US Politics

US CongressThe US government avoided a shutdown – but what happens next?The Senate and House passed a bill to keep the government funded through 3 December – now the US must raise the debt ceiling David Smith in Washington@ More

AbortionCori Bush and other congresswomen share personal abortion storiesThree Democrats – Bush, Barbara Lee and Pramila Jayapal – spoke before House oversight committee hearing on reproductive rights Gloria Oladipo@ More

Fight to voteTexasRepublicans are about to lose Texas – so they’re changing the rulesFor years, Fort Bend county was a Republican bastion, but recently it has become more politically competitive as local organizers work against gerrymandering

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The fight to vote is supported byAbout this contentSam Levine in New YorkThu 30 Sep 2021 10.00 EDTLast modified on Thu 30 Sep 2021 11.45 EDTSign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterHappy Thursday,A few months ago, on the verge of the once-a-decade redistricting cycle, my editors and I started brainstorming how I could best write about the partisan manipulation of the boundaries for electoral districts – known as gerrymandering.Over the last few years, there’s been a growing awareness of what gerrymandering is and how it undermines people’s votes. But the process can be complex and confusing. We sought to find stories that would make gerrymandering tangible. What are the kinds of places that are going to get gerrymandered this year? And what are the consequences for communities that get carved up for political gain?Yesterday we published a story focused on Fort Bend county, Texas, which is just outside of Houston, that gets at both of these questions. I chose Fort Bend because it’s a place that almost perfectly encapsulates the political and demographic changes happening across the country. The county has exploded in population over the last decade, growing almost 40%, and it is extremely diverse, split nearly evenly between white, Black, Asian and Hispanic people. For years, the county was a Republican bastion, but recently it has become more politically competitive. Democrats flipped several seats at the county level in 2018, the same year Beto O’Rourke carried it in his failed US Senate run. Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden also won the county.embedNabila Mansoor, a local organizer, told me it was exasperating to work against the wall of Republican gerrymandering. She pointed to two recent elections that Democrats lost in gerrymandered districts that she thought they should have been able to win. And it’s hard to get people to pay attention.“Trying to get the community to get really into this fight that is really kind of a political fight for our future has really been a kind of tough sell. No matter how hard we work. No matter how many voters we get out, no matter how hard we work, no matter how many new voters we get into the fold, that really our vote doesn’t count,” she said.Earlier this month, I spent a few hours one afternoon going door-to-door registering voters with Cynthia Ginyard, the energetic chair of the local Democratic party chairwoman. With a flood of new people moving in, Ginyard has made it a personal mission to make her party as inclusive as possible.“People ask me what’s my magic secret and I say ‘open my arms’,” Ginyard said as she bounded up the doorway of one house. “When I have functions and I have meetings, and everyone in the room is Black, I’ve got a problem. Because that is not Fort Bend.”embedDespite all of the change, almost everyone I spoke with recognized that Republicans would probably reconfigure the district lines this year to help them hold on to power. I was taken aback when Dave Wasserman, a senior editor at the Cook Political Report, told me that Republicans could transform the 22nd congressional district in Fort Bend from one that Trump won by about 1 percentage point in 2020 to one that he would have won by more than 20 points. Republicans, he said, could just cut out the most Democratic parts of the county and lump them in with already-Democratic districts in Houston. They would then probably replace those voters with Trump-friendly rural voters elsewhere. “That’s pretty easy to do,” he told me.On Monday, Republicans unveiled a congressional plan that does exactly that. Their proposed plan excises Democratic-leaning areas near Sugar Land and attaches two counties that voted overwhelmingly for Trump to the 22nd congressional district. If the 2020 election were run under the new boundaries, Trump would have carried the district by 16 points, according to Planscore, a tool that evaluates the partisan fairness of districts.Non-white voters accounted for 95% of the population growth in Texas over the last decade the census found. But the congressional map Republicans unveiled on Monday actually has one less Hispanic majority district (the current one has eight) and zero Black-majority districts (the current one has one).The Fort Bend county Republican party didn’t respond to multiple interview requests, but I spoke to Wayne Thompson, a Republican who served as an elected constable in the county, to better understand how the politics were changing. “I think the party as a whole did not reach out to people maybe that talked different than we did and looked a little different than we did. I don’t think that’s a prejudice thing. I think that’s just a severe error,” he said.Also worth watching …
A partisan review of the 2020 election in Arizona failed to produce any evidence of fraud. Conspiracy theorists aren’t backing down and several other states are embracing similar partisan reviews.
Michigan Republicans are moving ahead with a petition drive to go around the state’s Democratic governor and enact new voting restrictions.
Please continue to write to me each week with your questions about voting rights at [email protected] or DM me on Twitter at @srl and I’ll try to answer as many as I can.TopicsTexasFight to voteUS politicsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

OpinionUS politicsArizona’s recount didn’t find more Trump votes. But Republicans got what they wantedDavid LittThe sham audit actually increased Biden’s vote. But Arizona Republicans’ goal was never to overturn the last election – it was to lay the groundwork for overturning the next one Thu 30 Sep 2021 09.32 EDTLast modified on Thu 30 Sep 2021 10.39 EDT“Humiliation.” “Embarrassment.” “Trump a Bigger Loser than First Thought.”Last week, the Arizona Republicans’ sham election “audit” ended with a whimper rather than a bang. Launched in April to help Donald Trump legitimize his false claims of voter fraud, the review of Phoenix-area ballots was – even by its own low standards – an incompetent mess. For months, would-be sleuths chased bizarre conspiracy theories, wasted taxpayer dollars and compromised private voter information. When the results were finally announced last week, they revealed that Joe Biden had not only won Arizona, but had in fact won it by an even larger margin than previously reported.Not exactly what big lie believers were hoping for.But the majority of Americans, those who reject the big lie, shouldn’t celebrate just yet. While the sham audit failed to substantiate Trump’s false fraud claims, Arizona Republicans’ goal was never really to overturn the last election – it was to lay the groundwork for overturning the next one. And it still may do just that.To understand why the Arizona “audit” remains so dangerous to American democracy despite its lackluster results, it’s important to recognize that after leaving office, Trump and his fellow big liars have been far less interested in looking for evidence of non-existent fraud than in sowing doubt about our general system of elections. By that standard, the audit was far from a failure. Nearly a year after their state’s vote was first counted, Arizona Republicans were able to use the pretext of protecting “election integrity” to avoid fully conceding defeat. In doing so, they undermined a central element of the peaceful transfer of power – the idea that the losers of elections acknowledge the winners’ legitimacy.At the same time, the Arizona Republican party’s fake election audit could undermine the credibility of real ones. Audits are an important tool for election officials – they help us understand the electorate and identify administrative issues, such as long lines, that can reduce access to the ballot. Most states conduct audits, and they’re one reason that, contrary to Trump and his allies’ wild claims, election fraud is extremely rare and difficult to get away with.Impartially conducted recounts play a similarly important role in extremely close elections – and historically, the votes initially left uncounted are disproportionately cast by younger or more sporadic voters, who tend to support Democrats. If a close race results in a recount in 2022, or if a Trump-affiliated election official commits fraud on Republicans’ behalf, the Republican party will probably point to Democrats’ condemnation of the Arizona “audit” to attempt to delegitimize any genuine effort to protect the integrity of elections.Finally, the Arizona audit has revealed that yet another norm of American democracy is supported by nothing more than both parties’ good faith. A year ago, despite then President Trump’s barrage of false fraud claims, it would have been hard to imagine that one of our two political parties could spend millions of taxpayer dollars attacking its own election and face no consequences whatsoever. Yet that’s where we are today.It’s no surprise, then, that Republican elected officials are pushing the envelope even further. Some Arizona Republicans are demanding even more taxpayer-funded audits, and Republican politicians outside the state are demanding equally spurious “audits” of their own. In Colorado, a county election clerk is suspected of going one step further, helping accomplices break into her own office to steal voter data for a vigilante ballot review. Across the country, volunteer election workers are facing unprecedented harassment and even death threats, just for doing their jobs.Morally speaking, it’s reprehensible that Trump and his Republican allies have doubled down on the big lie. As a practical matter, however, why would they stop now? If their strategy works, they might be able to hold on to power without having to worry about voters or elections. And if their strategy fails, there so far appears to be no cost to them.There would, however, be an enormous cost to America. There is now a new norm in US politics: if Republicans lose a close election, they will not recognize the winner until they are, by whatever arbitrary metrics they come up with, satisfied with the integrity of the result. We are careening toward a system of government in which elections are never settled and politicians are allowed to keep competing for power long after the final results are in. In such a system of government, politicians like Donald Trump would be free to seek power through means other than elections – and after 6 January, it’s not hard to imagine what form those means might be.But it’s not too late to turn Arizona’s sham audit into the spectacular failure that Donald Trump and his fellow big liars deserve. Democrats should not hesitate to tie the sham audit’s supporters directly to the violence of 6 January and to make it clear how much their reckless crusade cost taxpayers. Right now, Republican politicians undermine confidence in our elections because they think it will help them maintain power; if the incentives change, their behavior will, too.The Biden administration can also do its part to ensure that undermining elections comes with consequences. The Department of Justice should never be used as a political weapon – but if politicians commit federal crimes in an effort to overturn a fair and free election, they should be fully prosecuted. To do anything less would be to suggest that elected officials are above the law. Lawmakers can discourage sham audits by making it a crime to knowingly spread false election information, while local election officials can do more to publish their audit and recount rules in advance, drawing a clear distinction between genuine election-protection measures and the kind of dangerous political stunts embraced by Trump and his Republican allies.Ultimately, however, the single most important thing we can do in the face of an unprecedented threat to democracy is resist the temptation to ignore it. Republican politicians failed to overturn an election this time around, but they certainly don’t seem embarrassed. On the contrary, democracy’s opponents are acting more brazen than ever, and appear more confident that next time they’ll succeed. It’s up to us to take them seriously – and in doing so, to prove them wrong.
David Litt is an American political speechwriter and New York Times bestselling author of Thanks Obama, and Democracy In One Book Or Less. He edits How Democracy Lives, a newsletter on democracy reform
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Climate crimesCoalJoe Manchin, America’s climate decider-in-chief, is a coal baron Mark HertsgaardThe pivotal Democratic senator owns millions of dollars in coal stocks. Shouldn’t he recuse himself from US climate talks? Supported byAbout this contentThu 30 Sep 2021 06.00 EDTLast modified on Thu 30 Sep 2021 13.52 EDTJoe Manchin has never been this famous. People around the world now know that the West Virginia Democrat is the essential 50th vote in the US Senate that president Joe Biden needs to pass his agenda into law. That includes Biden’s climate agenda. Which doesn’t bode well for defusing the climate emergency, given Manchin’s longstanding opposition to ambitious climate action.It turns out that the Senator wielding this awesome power – America’s climate decider-in-chief, one might call him – has a massive climate conflict of interest. Joe Manchin, investigative journalism has revealed, is a modern-day coal baron.Financial records detailed by reporter Alex Kotch for the Center for Media and Democracy and published in the Guardian show that Manchin makes roughly half a million dollars a year in dividends from millions of dollars of coal company stock he owns. The stock is held in Enersystems, Inc, a company Manchin started in 1988 and later gave to his son, Joseph, to run.The Democrat blocking progressive change is beholden to big oil. Surprised? | Alex KotchRead moreCoal has been the primary driver of global warming since coal began fueling the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain 250 years ago. Today, the science is clear: coal must be phased out, starting immediately and around the world, to keep the 1.5C target within reach.Scientists estimate that 90% of today’s coal reserves must be left in the ground. No new coal-fired power plants should be built. Existing plants should quickly shift to solar and wind, augmented by reducing electricity demand with better energy efficiency in buildings and machinery (which also saves money and produces more jobs).This is not a vision that gladdens a coal baron’s heart. The idea of eliminating fossil fuels is “very, very disturbing”, Manchin said in July when specifics of Biden’s climate agenda surfaced. Behind the scenes, Manchin reportedly has objected to Biden’s plan to penalize electric utilities that don’t quit coal as fast as science dictates.The White House is not selling it this way, but the huge budget bill now under feverish negotiations on Capitol Hill is as much as anything a climate bill. The clean electricity performance program and other measures in this budget reconciliation bill are the core of Biden’s plan to slash US climate pollution in half by 2030, a reduction science says is necessary to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C and avoid cataclysmic climate change.Apparently keen to delay a vote on the bill – but not on the bipartisan infrastructure bill containing billions in subsidies for climate harming programs like making hydrogen from methane – Manchin asked on CNN, “What is the urgency?” of passing the larger bill. Like ExxonMobil, the senator appears to have jettisoned outright climate denial in favor of its more presentable, but no less lethal, cousin: climate delay.Soon Biden will join other world leaders at the Cop26 UN climate summit in Glasgow, described as a “now or never” moment for efforts to preserve a livable planet. Biden and his international climate envoy, John Kerry, have been leaning on other nations, especially China, to step up their commitments. But Biden can only press that case successfully in Glasgow if Congress passes the budget bill, and with its climate provisions intact.That will depend in no small part on Manchin, who as the Democrats’ 50th vote in the Senate now holds what amounts to veto power over US climate policy.It’s not illegal for Senator Manchin to own millions of dollars of coal stock – indeed, it illustrates the old saw that the real scandal in Washington is what’s legal – but it certainly raises questions about his impartiality on climate policy. Should any lawmaker with such a sizable financial conflict of interest wield decisive influence over what the US government does about a life-and-death issue like the climate emergency? Shouldn’t there be public discussion about whether that lawmaker should recuse himself from such deliberations?In the realm of law, a judge who had anything like this level of financial conflict in a case would have to recuse and let a different judge handle the proceedings. The legal profession’s code of ethics dictates this approach not only because a judge’s financial interest would tempt them to rule in their own favor. It’s also because the two parties litigating the case and the broader public could not have faith that justice had been done by a judge with such a conflict.Why shouldn’t a similar standard apply to the American public’s faith in government policy, especially when what’s at stake is, you know, the future of life on earth? Manchin could still vote for the budget bill; he just couldn’t touch its climate provisions.Joe Manchin is surrounded by a gaggle of reporters whenever he steps outside his Senate office, and he frequently appears on the agenda-setting Sunday morning TV shows. With votes on the budget bill fast approaching and the Glasgow summit starting 31 October, it’s high time that journalists press America’s climate decider-in-chief about his glaring conflict of interest – and why he shouldn’t step aside from US climate deliberations.This story is published as part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of news outlets strengthening coverage of the climate story. Mark Hertsgaard is Covering Climate Now’s executive directorTopicsCoalClimate crimesUS politicsClimate changeEnergyFossil fuelscommentReuse this content More

RepublicansTop Republicans rub shoulders with extremists in secretive rightwing group, leak reveals Wealthy entrepreneurs and media moguls also named on membership list for influential Council for National PolicyJason Wilson@ More

WomenSex, power and humiliation: eight lessons women learned from Monica Lewinsky’s shaming She was a 22-year-old intern, he was the most powerful man in the world – yet everyone blamed her for their affair. As the story is retold in a new drama, this is what that vicious period taught usZoe Williams@ More

DemocratsDemocrats barrel toward make-or-break vote as crucial 24 hours beginsWhite House admits talks ‘precarious’ as series of legislative and fiscal deadlines loom for Biden’s $1tn public works measure Lauren Gambino in Washington@ More