US Politics

Arizona students stage hunger strike to urge Sinema to support voting reformCollege students say they will be striking indefinitely until Arizona senator agrees to support Freedom to Vote Act Since Monday, a group of 20 college students from the University of Arizona and Arizona State have been on hunger strike in an effort to pressure one of the most heavily criticized Democratic senators, Kyrsten Sinema, to take action on the passage of crucial voting reform legislation.The students say they will be striking indefinitely until Arizona’s Sinema agrees to support the Freedom to Vote Act, a bill that would ensure fair election measures like automatic voter registration and the protection and expansion of vote by mail.‘Time is running out’: can Congress pass a voting rights bill after months of failure?Read moreTheir target is not easy. Sinema, who was once active in the Green party, has drifted far away from the progressive wing of her party and is now widely seen – along with West Virginia’s Joe Manchin – as a centrist roadblock on much of Joe Biden’s agenda. As such, she has earned the anger of many Democrats, from her fellow elected officials to grassroots organizers.The Freedom to Vote Act would directly benefit those most affected by voter suppression laws and gerrymandering, especially Black and brown communities, immigrants and young voters, and voters with disabilities. The students are working with Un-Pac, a non-partisan group organizing in the hope of restoring the Voting Rights Act through the Freedom to Vote Act and eliminating gerrymandering, dark money and other threats to fair representation.Since its introduction, the bill has been consistently opposed by Republican lawmakers and is held up in the Senate where it has been blocked by Republican senators. Despite his promise to restore the Voting Rights Act during his campaign, Biden and the Democratic majority have failed to advance any voting rights legislation this year, despite a broad push by Republicans across the US to pass laws restricting access to the ballot.In 2021 alone, US Republicans have taken full advantage of the filibuster – the Senate rule requiring 60 votes to advance most legislation – and deterred voting rights bills on four different occasions. According to a recent report from the Brennan Institute for Justice, 19 states enacted 33 different laws that make it more difficult for citizens to vote after the 2020 election, in which record numbers of citizens went to the polls. At the same time there has been widespread gerrymandering in mostly Republican states, chipping away at Democratic seats and splitting up voters from communities of color.Last week Sinema agreed to a private meeting with the students via Zoom, where she listened to their concerns and said she supported the passage of the legislation. However, she has a history of supporting the filibuster.“We are very clear from that meeting that Senator Sinema understands our message – that we are hunger striking until the bill passes and we would rather make this sacrifice than suffer the consequences of inaction on federal voting rights and campaign finance reform now,” said Shana Gallagher, executive director of Un-Pac. “We now believe it is incumbent upon President Biden to call another vote before the end of the year.”The students are now traveling to Washington DC, where Biden held the Summit for Democracy. Student organizers Brandon Ortega and Georgia Linden said the protestors will shift the pressure from Sinema and plan to continue striking indefinitely outside the White House in an effort to persuade Biden to talk to them and ultimately, pass the Freedom to Vote Act into law before the end of the year.“We are honestly confused and disappointed that President Biden hasn’t prioritized this more,” said Gallagher. “We don’t understand why he’s not treating this existential issue with the urgency that we are, but we are still hopeful that he has time to change course and our sacrifice will help the administration to act.”As of now, the group is hopeful of drawing the attention of the White House.“We did not originally request a meeting with Sinema but when she found out about our action, she wanted to meet with us to express her commitment to this legislation,” said Gallagher. “Our remaining demand is a meeting with the Biden administration but as of now, we have not heard a response.”The group is well aware that their hunger strike could last longer than they hope, but they are prepared for the hardships.“It’s definitely been difficult, but we do have a medical team and a support team that is taking care of all of us,” said Ortega. “We’re grateful that we have dozens of people across the country doing solidarity fasts and vigils and there has been a lot of support, most notably from a group of veterans who came to the Arizona state house to thank us and to tell us they were humbled by our actions. 84% of Arizonians support this bill, so we’re united as a generation and as a state.”“I would just say, what’s far more dangerous than putting our bodies on the line is losing our democracy forever,” said Linden.TopicsArizonaUS voting rightsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Sotomayor decries abortion ruling but court’s conservatives show their muscleThe highest court in the US has been defied by a group of extremist Republicans openly flouting the court’s own rulings Sonia Sotomayor, the liberal-leaning justice on the US supreme court, put it plainly. For almost three months, lawmakers in the Republican-controlled legislature of Texas had “substantially suspended a constitutional guarantee: a pregnant woman’s right to control her own body”.“The court should have put an end to this madness months ago,” Sotomayor said.But when the supreme court issued on Friday its majority opinion on SB8, the extreme Texas law that bans abortions effectively at six weeks, in blatant violation of the court’s own constitutional rulings, it still didn’t put an end to the madness.Biden ‘concerned’ over supreme court’s Texas abortion ruling, says White House – liveRead moreIt allowed the law, the most restrictive currently in force in the US, to remain in effect.And by varying margins, the new conservative supermajority of the court, consolidated by Donald Trump’s appointment of three new rightwing justices, restricted the legal route by which abortion providers could challenge the law.From now on the legal battle would have to be focused narrowly on just four state employees responsible for medical licensing in the state. Other Texas officials involved, notably the state’s attorney general Ken Paxton and clerks in state courts, would be let off the hook.Even more provocatively, while the court sent the abortion fight back to a federal district court in Austin, it let the ban itself stand. That adds insult to injury given the supreme court’s much-criticised refusal to stay the ban at the start, not to mention the many weeks it has taken to hand down its decision.Over those weeks, Texas women have paid a heavy price. “The court’s delay in allowing this case to proceed has had catastrophic consequences for women seeking to exercise their constitutional right to an abortion in Texas,” Sotomayor said in a powerful dissenting opinion.In September alone, the first month of the ban, the number of legal abortions performed in Texas plummeted to about half the level a year ago. That was the largest recorded decline in the state’s recent history, with untold numbers of women forced to seek abortions out of state or carry unwanted pregnancies to term.Sotomayor, who is emerging as a pivotal voice of resistance within the post-Trump court, was forthright in her choice of words. Her disagreement with the conservative justices went far beyond a “quibble” over which state officials abortion providers can sue, she said.The question was: is the supreme court prepared to stand up in the name of constitutional rights to the cynical antics of ideologically driven Republicans in states such as Texas?“The choice to shrink from Texas’s challenge to federal supremacy will have far-reaching repercussions,” Sotomayor warned. “I doubt the court, let alone the country, is prepared for them.”Nobody can doubt that SB 8 is a flagrant violation of the constitutional right to an abortion enshrined in the 1973 landmark ruling Roe v Wade. While Roe sets the bar of fetal viability at about 24 weeks, Texas now puts it at the point of earliest cardiac activity, around six weeks – before many women even know they are pregnant.Neil Gorsuch, one of the three Trump appointees, who wrote Friday’s majority opinion, said that the issue of the constitutional right to an abortion was not under consideration in this case. The matter at hand in the Texas law was whether abortion providers could press on with their challenge to the ban by suing specific state officials.That will do little to assuage the jitters of 80% of Americans who think that abortions should be legal in all or certain circumstances. In a separate case before the supreme court based on a new Mississippi ban at 15 weeks, which is now blocked by a lower court, Roe v Wade is very much up for grabs, and the signs are ominous.In oral arguments in the Mississippi case less than two weeks ago, several of the conservative justices indicated they were willing to sharply restrict or even overturn the right to an abortion despite its rock-steady standing as a pillar of constitutional law for almost 50 years.Nor does Gorsuch’s protestation that Friday’s case was merely focused on procedural matters offer much comfort. SB 8 was devised by Texas Republicans as a juridical trick to skirt around constitutional protections by making it more difficult for abortion providers to challenge the law in federal court.At the heart of the legislation is a ruse designed to make a mockery of federal oversight. Enforcement of the abortion ban is transferred from state officials who are vulnerable to federal challenge to private individuals, armed with financial inducements of up to $10,000 to cover legal fees.Supreme court rules Texas abortion providers can sue over ban but won’t stop lawRead more“SB 8 is structured to thwart review and result in ‘a denial of any hearing’,” Sotomayor decried. “The events of the last three months have shown that the law has succeeded in its endeavor.”That is why the vote of the court’s new post-Trump majority to issue such a narrow opinion over SB 8 is more than a “quibble”. The highest court in the nation has been defied by a group of extremist Republicans openly flouting the court’s own rulings.In response, the conservative majority emboldened by Trump has opted not to insist on respect for the constitutional law of the land, but instead to blithely play along.As Sotomayor put it: “By so doing, the court leaves all manner of constitutional rights more vulnerable than ever before, to the great detriment of our constitution and our republic.”Perhaps most tellingly, the idea of appeasing Texas Republicans in their attempt to undermine the supreme court’s own precedents proved too much even for John Roberts, the chief justice.In important aspects of Friday’s decision, he broke with his five fellow conservative justices and sided pointedly with Sotomayor and the liberal minority.“The clear purpose and actual effect of SB 8 has been to nullify this court’s rulings,” Roberts said, in words which may reverberate down the years.“The role of the supreme court in our constitutional system is at stake.”TopicsUS newsTexasAbortionUS politicsUS supreme courtnewsReuse this content More

Capitol attack committee issues new subpoenas to two ex-Trump aidesSubpoenas for Brian Jack and Max Miller raise pressure on Trump as panel investigates extent of former president’s involvement The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on Friday issued new subpoenas against two Trump White House officials involved in organizing the rally and march that descended into the 6 January insurrection, as they inquire into the extent of Donald Trump’s involvement.Court rules Trump cannot block release of documents to Capitol attack panelRead moreThe select committee issued orders compelling documents and testimony to Brian Jack, Trump’s former White House director of political affairs, now working for the House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, and Max Miller, a former deputy manager for the Trump campaign.Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, said in the subpoena letter for Miller that the panel targeted him as he attended a 4 January meeting with Trump in a private White House dining room about who should speak at the rally on the morning of 6 January.Miller also communicated with the then deputy secretary of the interior and the then-acting director of the National Park Service to strong-arm career officials, who had declined to allow the rally from taking place on the Ellipse, to reverse course, Thompson said.Thompson said the panel was pursuing Jack because he contacted a number of Republican members of Congress, including Mo Brooks, on behalf of Trump to ask them to speak at the rally in support of the former president and endorse lies about election fraud.“Rep Mo Brooks accepted President Trump’s invitation,” Thompson said in Jack’s subpoena letter. “Brooks later told a reporter he was wearing body armor during his speech because he was warned on Monday [January 3rd] there might be risks associated with the next few days.”The new subpoenas suggest the investigation is edging closer to establishing the role played by Trump in the planning process of the rally on the Ellipse in the days before the morning of 6 January, when he addressed supporters who would later storm the Capitol.The select committee was already certain of at least some coordination between the Trump White House and the organizers of the rally, as the US Secret Service would have needed to sign off on how Trump would appear at the rally, according to a source familiar with the matter.But the new subpoenas are certain to ramp up the pressure on Trump as the select committee expands their dragnet to include even more of his former aides, but also for McCarthy, who now has one of his own staffers under investigation in an inquiry he cannot control.The select committee has so far held off issuing subpoenas to Republican members of Congress and their staff, but the subpoena to Jack raises the specter of him having to testify under oath about what he might have learned about McCarthy’s conduct on 5 and 6 January.McCarthy is expected to be of interest to House investigators scrutinizing what Trump was saying and doing as his supporters attacked the Capitol in order to stop Joe Biden’s certification, as he spoke directly to the former president as the riot unfolded.The House minority leader made a frantic phone call to Trump begging him to call off the rioters as they breached the Capitol, but Trump declined, scolding him that they cared more about overturning the 2020 election than Republicans in Congress.McCarthy, in his desperation, also spoke with senior White House adviser and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner to try and stop the attack after his pleas to Trump went unheeded, a former administration source said.The subpoena to Miller, meanwhile, may adversely affect his Trump-endorsed campaign to represent Ohio’s 13th congressional district, which leans Democratic and is expected to be a swing seat in the 2022 midterm elections.The select committee on Friday also issued four additional subpoenas to pro-Trump individuals connected to the rally: Kimberly Fletcher, the president of Moms for Trump, a rally participant, Brian Lewis, Ed Martin, and Bobby Peede.The total of six subpoenas issued by House investigators comes a day after the select committee held a marathon day of depositions with previously subpoenaed Trump officials, and won a major victory in court that paves the way for them to obtain Trump White House records.House investigators on Thursday deposed Trump lawyer John Eastman, who the Guardian reported led a team of operatives at the Willard hotel to stop Biden’s certification, former defense department aide Kash Patel, former US cyber chief Christopher Krebs, and Ali Alexander.The select committee also prevailed in a US federal appellate court decision handed down on Thursday that upheld that the panel should get Trump White House records from the National Archives over the objections of executive privilege advanced by the former president.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this 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Best of Enemies review – James Graham’s superb study of media and politicsYoung Vic, LondonDavid Harewood and Charles Edwards go head-to-head as William F Buckley Jr and Gore Vidal respectively in an enthralling play based on a 1968 TV debate James Graham specialises in pivotal political moments. This House recreated the parliamentary divisions leading to the Thatcher premiership in 1979, and Ink previewed the electoral significance of Rupert Murdoch’s 1969 takeover of the Sun newspaper.Best of Enemies examines another end-of-decade cusp: the TV debates on the ABC network during the 1968 US presidential nominating conventions, between mutually detesting American essayists: on the New Right, William F Buckley Jr and, on the New Left, Gore Vidal.In a play inspired by Morgan Neville and Robert Morgan’s 2015 documentary about the encounters, Graham suggests that these ideological antler-locking head-to-heads were influential on multiple levels – popularising bitter, unbridgeable gulfs between conservative and liberal America that still endure; making TV, rather than legislatures, the national debating chamber; and, through ABC’s Buckley-Vidal ratings triumph, creating a US peak-time triopoly – with NBC and CBS – lasting until the protagonist of Ink launched Fox News.At one very enjoyable level, Best of Enemies is – in the line of earlier Graham work and Peter Morgan’s Frost/Nixon – historical karaoke, recreating verbatim choice ideas and insults from the studio duels. The roar of complex thoughts and challenges to orthodoxy is so enthralling that it makes Radio 4’s Today programme sound like CBeebies.But Graham and director Jeremy Herrin (with characteristic pace and clarity) crucially give this media archaeology a contemporary framing. The most striking modernity is casting. Charles Edwards’ Vidal delivers a near-perfect soundalike and acceptable lookalike, while Buckley, who can be seen as the epitome of a privileged white right-winger, is portrayed by the black British actor David Harewood. He exactly captures every aspect – drawl, lolling posture, facial tics – of the Republican’s awkward broadcasting persona, except for one element in the room.As a means of equalising opportunity for actors, there is no reasonable argument against racially fluid casting. But in plays that aim elsewhere for photo-realism – the show’s Andy Warhol, Aretha Franklin and Bobby Kennedy reliably match the archives – audiences are asked to make an adjustment in how they visually read a production. When Buckley and the novelist James Baldwin are on stage together, white racism and African-American pride are simultaneously being represented by actors of colour.Apart from Harewood’s electrifying stage presence, a justification for this pictorial revisionism is that Buckley did experience a form of prejudice and institutional isolation; in a Republican party of entitled white Protestants, he was Roman Catholic. Vidal throws one jibe about the Vatican, but Graham might have made more of how the Democrat’s haughty disdain for his rival came from viewing him as a social and religious inferior and establishment interloper. Each man was, by the standards of the time, in the “wrong” party for his background: a political trend that has continued.As has another. A time-jumping epilogue suggests that the 1968 debates may have made televisual visibility such an asset to candidates that it led to hosts of Have I Got News for You? and the US version of The Apprentice running major democracies.Parts of the second half, set at the Democrat convention in Chicago, may seem over-familiar to viewers of Aaron Sorkin’s film The Trial of the Chicago 7, but Graham proves that he stands with Sorkin as our best dramatic interpreters of the interplay of media and politics.TopicsTheatreYoung VicJames GrahamDavid HarewoodGore VidalUS politicsreviewsReuse this content More

Biden faces vaccine mandate pushback from own party despite support of scientistsTwo Democratic senators push back against president’s rules for large businesses as cases continue to rise in the US Two Democratic senators have resisted Joe Biden’s vaccine-or-test mandate for large businesses, illustrating problems the US president faces even within a faction of his own party, despite having the support of scientists and public health experts.The US Senate on Wednesday evening voted to overturn the mandate as new cases and hospitalizations continue rising in the country.Why doesn’t Biden mail free Covid tests to all Americans? | Ross BarkanRead moreThe West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, who co-sponsored the bill, and Montana’s Senator Jon Tester crossed Democratic party lines to vote yes and join 50 Republicans in their political opposition to the public health policy.The bill is seen as a largely symbolic gesture, since it would also need to pass the Democratic-led House and would probably be vetoed by Biden. The mandate was already put on hold by a federal appeals court, and the future of the mandates will likely be decided by courts, not lawmakers.But the vote showed the significant political problems Biden has faced in carrying out his public health policies to combat the pandemic. He has encountered virtually implacable Republican opposition – now joined by rebel Democrat senators – that has ranged from ideological concerns over how far government power can be exercised to fringe conspiracy theories and quack science.Manchin, who is vaccinated and boosted, said the rule represents federal overreach, which is why he co-sponsored the bill.“It is not the place of the federal government to tell private business owners how to protect their employees from Covid-19 and operate their businesses,” he said in a statement, nonetheless urging “every West Virginian and American to get vaccinated to protect themselves and their loved ones”.West Virginia, which has the third-highest rate of deaths from Covid in the country, and Montana, where some health systems instituted crisis standards of care, have suffered devastating surges throughout the pandemic. Half of all West Virginians and half of eligible Montanans are fully vaccinated, both lower than the national average.Public health experts fear the mandates, and political opposition to them, have further cemented the politicization of health policies.West Virginia has joined other states in suing to undermine the mandates for large businesses and government contractors, both of which have been blocked by federal courts. Governor Jim Justice has said there’s “no chance” vaccines will be mandated in West Virginia schools.“The data is very clear that mandates work,” Christopher Martin, a physician and professor at the West Virginia University School of Public Health, said. “I don’t know of any other measure right now that would get more people vaccinated other than requiring them to do so.”There is a long precedent of strong vaccination requirements in workplaces and schools in West Virginia and around the country.But concerns over the Covid vaccines combined with political polarization have “unintended consequences” because “people are mistrustful of governments”, Martin said. The opposition is not based on public health concerns but on civil liberties and other arguments.“That starting point of not wanting the vaccine in the first place again arises from this broad and inherent mistrust in institutions,” he said. “People perceived these institutions to fail them.”In West Virginia, widespread job losses over the past several decades have eroded trust in the government. The vaccine mandates expose larger societal rifts, Martin said. “Vaccinations in particular in this current climate have really exploded the problems that we have in our society.”Officials, including in public health, “need to begin the exercise of restoring trust”, Martin said.In the meantime, vaccine mandates will work like seatbelt laws once did, gradually becoming the norm, he said. “It improves compliance, but it takes a long time.”The US is now seeing an average of more than 119,000 new Covid cases and 1,700 deaths every day.TopicsJoe BidenDemocratsJoe ManchinUS politicsCoronavirusVaccines and immunisationnewsReuse this content More

A week after Stacey Abrams announced she was running for Georgia governor again, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Oliver Laughland about why the southern state is shaping up to be one of the most interesting to pay attention to for the 2022 midterm elections

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Archive: NBC, CNN, WSB-TV, ABC. Read Oliver Laughland’s work in Louisiana Send your questions and feedback to [email protected]. Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts. More

New York City’s noncitizens will soon be allowed to vote in local elections A measure approved Thursday makes it the largest city to open the ballot box to its 800,000 green card holders and Dreamers New York City could soon become the largest city in the US to give noncitizens the right to vote in local elections, a historic move that would open the ballot box to 800,000 green card holders and Dreamers.The city council approved the measure on Thursday. Only a potential veto from mayor Bill de Blasio stands in the way of the measure becoming law, but the Democrat has said he would not veto it.The council’s vote was a breakthrough moment for an effort that had long languished. Councilman Francisco Moya, whose family hails from Ecuador, choked up as he spoke in support of the bill.New Yorkers reject expanded voting access in stunning resultRead more“This is for my beautiful mother who will be able to vote for her son,” said Moya, while joining the session by video with his immigrant mother at his side.Legally documented, voting-age noncitizens comprise nearly one in nine of the city’s 7 million voting-age inhabitants. The measure would allow noncitizens who have been lawful permanent residents of the city for at least 30 days, as well as those authorized to work in the US, including Dreamers, the children of undocumented immigrants, to help select the city’s mayor, city council members, borough presidents, comptroller and public advocate.“It is no secret, we are making history today. Fifty years down the line when our children look back at this moment they will see a diverse coalition of advocates who came together to write a new chapter in New York City’s history by giving immigrant New Yorkers the power of the ballot,” said councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez, a main sponsor of the bill, after Thursday’s vote.More than a dozen communities across the United States already allow noncitizens to cast ballots in local elections, including 11 towns in Maryland and two in Vermont. But New York City is the largest place by far to give voting rights to noncitizens.Noncitizens still wouldn’t be able to vote for president or members of Congress in federal races, or in the state elections that pick the governor, judges and legislators. The city’s move is likely to enflame an already contentious debate over voting rights. Last year, Alabama, Colorado and Florida adopted rules that would preempt any attempts to pass laws like the one in New York City. Arizona and North Dakota already had prohibitions on the books.“The bill we’re doing today will have national repercussions,” said the council’s majority leader, Laurie Cumbo, a Democrat who opposed the bill. She expressed concern that the measure could diminish the influence of African American voters.Noncitizens wouldn’t be allowed to vote until elections in 2023.It’s unclear whether the bill might face legal challenges. City councilman Joseph Borelli, the Republican leader, said such a challenge is likely. Opponents say the council lacks the authority on its own to grant voting rights to noncitizens and should have first sought action by state lawmakers.TopicsNew YorkUS voting rightsUS immigrationUS politicsDream ActnewsReuse this content More

Court rules Trump cannot block release of documents to Capitol attack panelThe former president is expected to appeal the ruling to the supreme court An appeals court has ruled against former US president Donald Trump’s effort to shield documents from the House committee that is investigating the 6 January attack on Capitol in Washington DC earlier this year.Trump is expected to appeal to the supreme court.More details to comeTopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsLaw (US)news More