US Politics

Sign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterTexas Republicans are at the vanguard of a national push to curtail voting rights, with lawmakers targeting the voters and policies that helped Democrats make inroads in the 2020 election.Texas legislators have introduced 49 bills restricting voting access, far more than any other state, even as major Texas-based corporations such as American Airlines express fervent opposition.The sweeping provisions could deal an outsized blow to low-income residents, people with disabilities, city dwellers and Texans of color, many of whom belong to diverse, youthful cohorts whose political views spell trouble for the GOP.And, in a twist that differentiates Texas from other states such as Georgia and Arizona that have instituted or are planning voting restrictions, some of the proposals impose extreme penalties on people who make even innocuous missteps.“When you make making a mistake on a voter registration application a second-degree felony, that’s the equivalent of arson and aggravated kidnapping,” said Sarah Labowitz, policy and advocacy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.Conservative politicians have tried to justify the rollback by hiding behind Donald Trump’s claim that last year’s presidential contest was stolen – despite a complete lack of evidence, and even though their party won handily in Texas.Allegations of widespread voter fraud have almost become a “litmus test” among Texas Republicans, said Juan Carlos Huerta, a professor of political science at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi.Conservatives’ political futures could hinge on whether their base believes they are cracking down on the non-issue. And, as a new generation of voters comes of age, the specious talking point provides cover for politicians who can see that their party’s prospects may be dimming.Although Republicans maintained their ironclad grip on Texas last year, Trump’s margin of victory in the presidential race winnowed to less than six points, from a nine-point lead four years earlier. Democrats also gained significant ground during the 2018 midterm elections, when former representative Beto O’Rourke lost his Senate bid to incumbent Ted Cruz by fewer than 215,000 votes.The state’s current officeholders know they will not be able to get re-elected on the issues alone, so they are moving the goalpost, said Claudia Yoli Ferla, executive director of civic engagement non-profit Move Texas.“These legislators are seeing the writing on the wall, and they’re scared of the power of young people. They’re scared to have the true voices of our communities reflected,” Yoli Ferla said.Already Texas subjects its residents to a byzantine electoral system, giving it a reputation as thehardest place to vote in the US. Voters do not have access to same-day registration, and they can only register online if they are simultaneously updating their driver’s license.Then, at the ballot box, hardline documentation requirements honor handgun licenses as a form of accepted identification, but not student IDs. Mail-in voting is so limited that last fall, voters were forced to gather in long lines, in-person, regardless of the coronavirus pandemic.But despite Texas’s legacy of voter suppression, large, Democratic counties – most notably Houston’s Harris county – came up with innovative approaches to expand access to the polls last year. For instance, Harris county implemented 24-hour and drive-thru polling sites, while the local election administrator tried to send mail-in ballot applications to every registered voter.Instead of lauding those solutions, Republicans fought them hard. Now, the state’s leaders are working to ensure they are not an option for future elections.“Whether it’s the unauthorized expansion of mail-in ballots, or the unauthorized expansion of drive-thru voting, we must pass laws to prevent election officials from jeopardizing the election process,” said the Texas governor, Greg Abbott.In February, while Trump’s national defeat was still fresh, Abbott designated so-called “election integrity” as one of five emergency items for the legislature. As of late last month, Texas was leading the charge among 47 total states that had introduced 361 bills restricting the vote, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.One Texas bill would do away with drive-through polling places, allow partisan poll watchers to electronically record voters, and set limits on early voting hours.Another could consolidate voter registration responsibilities under the secretary of state, sidelining local governments.Yet another would dangle felony charges over basic activities, such as public servants proactively distributing applications to vote by mail.Texas is already known for criminalizing the ballot box, especially among communities of color. Under the state’s current attorney general, Ken Paxton, at least 72% of prosecutions by the so-called election integrity unit have targeted Black and Latino residents, according to the ACLU of Texas.Those severe penalties cause confusion and can have chilling effects on would-be voters. In the border community of Brownsville, people fear they can’t legally vote for reasons that should not be disqualifying, such as their family’s immigration status, said Ofelia Alonso, a regional field manager for youth organizers at Texas Rising Action.“It’s already such a hostile environment for folks that want to participate in the process, but these restrictions would make it even harder,” Alonso said.In an ironic turn, the proposed reforms may inadvertently affect senior citizens, who are among the few demographics eligible to vote by mail, and whose bloc trends right.As the Texas legislative session ramps up, voting rights advocates and experts are especially concerned by two omnibus bills filled with restrictions, SB7 and HB6. Both are already advancing through the legislature.“It’s kind of difficult to be able to have a strategy on, like, how to target this,” said Alonso, “when we know that the majority of the Republicans in the Texas legislature are very shameless.”Unlike in Georgia, where backlash from corporations such as Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines came retroactively, the Texas bills have already become a lightning rod.“Free, fair, equitable access to voting is the foundation of American democracy,” Michael Dell, chief executive of Dell Technologies, tweeted in early April. “Those rights – especially for women, communities of color – have been hard-earned.“Governments should ensure citizens have their voices heard. HB6 does the opposite, and we are opposed to it.”American Airlines similarly came out against SB7, saying the company is “strongly opposed to this bill and others like it”.But, emboldened by victory in 2020, the state’s conservatives don’t seem to care. When corporate giants decried the bills for being anti-democratic, Abbott simply warned them to “stay out of politics”.“Their priority’s to stay in power, with whatever means necessary,” Alonso said. “And election fraud is a good fearmongering way to rile up their base and not have to come out and say what they’re doing are Jim Crow tactics.“They won’t say it, but we know what it is.” More

Across many US cities, there were scenes of jubilation after Derek Chauvin was found guilty for the murder of George Floyd. Crowds gathered outside the court room in Minneapolis as well as at the scene of George Floyd’s death. Loud cheering erupted from Floyd’s family members watching in an adjacent courthouse room. But the elation was tinged with wariness and concern that while justice was done for one Black person, it would not be enough by itself

‘Just the beginning’: joy and wariness as crowds celebrate Chauvin verdict
‘My brother got justice’: George Floyd’s family praises guilty verdict
‘The work continues’: Black Americans stress that police reform is still needed More

Addressing the nation on Tuesday evening, Joe Biden said the guilty verdict for the former Minneapolis police office Derek Chauvin was “a start”. But, he said, “in order to deliver real change and reform, we can and we must do more”.“Protests unified people of every race and generation in peace and with purpose to say enough,” Biden said. “Enough. Enough of the senseless killings. Today’s verdict is a step forward.“The guilty verdict does not bring back George,” he continued, noting that he had called the Floyd family after the news had come. “George’s legacy will not be just about his death, but about what we must do in his memory.”Many lawmakers and public figures celebrated the verdict while also calling for more to be done, echoing years-long demands by Black Lives Matter activists for systemic change.Cori Bush, the Black Lives Matter activist who was elected last year to represent Missouri in the US House of Representatives, said the verdict “is accountability, but it’s not yet justice.”Kamala Harris, who spoke before Biden, said the administration would work to help pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a bill that Harris – as a senator – introduced last summer along with Senator Cory Booker and Representative Karen Bass. “This bill is part of George Floyd’s legacy,” she said. “The president and I will continue to urge the Senate to pass this legislation, not as a panacea for every problem, but as a start. This work is long overdue.”Democratic lawmakers echoed Harris, while Republicans, who have obstructed the bill’s passage for nearly a year, remained largely silent.[embedded content]Bass, a Democrat of California, said she hoped the verdict today would re-energize efforts to pass the police reform bill into law. The bill passed the House this year with no Republican support – and it faces a major hurdle in the Senate, where Republicans are expected to block it with a filibuster.“We need to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and put it on President Biden’s desk,” she said, speaking with members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) on Capitol Hill. “Because that will be the first step to transforming policing.”In any case, she later told reporters, the Chauvin verdict “gives us hope” for some sort of policing bill. Bass has been in informal talks with Republican lawmakers to develop a bipartisan compromise and hopes a deal can be reached “by the time we hit the anniversary of George Floyd’s death” on 25 May, she told reporters.The rare guilty verdict came as a shock and a relief to many lawmakers and public figures. Following its announcement Bass hugged Gwen Moore, a Democratic representative of Wisconsin and fellow member of the CBC. “I was knocked off my feet,” Moore told Bass, as they embraced.Ilhan Omar, the US representative for Minneapolis, said the verdict represents a type of justice that feels “new and long overdue,” adding: “Alhamdulillah!”Remarks by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, however, raised some eyebrows. In an address from Capitol Hill, she said: “Thank you, George Floyd, for sacrificing your life for justice. For being there to call out to your mom, how heartbreaking was that, call out for your mom, ‘I can’t breathe,’” she said.As many listeners and watchers pointed out, Floyd didn’t choose to sacrifice himself or to be a martyr – he was killed.“I know someone wrote this for her. Someone else edited the draft. Most likely yet another person approved it. And then she said it,” said the writer Mikki Kendall. “This is a long trail of fail.”Barack Obama praised the efforts of Black Lives Matter activists and people around the world protested in the aftermath of Floyd’s killing.“As we continue the fight, we can draw strength from the millions of people – especially young people – who have marched and protested and spoken up over the last year, shining a light on inequity and calling for change,” Barack and Michelle Obama said in a joint statement. “Justice is closer today not simply because of this verdict, but because of their work.”In a call to Floyd’s family, Biden reiterated his promise to enact meaningful change. “We’re going to stay at it until we get it done,” he said. More

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Chauvin guilty of manslaughter

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Chauvin guilty of third-degree murder

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Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder

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Jurors reached verdict after nine hours of deliberations

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Verdict reached in Derek Chauvin murder trial

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At a press conference after Derek Chauvin’s guilty verdict was read, Keith Ellison, Minnesota Attorney General, has thanked the community for giving his prosecutors the opportunity to pursue the case. Ellison has emphasized, however, that more work must be done.
“I want to thank the community for giving us that time, and allowing us to do that work,” he says. “That long, hard, painstaking work has culminated today.”
“I would not call today’s verdict justice, however, because justice implies true restoration, but it is accountability—which is the first step towards justice.”
“George Floyd mattered,” he says. “He was loved by his family and his friends. His death shocked the conscience of our community, our country, the whole world,” Ellison also says. “But that isn’t why he mattered. He mattered because he was a human being.”
“This has to end, we need to justice,” Ellison later says.
“This verdict reminds us that we must make enduring enduring, systemic, societal change.”

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The Council on American-Islamic Relations’s Minnesota chapter has commented on Derek Chauvin’s guilty verdict.
Jaylani Hussein, CAIR Minnesota’s executive director, says in a statement: “We are encouraged by the jury’s decision to convict Derek Chauvin. It is by no means the end of our efforts to build a more just and equitable Minnesota and nation, but it is an important milestone on our journey and a step to healing deep, generational traumas.”
“While today’s verdict is encouraging, it does not diminish the urgency with which we must continue our efforts to combat the epidemic of police violence in our communities,” Hussein’s statement says. “George Floyd received justice today in that courtroom, now we must continue advocating for justice for all, everywhere: in the legislature, where we’re fighting to pass bills to increase police oversight and end qualified immunity, in our own communities, where we come together to heal and build trust and mutual understanding, and in the streets, where every day we are organizing, marching, and strengthening our movement.”
By the way, here’s a recap on what the charges meant:

The Recount
(@therecount)
Here’s a rundown of what the prosecution has to prove to convict Chauvin of three charges: pic.twitter.com/RbQnh4mXol

April 20, 2021

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We now have a pool report detailing the scene inside Judge Peter Cahill’s courtroom for the verdict in Derek Chauvin’s case.
Philonise Floyd, George Floyd’s brother, was sitting “with his head bowed and his hands folded in front of his face, perhaps in prayer,” prior to the reading of the verdict.
Cahill enters the courtroom around 4:04 pm local time. The jurors walk in, “all looking serious, none appearing teary,” per the pool report. As Cahill reads the verdict, which found Chauvin guilty on all counts, the former Minneapolis police officer “stares at the empty witness podium.”
Cahill ultimately thanks jurors for “heavy duty jury service” and they leave. Chauvin stands, hands “hands clasped behind his back.” When a deputy handcuffs Chauvin, he doesn’t resist.
Philonise Floyd hugs prosecutor Jerry Blackwell, Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison, and the other prosecutors, the pool report says.
Here is a tweet from Keith Boykin, which speaks for itself.

Keith Boykin
(@keithboykin)
Derek Chauvin handcuffed. pic.twitter.com/D0KoTJllE6

April 20, 2021

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The Guardian’s Lois Beckett is outside the Minneapolis courthouse where Judge Peter Cahill just announced a guilty verdict in Derek Chauvin’s murder case.
Beckett reports that the crowd has shouted “Guilty!” once news emerged. There have been huge cheers, with people shouting “Yes!”
The crowd has chanted “George Floyd!” and “all three counts!” People have been screaming and crying.
“Whose victory? Our victory” the crowd has chanted. Cars driving by have honked their horns in celebration.
“Don’t let anyone tell you protest doesn’t work,” a man has told the crowd through a bullhorn.

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The attorneys for George Floyd’s family have released statements following the conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
Attorney Ben Crump commented: “Painfully earned justice has arrived for George Floyd’s family and the community here in Minneapolis, but today’s verdict goes far beyond this city and has significant implications for the country and even the world. Justice for Black America is justice for all of America. This case is a turning point in American history for accountability of law enforcement and sends a clear message we hope is heard clearly in every city and every state.”
“Today’s verdict is so critical in that it not only holds Derek Chauvin accountable for his horrific actions, but it reinforces significant police reforms underway in Minneapolis including use-of-force reporting, a requirement to keep body-worn cameras on, and a policy for officers to de-escalate non-threatening encounters by disengaging or walking away. Now we call on Minnesota state lawmakers to pass ” said attorney Antonio M. Romanucci.
Attorney L. Chris Stewart said: “Today the world had its hope and faith restored in the American justice system. All that people crave is accountability when an officer kills a Black American. For far too long that had never happened. Now George Floyd’s soul can finally rest in peace. Justice has been served.”
Lawyer Jeff Storms similarly stated: “The impact of George Floyd’s death on Minneapolis is impossible to explain, but today’s verdict is an important step toward healing. The community here has struggled to create accountability for officers who have used excessive force over many years and too many lives and caused so much pain and suffering. This jury has sent a clear and direct message that this can never happen again.”

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Derek Chauvin was directed out of the courtroom in handcuffs moments after the guilty verdict was read in his murder case.

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Derek Chauvin has been remanded in the custody of the Hennepin County Sheriff.

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Chauvin guilty of manslaughter

Derek Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter.

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Chauvin guilty of third-degree murder

Derek Chauvin was found guilty of third-degree murder.

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Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder

Derek Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree unintentional murder.

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The judge in Derek Chauvin’s murder trial has taken the bench. We expect the verdict will be read momentarily. More

George W Bush has called the Republican party under Donald Trump “isolationist, protectionist and … nativist” – a judgment unlikely to make the former US president new friends on the American right.Bush, who is promoting a new book, spoke to NBC on Tuesday.Asked to describe the state of his party under Trump – who lost the Oval Office after one term but retains a firm grip on his party’s base – Bush said: “I would describe it as isolationist, protectionist and, to a certain extent, nativist.“It’s not exactly my vision as an old guy, but I’m just an old guy that’s put out to pasture.”Bush’s book is called Out of Many, One: Portraits of America’s Immigrants. He told NBC the country that includes the Latin for his kicker, E Pluribus Unum, on its great seal was “a beautiful country … and yet it’s not beautiful when we condemn, call people names and scare people about immigration”.Trump continues to do that, calling on his successor, Joe Biden, to restore his draconian policies while followers on the extreme right of the party discuss forming an “America First Caucus” based on “Anglo-Saxon political traditions”.Bush, the son of another president, is from a political dynasty about as Wasp (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) as it is possible to get. But Trump took down the former Florida governor Jeb Bush, the former president’s younger brother, in vicious fashion in 2016.George W Bush maintains friendly relations with former presidents including the Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and to some has come to present a more reasonable face of Republican politics.Others warn that progressives should not think too fondly of a man whose time in office included the invasion of Iraq and the bungled federal response to Hurricane Katrina.“I’m hoping there’ll be some pushback against this because I think it’s an absolute scandal that man should be rehabilitated and tarted up as in any way progressive,” Jackson Lears, a cultural historian, told the Guardian this week. More

Though his long political career did not warrant such a disaster, Walter Mondale, who has died aged 93, gained an unwelcome place in American political history. In 1984, challenging the incumbent president, Ronald Reagan, he won only 13 of the nation’s 538 electoral college votes, the worst defeat ever suffered by a Democratic presidential candidate. Only Alfred Landon had put in a worse performance: his 1936 Republican campaign against Franklin Roosevelt foundered with a mere eight of 531 electoral votes.Reagan’s performance in his televised debates with Mondale had revealed early signs of the former actor’s growing mental confusion, but he romped into his second term with 59% of the popular ballot and 525 electoral votes. Had Mondale not scraped a razor’s edge victory in his home state of Minnesota he would have become the nation’s all-time loser, winning only the three electoral votes of the irrepressibly Democratic District of Columbia.What Mondale did achieve, in addition to his productive years in state politics and the Senate, was to significantly redefine the difficult post of vice-president. His working relationship with President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981 set a pattern that helped his successors find a more meaningful role.As a presidential candidate, Mondale largely engineered his own defeat. Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro was the first female vice-presidential candidate from a major party, but lost credibility when her family finances eventually came under scrutiny. In his acceptance speech to the Democratic nominating convention in San Francisco, Mondale assured its 4,000 startled delegates that: “Mr Reagan will raise taxes and so will I. He won’t tell you: I just did.”To a nation basking in the sunshine politics and tax reductions of Reagan’s first four years, Mondale’s declaration was seen as an appalling blunder. It certainly had its impact on Reagan’s vice-president, already planning his own assault on the White House. Mondale’s gaffe prompted George HW Bush’s infamous sound bite of 1988: “Read my lips: no new taxes.”The plain talking that scuppered Mondale had deep roots. Born in Ceylon, in rural southern Minnesota, he was the son of Theodore, a Methodist minister whose own grandfather, Frederick Mundal, had come from Norway, and Claribel (nee Cowan), a part-time music teacher. Theodore’s annual stipend could not support a family, so Walter Frederick – universally known as Fritz – sought odd jobs to boost the family’s finances. He delivered newspapers, served in a local grocery and worked in a nearby canning factory checking harvested peas for lice.It was on this production line that his lifelong fascination with politics emerged. Jeopardising an already meagre contribution to the family income, he took part in a strike for better working conditions. His friends saw this increasing political involvement as a response to the excessive piety of his upbringing, though his parents imprinted their insistence on straight-dealing and absolute honesty.Mondale became fascinated with his state’s Byzantine politics in his teenage years. Local Democrats had split between rightwing supporters of President Harry Truman and leftwingers backing the maverick Henry Wallace, who intended to run against Truman in 1948. Wallace’s refusal to condemn that February’s Communist coup in Czechoslovakia turned Mondale against him, and he volunteered to undertake political work for the mayor of Minneapolis, Hubert Humphrey – an association that coloured Mondale’s political life.From Macalester College, St Paul, he went to the University of Minnesota, where he gained a degree in political science (1951). After two years’ army service he qualified for a government-subsidised course, and returned to the university to take a law degree. In 1955 he married Joan Adams, and the following year started in private practice. Since he had little interest in litigation, he immersed himself in Minnesota’s Democratic politics. At the age of 30 he was asked to manage the governor’s re-election campaign and, when Orville Freeman won by a thumping two-thirds majority, Mondale’s career prospects soared. Two years later, when the state’s attorney general unexpectedly retired, Freeman appointed Mondale to fill the post until the next election, making him the youngest person to hold that position in the US.Skulduggery in a local charity fortuitously thrust the new attorney general into the headlines, and this publicity continued as he evolved into a relentless legal activist, particularly on issues of consumer protection. When he faced the voters in November 1960 they confirmed him in office. His rigorous approach to law enforcement made him one of the most influential politicians in Minnesota and later within the wider Democratic party, an influence reinforced by his next re-election campaign.Mondale burst on to the national scene at the Democrats’ 1964 nominating convention through his adept handling of a serious rebellion by southern Democrats opposed to President Lyndon Johnson’s civil rights platform. When Johnson then picked Humphrey, by now a senator for Minnesota, as his running mate, Mondale was designated by the state’s governor to complete Humphrey’s Senate term. The choice was vigorously confirmed by the electorate in 1966.The complexities of the Johnson presidency soon coiled round Mondale. Over the years Humphrey had become his political mentor and idol, so the new senator arrived in Washington with a deep sense of loyalty towards his predecessor. Mondale had no problem supporting the administration’s civil rights reforms, but the widening war in Vietnam and its poisonous impact on domestic politics left him squirming.As the chasm expanded in the Democratic party and in the country, Mondale havered. “Tragic and disheartening as this problem is,” he said to one antiwar group, “I still think our policy is better than any of the alternatives.” He later acknowledged that his stance had been the greatest mistake of his political career.Meanwhile, he dodged round the issue by concentrating on civil rights, choosing at one point to guide the administration’s Fair Housing bill through the Senate, though it had twice been rejected by Congress. In what the New York Times described as “a stunning victory for a tiny band of scrappy liberals”, Mondale doggedly forced the legislation on to the statute book. His efforts were recognised by being asked to manage what turned out to be Humphrey’s calamitous 1968 presidential campaign.In the wake of Robert Kennedy’s assassination, that year’s Democratic convention in Chicago was a disaster, featuring nightly television pictures of antiwar rioters being brutally attacked by local police. Humphrey himself was indelibly stained by his support for the war, and the governor of Alabama, George Wallace, continued the southern Democrats’ anti-civil rights revolt by running as a third party candidate. Richard Nixon narrowly won the White House with 301 electoral college votes.Mondale publicly renounced his support for the war and concentrated on domestic issues. After a three-year legislative battle over federal court orders that pupils be transported to distant schools to secure racial balance, he had to give up in the face of a white backlash.The Democrats’ continuing disarray was further demonstrated by their choice of an ultra-liberal, George McGovern, as the party’s 1972 presidential candidate. Mondale declined McGovern’s invitation to join the ticket.He seemed destined to spend the rest of his political life in the Senate until the Watergate scandal forced Nixon’s resignation. President Gerald Ford’s blanket pardon of his patron generated a countrywide revulsion and, in this far more propitious climate, Mondale accepted Carter’s offer of the 1976 vice-presidential slot. They squeezed into office by a mere two per cent of the popular vote, clear warning that they still had to prove themselves.Far more experienced in national politics than the new president, Mondale argued that the vice-president should have a wide-ranging and independent advisory role. To be effective he should receive all intelligence and other significant information sent to the president. Carter agreed and extended the vice-president’s role to become second-in-command of America’s nuclear arsenal. The two also arranged to hold weekly meetings to review administration policies. It might have worked splendidly had Carter been a better president, but his wavering policies and the increasing tensions they created among members of Congress became insuperable. Years later Mondale commented that: “Carter lost confidence in his ability to lead public opinion. He told me once that people no longer listened to what he had to say.” So, for all Mondale’s effort to appease members of Congress, the administration lurched from one crisis to another.The overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979 and the revolutionary regime’s seizure of American embassy staff in Tehran sounded the death knell of Carter’s presidency. It was already in steep decline when a military attempt to rescue the diplomatic hostages went disastrously wrong. Reagan cantered into the White House.Four years later, Mondale’s own bid to remove him was probably doomed from the outset. He hated campaigning on television, which he thought too shallow for serious politics, and was a stiff and unconvincing performer in a medium that Reagan had effortlessly mastered.Mondale was also unlucky. On a trip to Philadelphia his frustrated staff finally persuaded him to highlight local unemployment by chatting onscreen to a young couple. “I understand you lost your job,” Mondale said encouragingly to the wife. “Oh yes,” she responded brightly, “but I got a new one that’s even better.” The chagrined loser lay low for some time before returning to his legal practice in 1987.In 1993 President Bill Clinton appointed him ambassador to Japan – a well-established perquisite for defeated politicians of both parties. When he returned from Tokyo three years later, at the age of 68, he seemed bound for a comfortable retirement.However, in the 2002 election he was dramatically summoned to the party colours. Eleven days before polling Minnesota’s senior senator, Paul Wellstone, his wife, daughter and five campaign staff were killed in a plane crash. Since the Minnesota result could determine control of the Senate, local Democrats persuaded a reluctant Mondale to stand in Wellstone’s place. Incredibly, and to Mondale’s horror, the party hierarchy then turned the family’s memorial service into a campaign rally, a disastrous miscalculation condemned across the state.Mondale lost the election by a two per cent margin – the only time he was ever defeated in Minnesota. It was none of his doing and a sadly bitter note on which to exit from public life. In 2018 Carter and other leading figures joined him to celebrate his 90th birthday.His daughter, Eleanor, died in 2011, and Joan died in 2014. He is survived by his sons, Theodore and William, and four grandchildren. More

After Republicans launched a long-shot attempt to censure and expel Maxine Waters from Congress over comments on the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, which the judge said could provide grounds for appeal, the veteran California progressive stayed defiant.“I am not worried that they’re going to continue to distort what I say,” Waters, 82, told the Grio. “This is who they are and this is how they act. And I’m not going to be bullied by them.”Chauvin, a former police officer, is on trial in Minneapolis for murder, after he knelt on George Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes in May last year. As the world awaits a verdict, tensions are high in the city.On Tuesday, comments by Joe Biden also attracted attention. At the White House, the president told reporters he was “praying the verdict is the right verdict, which is, I think … it’s overwhelming, in my view”.Waters, who is African American, has served in Congress since 1991. She has a long record of campaigning for civil rights and confronting political opponents in blunt terms, in some quarters earning the nickname Kerosene Maxine.Long a favorite target of Republicans, she attractedfocused ire in 2018, when she said Trump aides and officials should be confronted by the public. Last week, she told the hard-right Republican congressman Jim Jordan to “shut your mouth” during a hearing with Dr Anthony Fauci, the White House medical adviser.She spoke to the media on Saturday during a protest in Brooklyn Center, the Minneapolis suburb where police shot dead a 20-year-old Black man, Daunte Wright, earlier this month.Waters said she hoped Chauvin would be found “guilty, guilty, guilty”.If Chauvin was acquitted, she said, “we’ve got to stay on the street, and we’ve got to get more active. We’ve got to get more confrontational. We’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business.”[embedded content]Republicans were quick to accuse Waters of inciting violence as, they said, Democrats accused Donald Trump of doing before the 6 January Capitol riot.The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy – who voted against impeaching Trump over the Capitol attack, which resulted in five deaths – said on Monday he would introduce a resolution censuring Waters for what he deemed “dangerous comments”.“This weekend in Minnesota, Maxine Waters broke the law by violating curfew and then incited violence,” McCarthy tweeted.In a co-ordinated attack, the Florida representative María Elvira Salazar said Waters had “a long history of inciting unrest and supporting dictators who use violence to get what they want”. The Texas representative August Pfluger called her rhetoric “outrageous and shameful”.Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Georgia Republican and conspiracy theorist who has expressed support for executing prominent Democrats and FBI agents, said she would try to expel Waters, whom she called “a danger to our society”.Greene claimed Waters “incited Black Lives Matter domestic terrorists”, following a shooting in which two Minnesota national guard members sustained minor injuries.The Chauvin trial is at the center of national dialogue. On Tuesday Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, told NBC he had received a call from Biden.The president, he said, “was just calling. He knows how it is to lose a family member. And he knows that the process of what we’re going through so he was just letting us know that he was praying for us, and hoping that everything would come out to be OK.”Later, at the White House, Biden told reporters: “I can only imagine the pressure and the anxiety they’re feeling. They’re a good family, and they’re calling for peace and tranquility.”The president added: “I’m praying the verdict is the right verdict, which is, I think … it’s overwhelming, in my view. I wouldn’t say that, lest the jury was sequestered now and not hear me say that.”The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said Biden was “moved” by his conversations with the Floyd family. Biden was “certainly not looking to influence” the outcome of the trial by commenting, she said, adding: “I don’t think he would see it as weighing in on the verdict … regardless of the outcome, the president has consistently called for peace.”Waters’ words were raised in the courtroom in Minneapolis on Monday when defense attorneys motioned for a mistrial because of them. Judge Peter Cahill denied the motion but also expressed frustration, saying Waters had been “disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch”.Cahill also told the defense: “I’ll give you that Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned.”But Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, defended Waters, saying she did not need to apologize.“Maxine talked about ‘confrontation’ in the manner of the civil rights movement,” Pelosi said. More