wrist”. But subsequent reporting revealed the “teenager” was actually an 11-year-old who had swung a plastic bat, and his father was a wheelchair user. The dispute started when the 69-year-old complained about the father and son taking up too much space on the sidewalk, the DA said. The initial charges had been filed in 2019 by Boudin’s predecessor.Son of jailed radicals, reviled by the police union. Now, Chesa Boudin is San Francisco’s top copRead moreAsked about that case and how he thinks the DA should have handled it, Richie Greenberg, chairman of one of the pro-recall committees, said: “We try not to get involved with actual policy or analysis. But we need to hold criminals accountable, regardless of their age, whatever is the appropriate accountability method.”But should the 11-year-old have been charged or imprisoned? “We need to go back and see how other DAs would’ve handled it. I’m not in charge of the DA’s office,” responded Greenberg, a former Republican mayoral candidate who launched the first recall effort last year.Boudin has cut the juvenile jail population in half, with 33 children incarcerated at the start of his term compared with 14 on average as of March 2022, his office said. Boudin also oversaw a 35% reduction in the population of San Francisco residents in state prisons, achieved through resentencing and diversion.Pressed on whether he thought more youth overall should be jailed, Greenberg said: “We’re not talking about philosophies on whether or not we want to change the system on how you sentence a juvenile versus an adult. This is starting to veer off into another topic.”Greenberg said Boudin never should have been elected because he was a public defender. The DA, Greenberg claimed, had gained supporters by being “charismatic” and “using buzzwords like mass incarceration and racial justice. He just throws out those words and people eat it up like in a cult, like he is a cult leader … This is a woke, non-DA, a pretender, a poser.”Brooke Jenkins, a former prosecutor under Boudin and volunteer spokesperson with San Franciscans for Public Safety, the pro-recall group, said in an interview after publication that Democratic voters put the measure on the ballot and that her group was led by Democrats.“Our committee is a diverse coalition … Crime affects everyone. It doesn’t matter what your party is or what neighborhood you live in. Everyone wants to feel safe,” she said.Jenkins said she supported the spirit of some of Boudin’s reforms, but that he had gone too far, adding that he was failing to deter crime and should be “setting a tone where criminal offenders understand there’s accountability and consequences”. The recall groups have not endorsed a successor to replace Boudin.Boudin said this was part of the problem with recalls: “Voters have no idea what policies or person could replace [me] and that’s a very dangerous thing for democracy.”Mayson said the recall would be a “bellwether for progressive prosecution” across the US, adding that the outcome would “affect whether prosecutors elsewhere feel emboldened to take new approaches or whether they will perceive that as a political risk”.Greenberg said he wanted the recall to be a “template” for targeting other progressive DAs and candidates: “My vision is to take the movement national so that we can push back against these quote-unquote ‘progressive’ DAs.”TopicsSan FranciscoUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

The fixation with guns is an American nightmareThe scourge of gun violence goes beyond the mass shootings that make the headlines, writes Peter Squires. Plus letters from Neil A Wynn and Tony Waterston I have been researching gun violence and its prevention for more than 25 years, and much as I accept Jonathan Freedland’s analysis of the deep structures, party politics and ideological delusions that sustain this gun culture (America, how long will you sacrifice your children on the altar of gun worship?, 27 May), I often feel that there’s a mismatch between problems and responses.After all, America has three gun violence problems. In order of victim magnitude these are: gun suicides, some 60% of all shooting deaths, mainly white middle-aged men; gun homicides, as many as 18,000 victims a year, disproportionately young African-American men; and mass shootings, producing around 1% of annual gun homicide victims.It is undoubtedly the mass shootings that punctuate, focus and drive the “gun debate”, but strategies to tackle just one of these problems are unlikely to have much purchase on the others.A sizeable majority of mass shootings are carried out with legally owned weapons, increasingly assault rifles, yet the daily carnage on the streets of inner cities, where the overwhelming majority of America’s young people are shot and killed, is dominated by illegal handguns. The fight will inevitably be a long and hard one, and gun-control measures are certainly a major part – though not the whole – of that. But we do need well-evidenced, credible policies that address the actual issues. There is no panacea here.Peter SquiresProfessor emeritus of criminology and public policy, University of Brighton I found Jonathan Freedland’s excellent article saddening, not just because of the horror of the latest mass shooting but also the wider demise of America’s “promise of possibility” that the awful events in Uvalde and elsewhere reflect.Like many people of my generation, I was attracted in my teens to the US by the promise and hope of its history, politics, music, film and literature – a promise that existed even amid the turmoil of the civil rights and anti-war protests of the 1960s and 1970s. We taught American history and American studies and focused on the American dream – the belief that a society could, in Freedland’s words, “form anew, free of the past”, a dream of endless possibility. But what hope now for America in the post-Trumpian era with a militant rightwing and seemingly all-powerful gun lobby? Maybe Malcolm X was right all along: “I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare.”Neil A WynnEmeritus professor of 20th-century American history, University of Gloucestershire As a member of Extinction Rebellion, I think the answer to Jonathan Freedland’s appeal must be direct action by the victims, specifically parents and children. As with climate change, marching and writing to politicians about gun control has had no effect, despite widespread support by the public.The politicians responsible for non-action (leading Republicans such as Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell) must be targeted with blockades of their homes and offices by parents and children with graphic banners; the National Rifle Association should be sued for millions of dollars for the deaths that its lobbying has led to. No doubt this is already being done or considered, and it is arrogant for non-Americans to give their advice – but I’m not making any apologies.Tony WaterstonNewcastle upon Tyne TopicsUS gun controlUS politicslettersReuse this content More

Trump says Clinton lawyer acquittal fuels 2024 election ambitionsEx-president reacts to acquittal of Michael Sussmann on charge of lying to FBI about possible Russia link Donald Trump will “fight even harder” on the road to a possible White House run in 2024 because of the acquittal of a lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign on a charge of lying to the FBI.Republican party building an ‘army’ to overturn election results – reportRead more“If anything, it makes me want to fight even harder,” the former president told Fox News Digital. “If we don’t win, our country is ruined. We have bad borders, bad elections and a court system not functioning properly.”Trump beat Clinton in 2016 but lost to Joe Biden in 2020, a defeat he refuses to accept, claiming it was caused by electoral fraud.That lie inspired the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, by supporters Trump told to “fight like hell”. A bipartisan Senate report linked seven deaths to the riot. More than 800 people have been charged, some – members of a far-right militia – with seditious conspiracy. A House select committee will soon hold public hearings.Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection but acquitted, leaving him free to run for office. In legal jeopardy over his attempt to overturn the election and his business affairs, he has said he will decide on a run after midterm elections this year.The strength of Trump’s hold on the Republican party has come under question after primary defeats for candidates he endorsed. But he remains popular with the party base. Democrats and other observers have raised the alarm about Trump loyalists moving to take over crucial elections posts in swing states.The Clinton lawyer, Michael Sussmann, was charged with lying to the FBI when he pushed information meant to cast suspicions on Trump and links to Russia. He was acquitted on Tuesday.The case was the first test of the special counsel John Durham since his appointment three years ago to search for misconduct in the investigation into Russia and Trump. Trump supporters have looked to Durham to expose what they say was FBI wrongdoing.The trial focused on whether Sussmann, a cybersecurity attorney and former federal prosecutor, concealed from the FBI that he was representing Clinton’s campaign when he presented data he said showed a possible backchannel between the Russia-based Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization.The FBI determined that there was no suspicious contact.The bureau’s then general counsel, James Baker, testified that he was “100% confident” Sussmann told him he was not representing any client. Prosecutors said Sussmann was actually acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign and another entity.Sussmann’s lawyers denied that he lied and said that even if he made a false statement it was irrelevant since the FBI was already investigating Russia and Trump.Trump claims a vast conspiracy. Speaking to Fox News Digital, he said: “They spied on my campaign. They got caught. If a Republican would have done that, and the obvious steps forward, it would be a virtual death penalty.”He also said: “This was totally illegal. What they did was treason, and it also put our country in a lot of danger with Russia.”Robert Mueller, the special counsel who investigated Trump and Russia, did not find evidence of direct collusion. He did lay out extensive evidence of contacts between Trump aides and Moscow, and he indicted or received guilty pleas from 34 people and three companies, and detailed 11 incidences of possible obstruction of justice by Trump or his campaign.Trump asked: “Where do you get your reputation back?”TopicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2024US politicsnewsReuse this content More

Adm Linda Fagan becomes first female to lead US armed forces branchFagan, who has been second-in-command at the coast guard, will serve as the 27th commandant Adm Linda L Fagan will be the first woman to lead a branch of the US armed forces, serving as the 27th commandant of the US coast guard.Fagan will lead the coast guard after being sworn into the position on Wednesday, reported the Associated Press.Joe Biden led the congratulations. “The trailblazing career of Adm Fagan shows young people entering the services, we mean what we say: there are no doors –– no doors –– closed to women,” said the president during a change of command ceremony at coast guard headquarters in Washington DC.“Now we need to keep working to make sure Adm Fagan may be the first but not the only … We need to see more women at the highest levels of command in the coast guard and across every service.”Fagan has been second-in-command at the coast guard since June 2021, the first woman to ever earn a four-star rank in the branch, according to a US Coast Guard biography.Fagan was promoted following the retirement of Adm Karl Schultz, nominated to the top position by Biden in April.Last month, Fagan was unanimously confirmed to the position by the Senate. Vice Adm Steven Poulin will succeed Fagan as vice commandant after being approved by the Senate.A 1985 graduate of the coast guard academy, Fagan was a part of only the academy’s sixth class to include women.Fagan later obtained two graduate degrees, a Master of Science in Marine Affairs from the University of Washington, and a Master in National Resource Strategy degree from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.Across her decades long career, Fagan has served in all seven continents and worked aboard the US Polar Star, a heavy ice breaker ship, as the only woman.Fagan was also the first recipient of the coast guard’s gold Ancient Trident award in 2016, commemorating her as the longest serving Marine safety officer.During the ceremony, while speaking on her promotion, Fagan thanked her parents for supporting her career in the armed forces.“I was 16. I announced my intent to attend the academy, full of righteousness as only a 16-year-old can be. And like all good parents, they said, ‘Oh, she’ll outgrow it,’ ” said Fagan as the ceremony’s guests laughed.“I did not,” added Fagan. TopicsUS militaryUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Democratic and Republican US Senators are holding talks this week, mostly virtually, as efforts continue to forge what Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy has called “a significant package” of gun safety measures that will actually pass.There’s no avoiding the fact that expectations are limited and Murphy demurred when asked at the weekend if Republicans in the talks are ready to raise the age when you can buy an assault rifle from 18 to 21.Senators aren’t expected to even broach ideas for an assault weapon ban or other restrictions that could be popular with the public as ways to curb the most lethal mass shootings, the Associated Press noted, adding that the US has not passed a major federal gun control measure since soon after the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in Connecticut that left 26 dead.The sessions are being led by Murphy and John Cornyn of Texas, whom Joe Biden has called a rational Republican.Democrat Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Republican Thom Tillis are involved and talks so far a “very constructive conversation”.House judiciary committee chairman and New York Democrat Jerry Nadler plans to hold a hearing tomorrow on the “Protecting our Kids Act”, the AP reports – a package of eight bills that has almost no hopes of passing the Senate but would serve as a marker in the debate.It includes calls to raise the age limits on semi-automatic rifle purchases from 18 to 21; create a grant program to buy back large-capacity magazines; establish voluntary safe practices for firearms storage and build on executive measures to ban bump stock devices and so-called ghost guns made from 3-D printing.Murphy has mentioned measures in Senate talks such as red flag laws and more widespread (though not universal) background checks before gun purchases.Murphy just retweeted star of stage and screen Marg Helgenberger who quote tweeted him on gun control.We can’t become numb to gun violence in our country. Stay vigilant & stay loud! https://t.co/8i3g08JfsE— Marg Helgenberger (@MargHelgen) June 1, 2022
It was a quieter day than we are used to in Washington, perhaps because much of the media’s gaze was directed beyond the capital to a celebrity trial in Fairfax, Virginia.Here’s what happened today:
The president convened a roundtable with infant-formula manufactures to outline the steps the administration was taking to address what many participants described as a crisis – a shortage of baby formula on US shelves. Amid criticism that the administration was slow to respond, Biden asked several of the CEOs when they realized the closure of an Abbott plant would affect supply. Several said the knew immediately. Pressed by reporters after the roundtable, Biden said: “They knew. I didn’t.”
Ahead of the meeting, the White House announced airlifts of infant formula from the UK and Australia in an effort to relieve the shortages causing deep anxiety for parents in the US. The transports, part of the administration’s Operation Fly Formula initiative launched last month, will deliver millions of bottles-worth of baby formula to California and Pennsylvania stores across the country in the coming weeks, the White House said.
A bipartisan group of senators is continuing negotiations in an effort to find some compromise on gun control legislation in the wake of the Uvalde massacre.
In a glass ceiling-shattering moment, Admiral Linda Fagan takes the oath this afternoon as commandant of the US Coast Guard, becoming the first woman to lead one of the US military services.
Biden is now posing questions to some of the manufactures who are participating in the roundtable. Of the Reckitt’s CEO, Biden asked a question that has been posed to the administration by its critics: when the Abbott recall happened, and its plant shut down, did his company anticipate immediately the impact this would have on the supply of infant formula?“We knew from the very beginning this would be a very serious event,” said Robert Cleveland, the SVP North America and Europe Nutrition at Reckitt.Several other CEOs echoed the response, saying it was immediately clear that the recall and closure of the Abbott plant would have huge consequences for the infant formula market.In closing, Biden thanked the manufactures for stepping up: “I ask you to keep focused, stay focused. Stay in high-gear. We can’t let up on the infant-formula market until it’s all the way back to normal and that’s going to take a couple more months but we’re making significant progress.”When the meeting concluded, Biden was pressed on why the administration didn’t act sooner. A CNN reporter notes that the manufacturers say they knew the Abbott plant closure would cause major disruptions to the supply of infant formula. “They did, but I didn’t,” Biden replied. President Biden tells us he didn’t realize the depth of the baby formula shortage until April. The Abbott facility — which caused most of the issues — was shuttered in April.— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) June 1, 2022
“As a father and a grandfather, I understand how frustrating this shortage has been,” Biden says at the start of the roundtable with infant-formula manufacturers.He says the US has been ramping up production of “safe formula,” noting the closure of the Abbott Nutrition’s plant in Sturgis, Michigan due to contamination problems. Biden said Abbott accounts for 40% of the overall infant-formula market in the United States, and the Sturgis factory was one of their largest plants. Abbott is not among the companies invited to participate in today’s roundtable. “The last thing we should ever do is allow unsafe formula to be sold to parents,” Biden said. The administration recently announced plans to re-start production at the factory, but it would still take several weeks or more before the product is available again on shelves.Biden then outlined the major steps the US has taken to ramp up production of infant-formula, including invoking the Defense Production Act as well as Operation Fly Formula to transport bottles and powder from abroad to the US. The Food and Drug Administration is also taking a series of new steps to make it easier to increase supply of infant formula, he said. “We have work to do though, but we’re making critical progress,” Biden said.Biden has now convened the virtual infant formula roundtable, in the White House’s South Court auditorium. The administration officials participating in person include Health and Human Services secretary Xavier Becerra and the surgeon general Vivek Murthy. Among the infant-formula manufactures participating virtually are CEOs and senior officials from ByHeart, Bubs Australia, Gerber, Reckitt and Perrigo Company.Biden will meet shortly with the manufacturers of infant formula, a meeting meant to highlight the efforts the administration is making to address the shortage that has left shelves empty and parents desperate. Ahead of the meeting, the White House announced that 3.7m bottles-worth of Kendamil infant will be shipped to the US from the UK, to be made available at Target stores across the country and online in the coming weeks. The White House also announced that the administration had sourced two flights to transport 4.6m bottles-worth of Bubs Australia infant formulas from Melbourne, Australia to Pennsylvania and California on 9 June and 11 June respectively. It said more shipments would be announced in the “coming days.”This comes amid reporting that the shortage is getting worse, not better. The Wall Street Journal reported today that the crisis is deepening, hitting low-income families in the south and southwest the hardest. It cites new data by the market-research firm IRI that found 23% of powdered baby formula was out of stock nationally in the week that ended on 22 May, compared with 21% during the previous week. By comparison, in early January before Abbott Laboratories recalled the formula produced in its facilities, just 11% of powdered baby formula was out of stock because of pandemic-related supply-chain shortages and inflation. Read the full WSJ report here.Republicans have seized on the issue as part of their midterm messaging hammering Biden over his handling of the economy. On Wednesday, the RNC released a statement accusing the administration of doing “nothing to prevent the empty shelves parents experience today.” Then, broadening then attack to blame Biden for inflation, the statement concluded: “No excuses from Biden will relieve parents’ worries about feeding their children, affording groceries, and filling up their cars.”In a surprising revelation General Paul Nakasone, the head of US cyber command, told Sky News’ Alexander Martin that American military hackers have “conducted a series of operations” in support of Ukraine since the Russian invasion. It is the first time the US has acknowledged its participation.“We’ve conducted a series of operations across the full spectrum; offensive, defensive, [and] information operations,” Nakasone said in the interview, conducted in Tallinn, adding that the operations were lawful and conducted under proper oversight. “My job is to provide a series of options to the secretary of defense and the president, and so that’s what I do,” he said. 🚨 Scoop: In an exclusive interview with Sky News, General Paul Nakasone confirmed that Cyber Command has conducted offensive operations in support of Ukraine.https://t.co/HdLmwM17Uq— Alexander Martin (@AlexMartin) June 1, 2022
Nakasone also told the news network that he is concerned “every single day” about the risk of a Russian cyber attack targeting the US. It’s been a talkative day on Capitol Hill and at the White House and there more to come, so please stay tuned.Here’s where things stand:
Connecticut Democratic US Senator Chris Murphy continues to lead negotiations with a select group of fellow Democrats and what the president terms “rational Republicans” over moderate action on gun control.
The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack has reportedly told Republican congressman Jim Jordan it expects him to comply with its subpoena by 11 June.
In a glass ceiling-shattering moment, Admiral Linda Fagan takes the oath this afternoon as commandant of the US Coast Guard, becoming the first woman to lead one of the US military services.
Democratic and Republican US Senators are holding talks this week, mostly virtually, as efforts continue to forge what Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy has called “a significant package” of gun safety measures that will actually pass.There’s no avoiding the fact that expectations are limited and Murphy demurred when asked at the weekend if Republicans in the talks are ready to raise the age when you can buy an assault rifle from 18 to 21.Senators aren’t expected to even broach ideas for an assault weapon ban or other restrictions that could be popular with the public as ways to curb the most lethal mass shootings, the Associated Press noted, adding that the US has not passed a major federal gun control measure since soon after the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in Connecticut that left 26 dead.The sessions are being led by Murphy and John Cornyn of Texas, whom Joe Biden has called a rational Republican.Democrat Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Republican Thom Tillis are involved and talks so far a “very constructive conversation”.House judiciary committee chairman and New York Democrat Jerry Nadler plans to hold a hearing tomorrow on the “Protecting our Kids Act”, the AP reports – a package of eight bills that has almost no hopes of passing the Senate but would serve as a marker in the debate.It includes calls to raise the age limits on semi-automatic rifle purchases from 18 to 21; create a grant program to buy back large-capacity magazines; establish voluntary safe practices for firearms storage and build on executive measures to ban bump stock devices and so-called ghost guns made from 3-D printing.Murphy has mentioned measures in Senate talks such as red flag laws and more widespread (though not universal) background checks before gun purchases.Murphy just retweeted star of stage and screen Marg Helgenberger who quote tweeted him on gun control.We can’t become numb to gun violence in our country. Stay vigilant & stay loud! https://t.co/8i3g08JfsE— Marg Helgenberger (@MargHelgen) June 1, 2022
In more midterms news, independent Tiffany Bond of Maine has secured enough verified signatures to qualify for a spot on the ballot this November, according to the Press Herald. This upends one of the most closely-watched races of the cycle: a rematch between Democratic congressman Jared Golden and former Republican congressman Bruce Poliquin for Maines second congressional district. Maine uses a ranked-choice voting system, which was put to use in 2018 when Poliquin won a plurality but not a majority. That year Bond came in third and was eliminated. After the second-place votes were tabulated, Golden won. Roughly two-thirds of Bonds’ voters chose Golden as their second choice.Republicans are favored to win the House this cycle, and Golden is seen as one of the most vulnerable Democrats. But the entry of a third-party candidate changes the dynamics of the race making a competitive race even more uncertain. Golden is a conservative Democrat who often breaks with his party. He was the only House member to split his vote during Trump’s first impeachment trial, voting for one article and not the other. The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack has told Republican congressman Jim Jordan it expects him to comply with its subpoena by 11 June, according to a letter sent to Jordan from the panel’s chairman Bennie Thompson, per CNN.The committee had initially asked for Jordan to comply by 27 May, but is giving him more time. The Jan. 6 committee tells Rep. Jim Jordan it still expects him to comply with its subpoena but is giving him a little more time to do so, setting a new deadline for June 11, per new letter sent to the Ohio Republican. Story w/ @ryanobles https://t.co/Dt5Z8uQ23H— Zachary Cohen (@ZcohenCNN) June 1, 2022
Last week, Jordan responded to the committee’s subpoena by asking House investigators to share with him all materials they intended to rely upon in questioning, materials in which he is referenced, and legal analyses about subpoenaing members of Congress. In his response, he also questioned the constitutionality of the committee, writing: “Your subpoena was unprompted and, in light of the unaddressed points from my January 9 letter, plainly unreasonable. I write to strongly contest the constitutionality and validity of the subpoena in several respects.”Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the House, offered a similar response to the committee last week, telling investigators that he would not cooperate with a subpoena unless he could review deposition topics and the legal rationale justifying the request.Elsewhere in the sprawling investigation into the January 6th attack, Hugo Lowell reports that Trump’s lawyer Kenneth Chesebro wrote in a memo dated 13 December 2020 to Giuliani that vice president Mike Pence should recuse himself from running the electoral count and hand the gavel to a senior Republican, such as South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally. A day before the January 6 attack, senior Republican senator, Chuck Grassley, said he didn’t expect Pence to preside, Lowell notes. NEW: Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro said in 13 Dec 2020 memo to Giuliani that VP Pence should recuse himself from running the electoral count and hand the gavel to a senior GOP senator like Graham — recall that Sen. Grassley said on Jan. 5 he didn’t expect Pence to preside pic.twitter.com/iqyqg9U1sr— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) June 1, 2022
Jim Jordan demands material on him before complying with January 6 subpoenaRead moreKevin McCarthy refuses to comply with January 6 attack panel subpoenaRead moreIt’s official: admiral Linda Fagan is the 27th commandant of the United States Coast Guard, making her the first woman ever to lead any branch of the US armed services. After the change of command, Fagan takes to the podium to outline her vision for the Coast Guard. Touching on the historic nature of her promotion, she expresses gratitude to one of her predecessors, the late Owen Siler, for his decision to integrate the service academies in 1975. “If it was not for Owen Siler’s courage I do not believe I would be standing here today,” she said, adding that she was wearing the “shoulder boards that he wore as the 15th commandant just to acknowledge the long blue line.”Biden is now at the US Coast Guard headquarters in southwest Washington, where he is speaking at the change of command ceremony. “There’s no one more qualified to lead the proud women and men of the Coast Guard and she will also be the first woman to serve as Commandant of the Coast Guard, the first woman to lead any branch in the United States Armed Forces – and it’s about time,” Biden said to loud applause. Biden thanked her daughter, Aileen, for following in her mother’s footsteps as a graduate of the US Coast Guard Academy graduate and her husband John for supporting her service to the nation. “With her trailblazing career, Admiral Fagan shows young people entering the service that we mean what we say: there are no doors – no doors – closed to women,” Biden said. “Now we need to keep working to make sure Admiral Fagan may be the first but not the only.”Turning to his Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden said when Mayorkas finally sent him Fagan’s name to nominate her the post he joked: “what in the hell took you so long?”Speaking before Biden, Mayorkas said: “Today is an historic day for the Coast Guard and a historic day for the United States.”Biden is making his way to the US Coast Guard headquarters for a change of command ceremony, where retiring Admiral Karl Schultz will be relieved by Admiral Linda Fagan as the commandant of the branch. This is a glass ceiling-shattering moment: When Fagan takes the oath this afternoon, she will become the first woman to lead one of the US military services.Fagan has been the Coast Guard’s second in command since last summer. She graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in 1985, only the sixth class that accepted women. She steadily rose through the ranks, serving on all seven continents, where she worked as an icebreaker and earned the distinction as the longest-serving Marine Safety officer. She is also the first woman to hold the rank of four-star admiral in the Coast Guard.“We’re getting past the ‘firsts,’” Fagan said recently, according to the New York Times. “I hope sometime soon we’re talking about the second female commandant, and the third female commandant, and that we’ll have a Black male commandant.”This just in: vice president Kamala Harris will travel to Reno Nevada to speak at the Conference of Mayors’ Annual Meeting. She will then travel to Los Angeles, where she will attend the Ninth Summit of the Americas.According to Politico, Harris’s western tour is part of the administration’s new push on the economy to better “communicate … our accomplishments” to voters who say their top concern is inflation. In Reno, she will outline the administration’s plan to tackle risings costs and detail actions the White House has already taken to boost the economy. All this month the administration is dispatching senior officials and cabinet secretaries across the country to make the case that the president is acting to help the economy.The aftershocks of New York’s new maps continues to reverberate through Empire State politics. New York congressman Mondaire Jones told NY1’s Kevin Frey that congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, a fellow New York Democrat and the chair of the DCCC, called to apologize for failing to give Jones a ‘heads up’ that he was planning to run in Jones’ newly-drawn district. “I don’t want to speak for my friend Mondaire Jones. But I think you will find that he is focused and excited about the opportunity before him, and so am I. And I think it’s all worked out,” @spmaloney also says. #NY10— Kevin Frey (@KevinFreyTV) May 31, 2022
Maloney, already facing heat for his handling of the Democrats’ midterm strategy, announced he would run for re-election in New York’s 17th congressional district after his district was re-drawn to become more Republican. This sparked furious criticism among progressives that the chair of the DCCC would jump into the district currently held by a Black freshman lawmaker viewed as a rising star in the party. Jones is now running for New York’s 10th congressional district. “I could have handled things better. And I tried to take accountability for that,” Maloney told NY1, after Jones revealed that the DCCC called him to “apologize for not giving me a heads up.”In that interview, Jones would not say whether he accepted Maloney’s apology or whether Maloney should continue as DCCC chair. In a separate interview, Maloney attempted to spin the debacle as a win for everyone. “I don’t want to speak for my friend Mondaire Jones. But I think you will find that he is focused and excited about the opportunity before him, and so am I. And I think it’s all worked out,” he told NY1.”I don’t want to speak for my friend Mondaire Jones. But I think you will find that he is focused and excited about the opportunity before him, and so am I. And I think it’s all worked out,” @spmaloney also says. #NY10— Kevin Frey (@KevinFreyTV) May 31, 2022
But but but… it’s not necessarily alls well that ends well. Maloney faces a tough re-election battle in a year where Republicans are favored to take control of the House. Meanwhile, the Democratic primary for New York’s 10th congressional district is hotly contested and rapidly expanding. Just today Axios reported that Dan Goldman, best known as the lead counsel for House Democrats during their first impeachment of former president Donald Trump, intends to run for Congress in New York’s 10th Congressional District.Should Goldman jump into the race for the heavily Democratic district, he would face Jones, as well as former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, and New York Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou. A new story from Politico this morning provides an inside look at the concerted effort by Republicans to “target and potentially overturn” votes in heavily Democratic precincts. The story, based on video recordings of GOP operatives meeting with conservative activists, offers new details about Republicans’ plans to engineer a partisan takeover of state and local election administration. The strategy is blessed by the Republican National Committee and includes installing party loyalists and election conspiracy theorists as poll workers and linking them with party attorneys. Here is how reporter Heidi Przybyla describes it:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The plan, as outlined by a Republican National Committee staffer in Michigan, includes utilizing rules designed to provide political balance among poll workers to install party-trained volunteers prepared to challenge voters at Democratic-majority polling places, developing a website to connect those workers to local lawyers and establishing a network of party-friendly district attorneys who could intervene to block vote counts at certain precincts.The results could spell chaos in 2022 and 2024. “This is completely unprecedented in the history of American elections that a political party would be working at this granular level to put a network together,” Nick Penniman, founder and CEO of Issue One, an election watchdog group, tells Przybyla. “It looks like now the Trump forces are going directly after the legal system itself, and that should concern everyone.”Read the full report here. In a new op-ed published by the New York Times, Joe Biden lays out the US’ intentions in Ukraine. In the piece, titled What America Will and Will Not Do in Ukraine, Biden also extrapolates on what he views as the US’ “aims” in Ukraine, after rushing billions of dollars in weapons and aid to help the nation beat back a Russian invasion, now in its fourth month. .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}America’s goal is straightforward: We want to see a democratic, independent, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine with the means to deter and defend itself against further aggression, Biden writes.Biden says that the US will not pressure privately or publicly to “make any territorial concessions’’ as part of its negotiations to end the conflict. The US president again emphasized that the US would not engage in direct combat in Ukraine or Russia. “We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders,” he writes. “We do not want to prolong the war just to inflict pain on Russia.”In the essay, Biden confirms that the US will provide Ukraine with advanced rocket systems and munitions, a development our sister blog on Ukraine has covered in depth. Read the full essay here. Good morning, and welcome to Wednesday’s US politics blog.What we’re watching this morning:
Both the House and the Senate are on recess. But a bipartisan group of senators, led by Connecticut senator Chris Murphy, are continuing discussions as part of an effort to reach an ever-elusive compromise on gun control legislation in response to the Uvalde massacre that left 17 children and two teachers dead. The senators will hold another virtual meeting today. The talks are centered around background checks and so-called “red flag” laws, which allows law enforcement to remove firearms from individuals deemed by a court to be a threat to themselves or other people. These are not major steps. In fact, most gun reform advocates are frustrated at how little is on the table given the extraordinary toll of gun violence.

Joe Biden is will participate in the US Coast Guard change of command ceremony at 11am, where Linda Fagan will take over as the commandant to become the first female service chief in US history. Later on Wednesday he will meet virtually with administration officials and major infant formula manufacturers to discuss his administration’s efforts to address the shortage at 2:45pm.

The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, will brief reporters at 3:30pm. More

Republican party building an ‘army’ to overturn election results – reportAlleged scheme include installing volunteers as poll workers and getting attorneys who could intervene to block votes, Politico says The Republican party is building a grassroots “army” to target and potentially overturn election results in Democratic precincts, the Politico website reported on Wednesday, citing video evidence.The alleged scheme includes installing party-trained volunteers prepared to challenge voters at Democratic-majority polling places, creating a website to put these workers in touch with local lawyers and establishing a network of district attorneys who could intervene to block vote counts.Many Republicans still believe Donald Trump’s lie that he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden because of widespread voter fraud. At state level the party has passed laws that make it harder to vote while pro-Trump candidates are running for positions that would give them control over future elections.Politico obtained a series of recordings of Republican meetings between the summer of 2021 and May this year.It said one from November shows Matthew Seifried, the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) election integrity director for Michigan, urging party activists in Wayne county to obtain official designations as poll workers.Seifried says: “Being a poll worker, you just have so many more rights and things you can do to stop something than [as] a poll challenger.”Some of the would-be poll workers complain that fraud was committed in 2020 and that the election was “corrupt”.At another training session last October, Seifried promises support for such workers: “It’s going to be an army. We’re going to have more lawyers than we’ve ever recruited, because let’s be honest, that’s where it’s going to be fought, right?”Politico also obtained Zoom tapings of Tim Griffin, legal counsel to the Amistad Project, a self-described election integrity group that Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani once portrayed as a “partner” in the Trump campaign’s legal efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Griffin is seen meeting with activists from multiple states and discussing plans for identifying friendly district attorneys who could stage interventions in local election disputes.He says during one meeting in September: “Remember, guys, we’re trying to build out a nationwide district attorney network. Your local district attorney, as we always say, is more powerful than your congressman.“They’re the ones that can seat a grand jury. They’re the ones that can start an investigation, issue subpoenas, make sure that records are retained, etc.”Politico added that installing party loyalists on the board of canvassers, which is responsible for certifying election results, also appears to be part of the Republican strategy.The revelations are sure to intensify concerns about fresh assaults on American democracy in 2022 and 2024.Nick Penniman, founder and chief executive of Issue One, an election watchdog group, told Politico: “This is completely unprecedented in the history of American elections – that a political party would be working at this granular level to put a network together. It looks like now the Trump forces are going directly after the legal system itself, and that should concern everyone.”The RNC insisted that it is simply trying to restore balance to election oversight in heavily Democratic cities such as Detroit. Gates McGavick, an RNC spokesperson, was quoted as saying: “Democrats have had a monopoly on poll watching for 40 years, and it speaks volumes that they’re terrified of an even playing field.“The RNC is focused on training volunteers to take part in the election process because polling shows that American voters want bipartisan poll-watching to ensure transparency and security at the ballot box.”TopicsRepublicansUS elections 2024US politicsUS voting rightsnewsReuse this content More

Defending democracy has suddenly become one of the central challenges of our age. The land war in Ukraine is widely considered a front line between autocratic rule and democratic freedom. The United States continues to absorb the meaning of the riot that took place on January 6 2021 in an attempt to overthrow the result of the previous year’s election. Elsewhere, concerns have been raised that the pandemic could have provided cover for governments to postpone elections.

Elections are an essential part of democracy. They enable citizens to hold their governments to account for their actions and bring peaceful transitions in power. Unfortunately, elections often fall short of these ideals. They can be marred by problems such as voter intimidation, low turnout, fake news and the under-representation of women and minority candidates.

Our new research report provides a global assessment of the quality of national elections around the world from 2012-21, based on nearly 500 elections across 170 countries. The US is the lowest ranked liberal democracy in the list. It comes just 15th in the 29 states in the Americas, behind Costa Rica, Brazil, Trinidad & Tobago and others, and 75th overall.

An election in Costa Rica, which ranked well in the list.
Ingmar Zahorsky/FLickr, CC BY-NC-SA

Why is the United States so low?

There were claims made by former president Donald Trump of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Theses claims were baseless, but they still caused the US elections ranking to fall.

Elections with disputed results score lower on our rankings because a key part of democracy is the peaceful transition of power through accepted results, rather than force and violence. Trump’s comments led to post-election violence as his supporters stormed the Capitol building and sowed doubt about the legitimacy of the outcome amongst much of America.

This illustrates that electoral integrity is not just about designing laws – it is also dependent on candidates and supporters acting responsibly throughout the electoral process.

Perceptions of electoral integrity are measured by experts for each country one month after polls close. Experts are asked to assess the quality of national elections on 11 sub-dimensions: electoral laws; electoral procedures; district boundaries; voter registration; party registration; media coverage; campaign finance; voting process; vote count; results; and electoral authorities. These items sum to an overall Electoral Integrity Index scored from 0 to 100. F.
Electoral Integrity Project.

Problems with US elections run much deeper than this one event, however. Our report shows that the way electoral boundaries are drawn up in the US are a main area of concern. There has been a long history of gerrymandering, where political districts are craftily drawn by legislators so that populations that are more likely to vote for them are included in a given constituency – as was recently seen in North Carolina.

Voter registration and the polls is another problem. Some US states have recently implemented laws that make it harder to vote, such as requiring ID, which is raising concern about what effect that will have on turnout. We already know that the costs, time and complexity of completing the ID process, alongside the added difficulties for those with high residential mobility or insecure housing situations, makes it even less likely that under-represented groups will take part in elections.

Nordics on top, concern about Russia

The Nordic countries of Finland, Sweden and Denmark came out on top in our rankings. Finland is commonly described as having a pluralistic media landscape, which helps. It also provides public funding to help political parties and candidates contest elections. A recent report from the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights found a “high level of confidence in all of the aspects of the electoral process”.

Cape Verde has the greatest quality of electoral integrity in Africa. Taiwan, Canada and New Zealand are ranked first for their respective continents.

Electoral integrity in Russia has seen a further decline following the 2021 parliamentary elections. A pre-election report warned of intimidation and violence against journalists, and the media “largely promote policies of the current government”. Only Belarus ranks lower in Europe.

Globally, electoral integrity is lowest in Comoros, the Central African Republic and Syria.

Money matters

How politicians and political parties receive and spend money was found to be the weakest part of the electoral process in general. There are all kinds of threats to the integrity of elections that revolve around campaign money. Where campaign money comes from, for example, could affect a candidate’s ideology or policies on important issues. It is also often the case that the candidate who spends the most money wins – which means unequal opportunities are often part and parcel of an election.

It helps when parties and candidates are required to publish transparent financial accounts. But in an era where “dark money” can be more easily transferred across borders, it can be very hard to trace where donations really come from.

There are also solutions for many of the other problems, such as automatic voter registration, independence for electoral authorities, funding for electoral officials and electoral observation.

Democracy may need to be defended in battle, as we are currently seeing in Ukraine. But it also needs to be defended before it comes to all-out conflict, through discussion, protest, clicktivism and calls for electoral reforms. More

In the wake of the recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 children and two teachers, Democrats in the US – led by the president, Joe Biden – have once again called for stricter national gun laws. Yet many experts believe prospects for reform remain bleak, a reality attributed to the overwhelming influence of the gun lobby.

The National Rifle Association promised to “reflect on” the tragedy at its national conference in Houston, Texas, the weekend after the May 24 shooting. Several speeches – including one by Biden’s predecessor in the White House, Donald Trump – expressly addressed the incident.

But the NRA has vigorously rejected any charge that its policies contribute to America’s gun problem. Unsurprisingly, opponents of gun reform have accused the media and Democrats of “politicising” Uvalde to press an ideological agenda.

The NRA, meanwhile, has continued to advance proposals such as improving mental health responses, “hardening” schools with increased security, and potentially even arming teachers, which leaders claim (without evidence and against educators’ wishes) can serve as a deterrent. These recommendations align with the NRA’s longstanding message: tightening gun laws would do nothing to prevent mass shootings in schools.

All of this is occurring as the NRA feels more emboldened with the renewed “culture war” focus sweeping America. Although not entirely new, many GOP lawmakers are leveraging gun ownership as part of a “package deal” – along with what they portray as leftist issues such as trans rights and critical race theory – to animate conservative voters. So, instead of the recent spate of shootings causing the NRA to back way from its uncompromising positions, it has instead doubled down.

NRA: an exercise in power

The NRA publishes an A-F rating of lawmakers that grades elected officials on their voting records with respect to the second amendment, which guarantees the rights of Americans to bear arms. The formula is simple: supporting looser gun regulations earns a higher grade, whereas making it harder to access guns earns a lower grade. For Republicans from conservative districts, where guns are embedded deeply into the culture, any grade below a perfect A+ can hobble a politician’s electoral prospects.

Perhaps most importantly, the NRA also flexes its muscles by unseating incumbent politicians directly at the ballot box. If Republicans (or moderate Democrats) waver on the gun issue, the NRA will – particularly in the primaries – pour money and resources into the campaigns of opponents who back more lax gun mandates. Even the threat of that challenge is often enough to intimidate many politicians from defying the NRA’s agenda.

Lastly, the NRA also maintains a large, deep-pocketed lobbying arm in Washington that’s involved in pressuring members of Congress to resist any legislation that might be construed as even mildly anti-gun. In the first quarter of 2022, for example, the NRA spent well over US$600,000 (nearly £500,000) on lobbying. That number is only expected to increase in the second half of this year amid the 2022 midterm elections as well as renewed demands for gun reform by liberals.

Will of the people?

Data shows that slightly more than 50% of Americans want tighter gun control laws overall. Support is even higher for outlawing assault-style weapons (favoured by 63%), for prohibiting “high capacity” magazines (64%), and for imposing background checks on private gun sales and purchases at gun shows (81%). Although partisan divides exist, even many rank-and-file NRA members think some gun legislation should be on the table.

Innocent victim: US President Joe Biden visits the memorial to the victims of the Uvalde school shooting.
EPA-EFE/Tannen Maury

Still, these figures can be misleading, for a simple reason: they don’t reveal anything about how important Americans feel gun law reform is compared with other pressing issues. When polls ask Americans what the most important problem is that their country faces, virtually no one – often fewer than 1% – ranks guns at the top of that list. So, it’s one thing for voters to say that they support stricter gun laws in the abstract, but it’s another to actually prioritise the issue at the ballot box.

It’s an iron law of governing: politics involves trade-offs. Because other policy areas such as immigration or the economy rank higher in the minds of voters, politicians don’t expend scarce political capital on guns. This provides space for a pressure organisation such as the NRA, with its concentrated interests around the gun issue, to have huge sway over how lawmakers set the policy agenda and vote. That’s true both at the state and federal levels in America.

Could this time be different?

After a mass school shooting, it’s natural to think that “this time is different”. We heard that after Columbine in 1999, after Sandy Hook in 2012, after Parkland in 2018. Now we’re hearing it again after Uvalde.

The outrage is palpable and it’s hard not to think the culmination would move the needle in the direction of reform. The reality? Expect the status quo.

At least 60 votes are still needed to usher any legislation through the Senate and avoid a “filibuster”, which allows lawmakers to stall or prevent a vote on bills. Even apart from the NRA’s clout, a major challenge is that the gun control movement is subject to what political scientists label an “issue attention cycle”. In short, focus on the issue is fleeting. A calamity like the one in Texas gets considerable press for a while but then fades into the backdrop and is replaced by other headlines. The sustained political will needed to pass gun reform simply doesn’t persist.

For all the horror mass shootings, most gun violence in America occurs through a “slow drip” of casualties. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more than 45,000 Americans died from gun-related causes in 2020, with about 43% being homicides.

But according to the Gun Violence Archive, only about 1% of these victims – just over 500 Americans – died in mass shootings. Most of those deaths never make national news, and regrettably, are too often ignored by the nation’s leaders. More