US Politics

Global business leaders launched a campaign on Thursday declaring their opposition to the death penalty, urging governments everywhere to end the practice and asking their peers to join them.Speaking to the virtual South by Southwest festival, Sir Richard Branson, one of the campaign’s leaders, said: “The death penalty is broken beyond repair and plainly fails to deliver justice by every reasonable measure. It is marred by cruelty, waste, ineffectiveness, discrimination and an unacceptable risk of error.“By speaking out at this crucial moment, business leaders have an opportunity to help end this inhumane and flawed practice.”Initial signatories of Business Against Death Penalty include billionaires fashion mogul François-Henri Pinault and telecoms tycoon Mo Ibrahim, Ben & Jerry founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Martha Lane Fox, tech entrepreneur and Twitter board member and Arianna Huffington, co-founder of the Huffington Post.The campaign is being coordinated by the Responsible Business Initiative for Justice, a nonprofit human rights group led by Celia Ouellette, a former death row lawyer. “This campaign is an opportunity for business leaders to embrace their responsibility to speak out authentically on issues of racial and social justice in a way that delivers real impact.”Ouellette said in the light of the business communities support for Black Lives Matter and racial justice there was a growing awareness of the “long history of race and the death penalty among business leaders” and many were now prepared to stand against it.In a statement, Ben & Jerry founders Cohen and Greenfield said: “Business leaders need to do more than just say Black Lives Matter. They need to walk the talk and be instrumental in tearing down all the symbols of structural racism in our society. The death penalty has a long history with oppression, and it needs to end. Now.”Joe Biden is the first US president to openly oppose executions and is under pressure to end the federal death penalty. Ouellette said she was hopeful that the business community could help lobby for change in the same way it helped press for marriage equality in the US and elsewhere.“Bringing powerful voices to the table is highly impactful,” she said.The group plans to build support and increase pressure for change ahead of the World Day Against the Death Penalty on 10 October.More than 170 United Nations member states have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice.Ouellette said the practice was at a “tipping point” and that Biden’s appointment could pave the way for the US to join the countries that have effectively ended it. “I am hopeful,” she said. But she warned that the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, when the government for the first time executed more American civilians than all the states combined, shows what is at stake.“Movements can tip backwards too,” she said. More

Texas Republicans are pushing new legislation that would make it even more difficult to cast a ballot in a state that is already one of the hardest places to vote in America.Sign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterThere was no evidence of widespread fraud in Texas or elsewhere in 2020, but Governor Greg Abbott in February declared “election integrity” an emergency item for the legislature to consider.Bills introduced so far would prohibit counties from allowing drive-thru voting, curtail early voting hours, restrict the number of voting machines allowed at countywide polling centers, and block local election officials from sending out mail-in ballot applications to all voters. One bill would also make it easier for prosecutors to bring charges against Texans for technical violations and require those who cite a disability to vote by mail – one of a handful of approved excuses in Texas – to provide proof. Such a requirement would amount to a poll tax, critics say, because there is a cost to a doctor’s visit.“These exact kinds of lies about voting led to people dying in the insurrection at the Capitol. This goes way beyond politicians playing legislative chess to retain power,” Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of the Texas chapter of Common Cause, a watchdog group, wrote in an email.Texas saw record turnout in the 2020 election, but still had one of the lowest turnout rates among eligible voters in the US. Many of the Republican bills appear aimed at Harris county, the state’s most populous and home to 2.4 million voters, where county officials took a number of creative steps last year to try to expand access to voting. That included setting up 24-hour drive-thru voting and trying to send a mail-in ballot application to all voters.But Republicans went to court to block those measures in the weeks leading up to the election. Abbott issued a proclamation in October only allowing counties to offer a single absentee ballot drop box. The order meant that Harris county, which stretches over nearly 2,000 sq miles, could only have a single drop box location instead of the 11 it intended to offer.Abbott pointed specifically to Harris county’s efforts to expand voting access during a Monday press conference introducing the new restrictive voting bills.“The integrity of elections in 2020 were questioned right here in Harris county with the mail-in ballot application process,” Abbott said. “The county elections clerk attempted to send unsolicited mail-in ballot applications to millions of voters, many of whom would not be eligible to vote by mail. Election officials should be working to stop potential mail ballot fraud, not facilitate it.”Isabel Longoria, a Harris county election official credited with developing the 24-hour drive-thru voting, blasted the proposals.“To micromanage the creative solutions that we have had to come up with in Harris county under the auspices of some false election integrity narrative, is a bill not based in reality,” she said in an interview.The Republican proposals come amid a wave of similar efforts in state legislatures across the country. But the restrictions in Texas are notable for two reasons. First, Texas already has extremely restrictive voting laws – it doesn’t allow voters to register online (there is currently a limited workaround because of a federal lawsuit), requires voters under 65 to provide an excuse if they want to vote by mail, cuts off voter registration 30 days before an election, and places strict limits on who can register voters. Second, Republicans did extremely well in the state in November; Donald Trump overwhelmingly carried the state and Democrats did poorly in state legislative races. This signals how eagerly the party has embraced efforts to make it more difficult to vote.Voting advocates say the measures are designed to block local officials from taking any action to make voting easier.“It’s really kneecapping local election officials from really adopting to facilitate voting that have proved really popular,” said Zenen Pérez, the advocacy director at Move Texas, a grassroots group that works to improve civic participation.One measure would prohibit early voting after 7pm, a time during which more than 17,000 people cast their ballots, Longoria said. Many of those people were medical workers, parents with young children, and workers at the port of Houston.“There’s some theory out there that nothing good happens after dark … the last time we built laws based on sunset was in the Jim Crow era so I don’t think we should base any more laws based on when the sun sets,” she added.Abbott and the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, a Trump ally, have been among those who have loudly claimed voter fraud is a problem. According to the Houston Chronicle, the election integrity division in Paxton’s office dedicated 22,000 hours in 2020 to investigating voter fraud cases but has found only 16 cases of any actual voter fraud.Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in Harris county, criticized the measures.“What these folks are doing are simply continuing the trend that’s been going on since Reconstruction, through Jim Crow and up to today: trying to confuse voters, intimidate voters and enact policies that keep people from the ballot box.”Longoria said she planned to contest the slate of bills, but thinks the likelihood they will become law is a “coin toss”.“My job is to be a public servant protecting the voters of Harris county, point blank. Voters have told me directly they love drive-through voting. They love 24-hour voting. They love mail ballot voting,” she said. “I will fight for what they love to do and their right to vote until the very last breath I have on this earth. That’s what I’m here to do and that’s what I’m going to keep doing. Anyone who thinks differently, well, good luck to ’em.” More

Lauren Gambino, political correspondent for Guardian US, discusses the $1.9tn Covid relief package, which was passed by Congress last week. It was seen as a major legislative victory for Joe Biden

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Lauren Gambino, political correspondent for Guardian US, talks to Anushka Asthana about the landmark $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill that was passed last week delivering the first major legislative victory of Joe Biden’s presidency and a sweeping promise to raise millions of Americans out of poverty. The sweeping legislation was the culmination of an aggressive push by Biden and Democrats to fulfil their campaign promise to control the virus and deliver swift economic relief as a first act after securing narrow control of both chambers of Congress and the White House. But the partisan result foreshadows the unforgiving political landscape Biden will face as he attempts to move the rest of his agenda through Congress in the coming months. Despite promising unity and bipartisanship, he was unable to persuade a single Republican to vote for the measure, which they said was filled with liberal policies and ignored signs of economic recovery. More

Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterThe US Senate on Wednesday voted unanimously to confirm the veteran government trade lawyer Katherine Tai as the first woman of color and first Asian American to serve as the US trade representative, putting her to work enforcing trade deals, confronting China’s trade practices and patching up ties with US allies.The rare 98-0 vote for Tai, a Yale and Harvard-educated daughter of immigrants from Taiwan, reflects support from pro-labor Democrats, traditional free-trade Republicans and China hawks from both parties.Tai, 47, formerly served as the chief Democratic trade counsel for the House ways and means committee, where she helped to negotiate stronger labor rights provisions in the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement. She also was USTR’s head of China trade enforcement during the Obama administration.Tai will immediately get to work on a range of issues, including festering disputes with European Union countries over aircraft subsidies and digital services taxes and prodding China to comply with World Trade Organization rules and a “Phase 1” trade deal with the United States.Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU trade commissioner, congratulated Tai in a tweet, saying he wanted to quickly resolve trade disputes.“The EU is ready to engage immediately & constructively to reboot the transatlantic trade agenda,” Dombrovskis tweeted.Congratulations and requests from industry also rolled in after the vote, including pleas for relief from tariffs imposed in trade fights that erupted during Donald Trump’s administration.The Distilled Sprits Council urged that negotiations with the EU and Britain be prioritized to “secure the immediate suspension of tariffs on American Whiskey”.The American Chemistry Council called for trade policies that enhance US competitiveness in the sector, including “access to new markets, tariff relief and greater regulatory coherence”.Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, called Tai “one of our most seasoned experts in international trade” and said she would play a crucial role in enforcing US trade deals and ensuring a level playing field for American workers and businesses. In Senate floor remarks, he did not mention negotiating new trade deals.“She will be an essential player in restoring America’s credibility with our trading partners and promoting international cooperation to tackle some of the world’s biggest problems, from the global pandemic to climate change,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “I have not a single doubt that Ms Tai is the right person for the job.” More

California’s governor Gavin Newsom is gearing up for a recall challenge, with his fiercest critics saying they’ve filed the requisite signatures needed to call an election to remove him from office.The Wednesday deadline to submit at least 1.5m valid voter signatures to trigger a gubernatorial recall has come two days before the anniversary of California’s first statewide shelter-in-place order. Counties now have until the end of April to verify petition signatures.The recall campaign says it has collected more than 2m signatures. “We’re laser-focused on playing this out day by day,” said Randy Economy, a senior advisor to the recall campaign. “Once we get this on the ballot officially, the next phase of the campaign kicks off – and that is to gather support for the recall.”The campaign, spearheaded by the Republican former sheriff’s deputy Orrin Heatlie, has come out against the Newsom’s administration’s pandemic-era lockdowns, aid to undocumented immigrants and homeless residents, relatively high taxes and spending on social programs. The effort has picked up financial support from big business donors and a few Silicon Valley venture capitalists, including the former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya.“Well, the reality is, it looks like it’s going on the ballot,” Newsom said Tuesday during a news conference. “We will fight it. We will defeat it.”If at least 1.5m petition signatures are validated, the state will hold a recall election later this year. Voters will be asked first whether they want to recall Newsom and then who they would choose to replace him.Appearing on The View, Newsom said he was “worried” about the recall effort. “Of course I’m worried about it,” he said. “The nature of these things, the up or down question, the zero-sum nature of the question is challenging … so we’re taking it seriously.”Democrats have signaled that they will not be running any candidates, leaving voters to choose between Newsom and three major Republicans who have entered the race so far: the San Diego mayor, Kevin Faulconer; the conservative activist Mike Cernovich; and John Cox, who lost to Newsom in 2018 by 23 points.“California Democrats are going to be totally behind the governor, 100%,” said Drexel Heard, a Democratic political strategist based in Los Angeles. And without another Democratic or progressive candidate on the ballot, the party is betting that most voters in the blue state will stick with Newsom over conservative alternatives.Although the governor’s approval ratings have taken a hit since an early-pandemic peak, he still seems to have the support needed to prevail. Analysts also expect his approval to tick up, with the majority of Californians on track to get vaccinated by the early summer, the state’s public schools set to reopen and economists predicting that the state’s economy will rebound faster than the rest of the US.“Barring something really dramatic happening, or some major scandal, I think it’s unlikely that Newsom will lose the recall,” said Mindy Romero, founder and director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the University of Southern California.Gubernatorial recalls in California are rarely successful. Gray Davis, the only California governor who has ever been recalled, was in a far more precarious position in 2003, on the heels of a massive electricity crisis, facing a $38bn budget deficit. He lost the recall to the actor and bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger. More

Joe Biden told immigrants making the difficult journey to the US-Mexico border “don’t come over” as the administration attempts to respond to an increase of unaccompanied children seeking asylum.In a wide-ranging interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, aired in full on Wednesday morning, the US president also discussed vaccines, Vladimir Putin and the New York governor, Andrew Cuomo.Biden said his plan for the immediate issue of children needing safety at the border was to increase the number of beds available and speed up the process of placing children with sponsors in the US while their legal cases play out.“We will have, I believe by next month, enough of those beds to take care of these children who have no place to go,” Biden said.In the interview Biden was also critical of the existing process for migrants. “You have to try and get control of the mess that was inherited,” Biden said.Longer-term, Biden said his plan for the border included creating programs to address the factors driving people from their home countries – including violence, poverty, corruption and the climate crisis – and to allow children to apply for asylum from those countries, instead of at the border. “They come because their circumstance is so bad,” Biden said.But he emphasized that the US was still blocking most asylum-seeking adults and many families from pursuing their claims at the border. “I can say quite clearly: don’t come over,” Biden said.Stephanopoulos also pressed Biden on his vaccine plan, asking when things would return to normal. Biden said his previously stated goal of getting things close to normal by the Fourth of July holiday wouldn’t happen unless people wear masks, socially distance and wash their hands.Biden also said he was surprised that the conversation about vaccines had been politicized.“I honest to God thought we had it out,” Biden said. “I honest to God thought that, once we guaranteed we had enough vaccine for everybody, things would start to calm down. Well, they have calmed down a great deal. But I don’t quite understand – you know – I just don’t understand this sort of macho thing about, ‘I’m not gonna get the vaccine. I have a right as an American, my freedom to not do it.’ Well, why don’t you be a patriot? Protect other people.”Biden said that since being vaccinated, he has been able to hug his grandchildren and see them in his home.The pair also discussed Biden’s foreign policy plans and the president said he was currently reviewing the deal made by Donald Trump with the Taliban to have the US pull its troops from Afghanistan by 1 May.“I’m in the process of making that decision now as to when they’ll leave,” Biden said. “The fact is that, that was not a very solidly negotiated deal that the president – the former president – worked out. And so we’re in consultation with our allies as well as the government, and that decision’s going to be – it’s in process now.”Biden said it would be “tough” for all service members to leave by the May deadline.“It could happen,” he said, “but it is tough.”Stephanopoulos asked Biden if the Russian president would “pay” after the US chief intelligence office found that Putin had overseen efforts aimed at “denigrating” Biden’s candidacy in the 2020 presidential election.“He will pay a price,” Biden said, noting that the two leaders had spoken in January about Putin’s election meddling.“The conversation started off, I said, ‘I know you and you know me. If I establish this occurred, then be prepared.’”Stephanopoulos asked: “So you know Vladimir Putin. You think he’s a killer?”“Mmm hmm, I do,” Biden replied.Biden was also asked about US leaders, including the allegations that Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed several women. The state attorney general is investigating the claims and several prominent New York politicians have called for the Democratic governor to step down.Stephanopoulos asked Biden: “If the investigation confirms the claims of the women, should he resign?”“Yes,” Biden replied. “I think he’ll probably end up being prosecuted, too.”The interview concluded with Stephanopoulos asking Biden about his dog, Major, who the White House recently announced had caused “a minor injury” to someone on the property. After, Major was brought to the Biden home in Delaware, where he is now being trained.Biden said Major did not bite someone and break their skin and only went to the Delaware home because he and his wife, Jill Biden, were going to be away for a few days. The new environment of the White House startled Major, Biden said.“You turn a corner, and there’s two people you don’t know at all,” Biden said. “And he moves to protect. But he’s a sweet dog. Eighty-five per cent of the people there love him. He just – all he does is lick them and wag his tail.” More

Civil rights groups are escalating pressure on major Georgia companies including Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines to forcefully oppose sweeping new restrictions that would make it harder to vote in the state.Sign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterThe campaign is focused on some of the largest employers in Georgia and some of America’s most recognizable brands. Home Depot, UPS, Aflac and Southern Company are also among the companies activists are targeting.The organizations say the companies’ support could help kill the measures, which are championed by Republican lawmakers and would cut early voting in some of the state’s most populous and non-white counties, require voters to show ID when they vote by mail, and limit the availability of ballot drop boxes. Another bill would entirely eliminate a state policy that allows any voter to cast a mail-in ballot without an excuse.The restrictions come after the state saw record turnout in the 2020 race and surging participation among non-white voters, resulting in the election of two Democratic senators and victory for Joe Biden in the state.“It is a dangerous thing for the business community to be silent,” said Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate, to the Guardian. “We are obliged at this moment to call for all voices to be lifted up. And for the alarm to ring not only through the communities that are threatened directly, but by those businesses that rely on the durability of our democracy.”There is precedent for the effort. Corporate pressure has previously helped bring scrutiny to some of the most controversial bills in US state legislatures, including an anti-LGBTQ+ measure in Indiana and a discriminatory bathroom bill in North Carolina.Georgia activists have bought billboards near company headquarters, full-page advertisements in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, protested outside Coca-Cola headquarters, and have helped 55,000 Georgia voters send messages to company leadership, said Nse Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project, which is helping lead the effort.But it is particularly hypocritical for corporations to stay silent on voting rights, Ufot said in an interview. Many of them issued statements last year at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests acknowledging the need to improve racial equity in the United States. Georgia-based companies often tout the state’s history in the civil rights movement, she noted. Coca-Cola bought billboards honoring the life of John Lewis, a titan of the voting rights movement, when he died last year.“It makes me wonder whether or not they were doing it for clout,” Ufot said. “This feels like these are the character moments when you get to see … whether or not they walk their talk. It’s one thing to post your solidarity on social media and it’s another thing to stop something really harmful from happening to the Black community.”Several provisions in the bill would disproportionately harm Black voters, data shows. Black and other non-white voters are more likely than their white counterparts to cast ballots on weekend days of early voting, including on Sundays, when many Black churches run “Souls to the Polls” programs to get parishioners to vote. The bill would allow counties to only offer a single day of weekend voting in addition to the single Saturday already required under law.The response from the businesses so far has been muted. “We continue to engage with Georgia’s elected leaders on this issue. Delta’s shared values call on us to make our voices heard and be engaged members of our communities, of which voting is a vital part of that responsibility,” said Lisa Hanna, a Delta spokeswoman, in a statement.Companies such as Delta may be wary of wading into the debate around voting. In 2018, Georgia’s lieutenant governor tried to kill a tax break for Delta after it cancelled a group discount rate for the National Rifle Association, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.On Friday, the Georgia chamber of commerce released a statement to CNBC saying it had expressed “concern and opposition” to provisions in the legislation in the legislature. (It did not say which ones.) Representatives from Coca-Cola and Home Depot told the Guardian they were “aligned” with the chamber’s position.But it’s not clear exactly what they mean by “aligned”. After the Washington Post published a story on Monday saying Home Depot opposed the new restrictions, the company went out of its way to clarify that its alignment with the chamber did not in fact mean it opposed the legislation.Ufot said she rolled her eyes when she read the statement from the Georgia chamber of commerce, which was “not worth the paper it’s written on”.“What Republican legislator is supposed to look at that and say ‘I have pissed off Home Depot and their lobbyist, let me withdraw my support from this bill’?” she said.Ufot and other activists are also calling on the companies to pause political giving to Georgia lawmakers who back the voting restrictions.Since 2018, corporations have donated $7.4m to politicians backing voting restrictions in the legislature, according to Popular Information, an independent newsletter. That includes $34,750 from Coca-Cola, at least $41,600 from Delta Airlines, $34,500 from UPS, $38,700 from Southern Company and $7,250 from Aflac.Ann Moore, a Coca-Cola spokesperson, said the organization had paused political giving in January. Sara Gorman, a Home Depot spokeswoman, said a company-associated Pac, a political giving organization, “supports candidates on both sides of the aisle who champion pro-business, pro-retail positions that create jobs and economic growth”.On Tuesday, Salesforce, a software company headquartered in San Francisco said it opposed one of the bills in the legislature “as it currently stands”.LaTosha Brown, a co-founder of the organization Black Voters Matter, noted that opponents of the voting restrictions are making their voices heard in other ways, too. Last week, under pressure, officials in Hancock county, which is more than 70% Black, voted to ask Barry Fleming, one of the sponsors of the sweeping voting bills, to step down as the county attorney.“They can’t sit on the sidelines where we’re literally fighting for our right to vote,” Brown said. “This should be a no-brainer.” More