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      Republicans Attack Democrats as Liberal Extremists to Regain Power

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      As Democrats prepare to run on an ambitious economic agenda, Republicans are working to caricature them as liberal extremists out of touch with voters’ values.WASHINGTON — Minutes after a group of congressional Democrats unveiled a bill recently to add seats to the Supreme Court, the Iowa Republican Party slammed Representative Cindy Axne, a Democrat and potential Senate candidate, over the issue.“Will Axne Pack the Court?” was the headline on a statement the party rushed out, saying the move to expand the court “puts our democracy at risk.”The attack vividly illustrated the emerging Republican strategy for an intensive drive to try to take back the House and the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections. Republicans are mostly steering clear of Democrats’ economic initiatives that have proved popular, such as an infrastructure package and a stimulus law that coupled pandemic relief with major expansions of safety-net programs, and are focusing instead on polarizing issues that stoke conservative outrage.In doing so, they are seizing on measures like the court-expansion bill and calls to defund the police — which many Democrats oppose — as well as efforts to provide legal status to undocumented immigrants and grant statehood to the District of Columbia to caricature the party as extreme and out of touch with mainstream America.Republicans are also hammering at issues of race and sexual orientation, seeking to use Democrats’ push to confront systemic racism and safeguard transgender rights as attack lines.The approach comes as President Biden and Democrats, eager to capitalize on their unified control of Congress and the White House, have become increasingly bold about speaking about such issues and promoting a wide array of party priorities that languished during years of Republican rule. It has given Republicans ample fodder for attacks that have proved potent in the past.“They are putting the ball on the tee, handing me the club and putting the wind at my back,” said Jeff Kaufmann, the chairman of the Iowa Republican Party.Democrats argue that Republicans are focusing on side issues and twisting their positions because the G.O.P. has nothing else to campaign on, as Democrats line up accomplishments to show to voters, including the pandemic aid bill that passed without a single Republican vote.“That was very popular, and I can understand why Republicans don’t want to talk about it,” said Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, the new chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “But we’re going to keep reminding folks who was there when they needed them.”The contrast is likely to define the 2022 races. Democrats will sell the ambitious agenda they are pursuing with Mr. Biden, take credit for what they hope will continue to be a surging economy and portray Republicans as an increasingly extreme party pushing Donald J. Trump’s lies about a stolen election. Republicans, who have embraced the false claims of election fraud and plan to use them to energize their conservative base, will complain of “radical” Democratic overreach and try to amplify culture-war issues they think will propel more voters into their party’s arms.A release from the National Republican Senatorial Committee highlighted what it called the “three pillars” of the Democratic agenda: “The Green New Deal, court packing and defund the police,” even though the first two are far from the front-burner issues for Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders and the third is a nonstarter with the bulk of the party’s rank and file.President Biden and Democrats have promoted a wide array of party priorities that languished during years of Republican rule.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesLast week Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, sought to thrust a new issue into the mix, leading Republicans in protest of a proposed Biden administration rule promoting education programs that address systemic racism and the nation’s legacy of slavery. He has taken particular aim at the 1619 Project, a journalism initiative by The New York Times that identifies the year when slaves were first brought to America as a key moment in history.“There are a lot of exotic notions about what are the most important points in American history,” Mr. McConnell said on Monday during an appearance in Louisville. “I simply disagree with the notion that The New York Times laid out there that year 1619 was one of those years.”Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the chairman of the Republicans’ Senate campaign arm, has been explicit about his strategy.“Now what I talk about every day is do we want open borders? No. Do we want to shut down our schools? No. Do we want men playing in women’s sports? No,” Mr. Scott said during a recent radio interview with the conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt.“Do we want to shut down the Keystone pipeline? No. Do we want voter ID? Yes,” he continued. “And the Democrats are on the opposite side of all those issues, and I’m going to make sure every American knows about it.”Democrats who have fallen victim to the Republican cultural assault concede that it can take a toll and that their party needs to be ready.“It was all these different attacks that were spread all over mainstream media, Spanish-language media, Facebook, WhatsApp,” said Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former Democratic House member from South Florida who was defeated last year after Republicans portrayed her as a socialist who was anti-police. “A lot of it was misinformation, false attacks.”She said Democrats must begin taking steps now to combat Republican misdirection, warning that their legislative victories might not be enough to appeal to voters.“We can have a great policy record,” she said, “but we need to be present in our communities right now, reaching out to all of our constituencies to tell them we are working for them, that their health and their jobs are our priorities.”On the Supreme Court issue, progressive groups began pushing the idea of an expansion after Mr. Trump was able to appoint three justices, including one to a vacancy that Republicans blocked Barack Obama from filling in the last year of his presidency and another who was fast-tracked right before last year’s election.Hoping to neutralize the issue, some Senate Democrats who will be on the ballot next year have made it clear that they would oppose expanding the court, and the bill seems to be going nowhere at the moment. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would not bring any court bill to the floor until at least after a commission named by Mr. Biden to study the matter issued its report, which is due in six months. The president has been cool to the expansion idea as well.The office of Ms. Axne, the only Democrat in Congress from Iowa, did not respond to requests for reaction to the Republican attacks on her over the court plan. In an interview with MSNBC, Ms. Axne said that she, like Ms. Pelosi, would await the findings of the commission.But Republicans are not waiting to try to score political points. They say more moderate Republican voters and independents who broke with the party during the Trump years have been alienated by the call to enlarge the court and other initiatives being pushed by progressives.One key for Republicans next year will be winning back suburban voters while running campaigns that also energize the significant segment of their supporters who are fiercely loyal to Mr. Trump and want the party to represent his values. That may be a difficult balance to achieve, as evidenced this week when Republican leaders moved to strip Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming of the party’s No. 3 leadership post for calling out the former president’s false election claims.Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said it would matter less what Republicans said about Democrats than what his party was able to accomplish.“The one thing that will win people over, no matter what they do, is whether we can deliver,” he said. “They are doing what appeals to their base, but the voters in the middle, including a good chunk of Republican voters, actually care about getting things done.”Instead of focusing on Democrats’ economic initiatives that have proved popular, Republicans are seizing on measures like a bill to expand the Supreme Court.Al Drago for The New York TimesMr. Peters said Democrats would be better positioned to rebut attacks such as those that falsely portray them as pressing to defund the police after voters had experienced two years of the party holding power.“President Biden and the caucus have been very clear that we are not about defunding the police, we are about making sure police have the resources they need to do their jobs,” he said. “Ultimately, it is about how it is impacting people’s lives.”Mr. Kaufmann, the Republican leader in Iowa, begged to differ. He said he believed the hot-button issues Republicans were homing in on would drive voters more than “the nuance of tax policy and who gets credit for the vaccine.” He is eager to get started.“Some of this stuff is really controversial,” he said. “These are all very bold and clearly delineated issues. I can use this to expand the base and get crossover voters.” More

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      Why Democratic Departures From the House Have Republicans Salivating

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      A growing number of Democrats in battleground districts are either retiring or leaving to seek higher office, imperiling the party’s control of the House and President Biden’s expansive agenda. WASHINGTON — With 18 months left before the midterms, a spate of Democratic departures from the House is threatening to erode the party’s slim majority in the House and imperil President Biden’s far-reaching policy agenda.In the past two months, five House Democrats from competitive districts have announced they won’t seek re-election next year. They include Representative Charlie Crist of Florida, who on Tuesday launched a campaign for governor, and Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, who will run for the Senate seat being vacated by Rob Portman. Three other Democrats will leave vacant seats in districts likely to see significant change once they are redrawn using the data from the 2020 Census, and several more are weighing bids for higher office.An early trickle of retirements from House members in competitive districts is often the first sign of a coming political wave. In the 2018 cycle, 48 House Republicans didn’t seek re-election — and 14 of those vacancies were won by Democrats. Now Republicans are salivating over the prospect of reversing that dynamic and erasing the Democrats six-seat advantage.“The two biggest headaches of any cycle are redistricting and retirements and when you have both in one cycle it’s a migraine,” said former Representative Steve Israel of New York, who led the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2012 and 2014.Democrats face other vexing challenges as well: Republican legislators control redistricting in key states where they can draw boundaries in their favor. Reapportionment alone — with red states picking up additional seats — could provide Republicans the seats they need to control the House. And historic political trends almost always work against the president’s party in midterm elections.The prospect of losing the House majority adds a greater level of urgency for the Biden Administration and congressional Democrats eager to push through expansive policy proposals. It also raises questions about the staying power of Democrats, after an election in which they barely ousted an unpopular president while suffering a surprising number of downballot losses in races they expected to win. The results appeared to blunt the momentum the party generated in 2018 when it picked up 41 seats in the House. Democrats’ failure to qualify for the runoff in a Dallas-area special House election Saturday only added to the party’s anxiety. While Republicans were always heavy favorites to retain the seat, which became vacant when Representative Ron Wright died from the coronavirus, not placing a candidate among the top two finishers is likely to hurt recruiting efforts, Democratic officials said.This could be just the beginning of the Democratic departures: The high season for congressional retirements typically comes in early fall after members spend the August recess taking the political temperature of their districts. Further complicating the picture for Democrats is the Census Bureau’s months-long delay in completing the reapportionment process and delivering to states the final demographic and block-level population data. That has left the House committees in a state of suspended animation, unable in many instances to recruit candidates and devise electoral strategy. While each day brings announcements of new 2022 candidates, many are not being specific about which district they’re running in and dozens more are waiting until the fall, when they see the new boundaries, to decide whether they will formalize their campaigns.“It’s like going to war on a battlefield but you don’t know where you’re fighting, when you’re fighting or who you’re fighting,” Mr. Israel said.Representative Charlie Crist, Democrat of Florida, announced on Tuesday that he would run for governor.Chris O’Meara/Associated PressThe largest concentration of competitive and vacant House seats may be in Central Florida. In addition to Mr. Crist, who represents St. Petersburg, two other Democratic representatives, Stephanie Murphy of Winter Park and Val Demings of Orlando, are weighing runs for statewide office. All three now hold seats in districts President Biden carried handily last November, but with Republicans in control of Florida’s redistricting process, the state’s congressional map is likely to soon be much better for Republicans than it is now.Each of them would be exceedingly expensive for a new candidate to run in because of the high cost of media in Florida, further stretching the party’s resources in what is expected to be a difficult election cycle.“You have to assume that because Republicans get to control reapportionment, that it’s not going to get any easier,” said Adam Goodman, a Florida-based Republican media strategist, who predicted the G.O.P. would take two of the three seats now held by Mr. Crist, Ms. Demings and Ms. Murphy. “The Crist seat — it took a Charlie Crist type of person to hold that seat in ’20. The Democrats won’t have that person this time.” Nikki Fried, Florida’s agriculture commissioner who is weighing her own run for governor, echoed that assessment as she tweaked Mr. Crist at her own news conference that competed for attention with his campaign launch. “It’s a time when we need his voice and his vote up in Washington, D.C.,” Ms. Fried said. “His seat is one that only probably Charlie Crist can hold on to, so really would like to have encouraged him to stay in Congress.”Democratic strategists said it is hardly unusual for members of Congress to seek a promotion to statewide office. “A lot of us lived through 2009 and 2010 and we’re not seeing that level of rush to the exits that we did then,” said Ian Russell, a former D.C.C.C. official. “It’s not surprising that members of Congress look to run statewide, that has been happening since the founding of the republic and doesn’t indicate a bigger thing.” Representative Tim Ryan, Democrat of Ohio, will run for an open Senate seat next year.Sarah Silbiger/ReutersRepublicans, optimistic about being on offense for the first time since 2014, cited potential pickup opportunities in western Pennsylvania, where Representative Conor Lamb is weighing a run for the state’s open Senate contest; New Hampshire, where Representative Chris Pappas may run for governor rather than seek re-election to a district likely to become more Republican; and Iowa, where Representative Cindy Axne told the Storm Lake Times last month that her first two options for 2022 are running for Senate or governor. “House Democrats are sprinting to the exits because they know their chances of retaining the majority grow dimmer by the day,” said Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Representative Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona, who last year entered an alcohol rehabilitation program after falling on the Washington Metro, also chose not to seek re-election. Representative Cheri Bustos, whose district covering a swath of Central and Northwest Illinois swung to Donald J. Trump, announced her retirement last week. Last year Ms. Bustos led the House Democrats’ campaign arm through a disappointing cycle, when the party lost 13 seats after they expected to flip Republican-held districts. Along with Florida, Republicans are expected to draw themselves more favorable congressional districts in Georgia, where Democrats hold two competitive districts in Atlanta’s northern suburbs, and Texas, which will add two new seats for the 2022 elections. Mr. Ryan’s Democratic district in northeast Ohio is likely to disappear when Ohio Republicans draw a map with one fewer House seat, and Representative Filemon Vela of Texas, whose Rio Grande Valley district became eight percentage points more Republican from 2016 to 2020, chose retirement rather than compete in what was likely to be his first competitive re-election bid. “This is where Democratic underperformance in 2020 really begins to hinder Democrats downballot,” said Ken Spain, a veteran of the House Republicans’ campaign arm. “Republicans fared well at the state level last cycle and now they’re going to reap the benefits of many of those red states drawing a disproportionate number of the seats.” Because Republicans hold majorities in more state legislatures, and Democrats and voters in key states such as California, Colorado and Virginia have delegated mapmaking authority to nonpartisan commissions, the redistricting process alone could shift up to five or six seats to Republicans, potentially enough to seize the majority if they don’t flip any other Democratic-held seats. Democrats are expected to press their advantages where they can, particularly in Illinois and New York, states that lost one House district each in last week’s reapportionment. New York’s new map is certain to take a seat from Republicans in Upstate New York, and one Republican-held seat in Central Illinois may be redrawn to be Democratic while another is eliminated. For the moment there are more House Republicans, six, not seeking re-election, than the five House Democrats retiring or running for aiming for a promotion to statewide office. But of the Republicans, only Representatives Lee Zeldin and Tom Reed of New York represent districts that are plausibly competitive in 2022. With Democrats holding supermajority control of the New York State Legislature, Mr. Zeldin, who is running for governor, and Mr. Reed, who retired while apologizing for a past allegation of groping, could both see their districts drawn to become far more competitive for Democrats. Reid J. Epstein reported from Washington and Patricia Mazzei reported from Miami. More

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      Why Trump Still Has Millions of Americans in His Grip

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      Beginning in the mid-1960s, the priorities of the Democratic Party began to shift away from white working and middle class voters — many of them socially conservative, Christian and religiously observant — to a set of emerging constituencies seeking rights and privileges previously reserved to white men: African-Americans, women’s rights activists, proponents of ethnic diversity, sexual freedom and self-expressive individualism.By the 1970s, many white Americans — who had taken their own centrality for granted — felt that they were being shouldered aside, left to face alone the brunt of the long process of deindustrialization: a cluster of adverse economic trends including the decline in manufacturing employment, the erosion of wages by foreign competition and the implosion of trade unionism.These voters became the shock troops of the Reagan Revolution; they now dominate Trump’s Republican Party.Liberal onlookers exploring the rise of right-wing populism accuse their adversaries of racism and sexism. There is plenty of truth to this view, but it’s not the whole story.In “The Bitter Heartland,” an essay in American Purpose, William Galston, a veteran of the Clinton White House and a senior fellow at Brookings, captures the forces at work in the lives of many of Trump’s most loyal backers:Resentment is one of the most powerful forces in human life. Unleashing it is like splitting the atom; it creates enormous energy, which can lead to more honest discussions and long-delayed redress of grievances. It can also undermine personal relationships — and political regimes. Because its destructive potential is so great, it must be faced.Recent decades, Galston continues, “have witnessed the growth of a potent new locus of right-wing resentment at the intersection of race, culture, class, and geography” — difficult for “those outside its orbit to understand.”They — “social conservatives and white Christians” — have what Galston calls a “bill of particulars” against political and cultural liberalism. I am going to quote from it at length because Galston’s rendering of this bill of particulars is on target.“They have a sense of displacement in a country they once dominated. Immigrants, minorities, non-Christians, even atheists have taken center stage, forcing them to the margins of American life.”“They believe we have a powerful desire for moral coercion. We tell them how to behave — and, worse, how to think. When they complain, we accuse them of racism and xenophobia. How, they ask, did standing up for the traditional family become racism? When did transgender bathrooms become a civil right?”“They believe we hold them in contempt.”“Finally, they think we are hypocrites. We claim to support free speech — until someone says something we don’t like. We claim to oppose violence — unless it serves a cause we approve of. We claim to defend the Constitution — except for the Second Amendment. We support tolerance, inclusion, and social justice — except for people like them.”Galston has grasped a genuine phenomenon. But white men are not the only victims of deindustrialization. We are now entering upon an era in which vast swaths of the population are potentially vulnerable to the threat — or promise — of a Fourth Industrial Revolution.This revolution is driven by unprecedented levels of technological innovation as artificial intelligence joins forces with automation and takes aim not only at employment in what remains of the nation’s manufacturing heartland, but increasingly at the white collar, managerial and professional occupational structure.Daron Acemoglu, an economist at M.I.T., described in an email the most likely trends as companies increasingly adopt A.I. technologies.A.I. is in its infancy. It can be used for many things, some of them very complementary to humans. But right now it is going more and more in the direction of displacing humans, like a classic automation technology. Put differently, the current business model of leading tech companies is pushing A.I. in a predominantly automation direction.As a result, Acemoglu continued, “we are at a tipping point, and we are likely to see much more of the same types of disruptions we have seen over the last decades.”In an essay published in Boston Review last month, Acemoglu looked at the issue over a longer period. Initially, in the first four decades after World War II, advances in automation complemented labor, expanding the job market and improving productivity.But, he continued, “a very different technological tableau began in the 1980s — a lot more automation and a lot less of everything else.” In the process, “automation acted as the handmaiden of inequality.”Automation has pushed the job market in two opposing directions. Trends can be adverse for those (of all races and ethnicities) without higher education, but trends can also be positive for those with more education:New technologies primarily automated the more routine tasks in clerical occupations and on factory floors. This meant the demand and wages of workers specializing in blue-collar jobs and some clerical functions declined. Meanwhile professionals in managerial, engineering, finance, consulting, and design occupations flourished — both because they were essential to the success of new technologies and because they benefited from the automation of tasks that complemented their own work. As automation gathered pace, wage gaps between the top and the bottom of the income distribution magnified.Technological advancement has been one of the key factors in the growth of inequality based levels of educational attainment, as the accompanying graphic shows:Falling BehindThe change in weekly earnings among working age adults since 1963. Those with more education are climbing ever higher, while those with less education — especially men — are falling further behind. More

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      Constitutional Challenges Loom Over Proposed Voting Bill

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      The sprawling legislation, known as H.R. 1, could result in lawsuits leading to a dozen Supreme Court cases, legal experts said.WASHINGTON — If the sweeping voting rights bill that the House passed in March overcomes substantial hurdles in the Senate to become law, it would reshape American elections and represent a triumph for Democrats eager to combat the wave of election restrictions moving through Republican-controlled state legislatures.But passage of the bill, known as H.R. 1, would end a legislative fight and start a legal war that could dwarf the court challenges aimed at the Affordable Care Act over the past decade.“I have no doubt that if H.R. 1 passes, we’re going to have a dozen major Supreme Court cases on different pieces of it,” said Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a law professor at Harvard.The potential for the bill to set off a sprawling constitutional battle is largely a function of its ambitions. It would end felon disenfranchisement, require independent commissions to draw congressional districts, establish public financing for congressional candidates, order presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns, address dark money in political advertising and restructure the Federal Election Commission.The bill’s opponents say that it is, in the words of an editorial in The National Review, “a frontal assault on the Constitution” and “the most comprehensively unconstitutional bill in modern American history.”More measured critics take issue with specific provisions even as they acknowledge that the very nature of the bill — a grab bag of largely unrelated measures — would make it difficult to attack in a systematic way. In that respect, the anticipated challenges differ from those aimed at the Affordable Care Act, some of which sought to destroy the entire law.John O. McGinnis, a law professor at Northwestern University, said the bill went too far, partly because it was first proposed as an aspirational document rather than a practical one in 2019, when Republicans controlled the Senate and it had no hope of becoming law.“It seems very willing to brush past, at least in some cases, some relatively clear constitutional provisions,” he said, citing parts of the bill that require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns and force advocacy groups to disclose their contributors.In March, 20 Republican state attorneys general said they were ready to litigate. “Should the act become law,” they wrote in a letter to congressional leaders, “we will seek legal remedies to protect the Constitution, the sovereignty of all states, our elections and the rights of our citizens.”Representative John Sarbanes, Democrat of Maryland and one of the lead authors of the package, said drafters had written it with a fusillade of Republican legal challenges in mind and were confident that it would “survive the great majority of them” in the Supreme Court.“I’m extremely comfortable that we built this to last,” Mr. Sarbanes said. “We think that the components are ones that are well girded against constitutional challenge — even by a court that we can imagine will probably start from a place of favorability to some of these challenges.”Democrats have made the bill a top legislative priority. But with Republicans united in opposition in the Senate, its path forward is rocky.Before a key committee vote this month, proponents of the overhaul are expected to introduce a slew of technical changes meant to address concerns raised by state elections administrators. But pushing it through the full chamber and to President Biden’s desk would require all 50 Senate Democrats to agree to suspend the filibuster rule and pass it on a simple party-line vote, a maneuver that at least two Democrats have so far rejected.Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke at a news conference promoting H.R. 1 in March. Democrats have made the bill a top legislative priority.Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesSome scholars have urged congressional Democrats to concentrate their efforts on narrower legislation, notably the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which seeks to restore a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court effectively eliminated by a 5-to-4 vote in 2013 in Shelby County v. Holder.The provision, the law’s Section 5, required states with a history of discrimination to obtain federal approval before changing voting procedures. In the Shelby County decision, the court ruled that the formula for deciding which states were covered violated the Constitution because it was based on outdated data.“Congress — if it is to divide the states — must identify those jurisdictions to be singled out on a basis that makes sense in light of current conditions,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority.The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named for the civil rights leader who served in the House for more than three decades until his death last year, responds to that invitation by updating the coverage formula. Whether the Supreme Court — which has become more conservative since 2013 — would uphold the new formula and allow Section 5 to be restored is an open question, but the Shelby County decision at least allows Congress to try.Similarly, the court’s precedents suggest that not all of the anticipated challenges to the much broader H.R. 1 would succeed.As a general matter, few doubt that Congress has broad authority to regulate congressional elections because of the elections clause of the Constitution.To be sure, the clause specifies that “the times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.”The clause’s next phrase, though, allows federal lawmakers to override most of the power granted to state legislatures: “But the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing senators.”The elections clause, supplemented by other constitutional provisions, Professor Stephanopoulos wrote in an article to be published in the journal Constitutional Commentary, means that “even the bill’s most controversial elements lie within Congress’s electoral authority, and Congress could actually reach considerably further, if it were so inclined.”But he acknowledged that there was controversy over the sweep of the provision. In a majority opinion in 2013, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in an aside that the clause “empowers Congress to regulate how federal elections are held, but not who may vote in them.” That statement was in tension with the controlling opinion in a 1970 decision that allowed Congress to lower the minimum voting age in congressional elections to 18 from 21.The Supreme Court justices last month. The court has become more conservative since 2013, when it effectively eliminated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesIf the statement from Justice Scalia is followed, it would raise questions about language in H.R. 1 that seeks to restore voting rights to people with felony convictions who have completed their sentences in states that would otherwise disenfranchise them.Several scholars said the provision might be vulnerable to a legal challenge. “That’s probably the most obvious red flag,” said Franita Tolson, a law professor at the University of Southern California.The Constitution grants Congress considerably less authority over presidential elections than congressional ones, allowing it to set only the timing. But some Supreme Court opinions have said the two kinds of authority are comparable.The bill’s requirement that states create independent commissions to draw congressional districts could also lead to litigation. Such commissions were upheld by a 5-to-4 vote in 2015 in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission.Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the majority, said Arizona voters were entitled “to address the problem of partisan gerrymandering — the drawing of legislative district lines to subordinate adherents of one political party and entrench a rival party in power.”With changes in the makeup of the Supreme Court since then, the Arizona precedent might be vulnerable, said Travis Crum, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.“In litigation over the 2020 election, several justices — including Justice Brett Kavanaugh — questioned the validity of that precedent,” Professor Crum said. “Given the possibility that the court might overturn that decision in the near future, it is even more imperative that Congress step in and mandate the use of independent redistricting commissions for congressional districts.”In dissent in the Arizona case, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the Constitution specified that only state legislatures had the power to draw congressional maps. Four years later, though, writing for the majority in rejecting a role for federal courts in addressing partisan gerrymandering, he wrote about independent commissions created by ballot measures with seeming approval and said Congress also had a role to play, citing an earlier version of H.R. 1.Representative John Lewis of Georgia outside the Supreme Court in 2013. A voting bill named for him seeks to restore enforcement of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, after the court effectively eliminated it.Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesThe provision in H.R. 1 establishing a public financing system appears to be consistent with current Supreme Court precedentsIn 2011, by a 5-to-4 vote, the court struck down a different Arizona law, which provided escalating matching funds to participating candidates based on their opponents’ spending. But Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority in the case, Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett, indicated that more routine public financing systems remained a valid constitutional option.“We do not today call into question the wisdom of public financing as a means of funding political candidacy,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “That is not our business.”Some of the disclosure requirements in H.R. 1 have drawn objections from across the ideological spectrum. The American Civil Liberties Union has said that it supports disclosures tied to “express advocacy” of a candidate’s election or defeat. The bill goes further, though, requiring disclosures in connection with policy debates that refer to candidates.That measure, two A.C.L.U. lawyers wrote in The Washington Post in March, “could directly interfere with the ability of many to engage in political speech about causes that they care about and that impact their lives by imposing new and onerous disclosure requirements on nonprofits committed to advancing those causes.”“When a group is advocating policy changes outside the mainstream,” they continued, “they need privacy protections to be able to speak freely and without fear of reprisal.”The Citizens United decision in 2010 upheld the disclosure requirements before it by an 8-to-1 vote, but a pending Supreme Court case, American for Prosperity v. Bonta, might alter the constitutional calculus.Professor McGinnis said he also questioned a provision in the bill that required leaders of organizations to say they stood by the messages in political advertisements. “This seems to me to be eating up airtime without any real justification and subjecting people to harassment,” he said.He also took issue with the bill’s requirement that presidential candidates disclose their tax returns, saying Congress cannot add qualifications to who can run for president beyond those set out in the Constitution: that candidates be natural-born citizens, residents for 14 years and at least 35 years old.A 1995 Supreme Court decision rejecting an attempt by Arkansas to impose term limits on its congressional representatives appears to support the view that lawmakers cannot alter the constitutional requirements.Even if every one of the objections to the bill discussed in this article were to prevail in court, most of the law would survive. “Part of why the attack on H.R. 1 is unlikely to be successful in the end is that the law is not a single coherent structure the way Obamacare was,” Professor Stephanopoulos said. “It’s a hundred different proposals, all packaged together.”“The Roberts court would dislike on policy grounds almost the entire law,” he added. “But I think even this court would end up upholding most — big, big swaths — of the law. It would still leave the most important election bill in American history intact even after the court took its pound of flesh.”Nicholas Fandos More

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      Should Gavin Newsom Be Nervous About the California Recall?

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      Two events that attracted scant notice on Nov. 6, 2020, speak to how quickly political fortunes can change in California.In Sacramento, a judge granted an obscure group extra time to collect signatures in a long-shot effort to force a vote to recall Mr. Newsom. The secretary of state could muster only less-than-compelling objections to the extension: He had recently acquiesced readily to the same request, before the same judge, to grant extra time for an initiative to legalize sports betting at casinos run by Native American tribes, major donors to state Democrats.That evening, Mr. Newsom attended the birthday party of a close friend and prominent lobbyist at the deluxe French Laundry restaurant in Napa, flouting protocols he preached during the pandemic.Eleven days later, the little-noticed events became front-page news: Images from the French Laundry dinner gave recall backers the momentum they needed to exploit the extra four months granted by the judge and to compel a referendum on Mr. Newsom, who found himself trapped in a new narrative.Today, all signs suggest Mr. Newsom should prevail. Polls show a majority of Californians opposed the recall effort.But just as the events on that November day unexpectedly propelled a recall few had taken seriously, his fate could shift just as swiftly and dramatically. Democrats need to think through the consequences and weigh what is best for the state against what is best for Mr. Newsom.In the fall, voters will be asked two questions: Should Mr. Newsom be recalled? And if so, who should replace him? Many unpredictable factors will influence those votes. Will the relatively low numbers of Covid-19 cases hold? Will students be back in classrooms that have been largely empty for more than a year? Will the drought and looming fire season trigger water shortages, power shut-offs, devastation and apocalyptic imagery? Will he commit another blunder like the French Laundry dinner, reinforcing his image as an out-of-touch elitist?And crucially: Will a credible Democrat enter the contest?It is obviously in Mr. Newsom’s interest to keep other Democrats off the ballot and brand the election a Republican recall. A “Vote no” message is cleaner than “Vote no, but just in case, vote for this other Democrat.” Worse than muddled messaging, a viable Democratic alternative, even posed as an insurance policy, could morph into a real threat. Mr. Newsom already finds himself navigating with difficulty between conflicting constituencies on issues like health care, housing, fracking and drought. Some groups have signaled that their enthusiasm in opposing the recall is contingent on the governor’s actions in the intervening months. The election (still technically unofficial pending a 30-day waiting period) is likely to occur just after he must decide the fate of bills passed during the legislative session.In 2003, amid energy and fiscal crises, California voters ousted an unpopular governor, Gray Davis, in the state’s first gubernatorial recall, which felt, despite its zanier moments, like an exercise in democracy that bore some resemblance to the process lawmakers envisioned in 1911. This time feels more like farce than history, echoing the desperation and extremes of a world where Republican members of Congress deny election results and mobs invade capitols.That feeds the temptation to dismiss the recall as a costly but inconsequential circus, featuring Caitlyn Jenner and a cast of thousands — including a 1,000-pound bear that appeared with the candidate John Cox on his Meet the Beast bus tour this week. Mr. Newsom trounced Mr. Cox in the 2018 election and would seem poised to do equally well against any of the candidates who have declared so far. Republicans, outnumbered in California by Democrats almost two to one, have not won a statewide race since 2006.But it would not take a far-fetched string of events for this to go horribly wrong. What if public sentiment turned against Mr. Newsom for whatever reason, a Republican won and something happened to one of the state’s Democratic senators? The health of Dianne Feinstein, who turns 88 next month, has been the subject of much concern. The new governor could appoint a Republican replacement, upending Democratic control of the U.S. Senate. Is that a risk Democrats are willing to take, to protect Mr. Newsom by keeping Democratic alternatives off the ballot?Perhaps the risk will seem very small when the deadline to enter the race arrives, 60 days before the election. But there is no shortage of ambitious Democrats for whom a late entry might prove attractive, including ones with both name recognition and access to the money necessary to wage a credible campaign. Like Representative Adam Schiff, who recently lobbied the governor unsuccessfully to be appointed the state’s attorney general and raised more than $40 million in 2020. Or Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, who became the first woman elected to the post, in her novice run for office, aided by more than $10 million from herself and her father, a real estate developer.For now, they have all pledged allegiance to Mr. Newsom, whose campaign has orchestrated displays of pointed unity, suggesting that any Democrat who broke ranks would be nothing short of traitorous. It is hard to see how that unity will hold. Or how it can be justified as being in the best interests of the Democrats, or the democracy. But Mr. Newsom has had something of a charmed existence in his political career, and perhaps his luck will hold.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Trump’s Big Lie Devoured the G.O.P. and Now Eyes Our Democracy

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      President Biden’s early success in getting Americans vaccinated, pushing out stimulus checks and generally calming the surface of American life has been a blessing for the country. But it’s also lulled many into thinking that Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the election was stolen, which propelled the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, would surely fade […] More

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      Crist Enters Race to Face DeSantis, With More Democrats Likely to Follow

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      Charlie Crist has an extensive political history in Florida and is widely known throughout the state. But his candidacy is not likely to deter other Democrats like Val Demings and Nikki Fried.MIAMI — Representative Charlie Crist, Democrat of Florida, entered the race for governor on Tuesday, becoming the first challenger to Ron DeSantis, a Republican who raised his profile by shunning lockdowns during the pandemic and is now a leading contender for his party’s presidential nomination in 2024.“Every step of the way, this governor has been more focused on his personal political fortune than the struggle of everyday Floridians,” Mr. Crist said under the blazing sun in St. Petersburg as he made his announcement. “That’s just not right. Just like our former president, he always takes credit but never takes responsibility.”His candidacy signaled the start of a long, expensive and most likely bruising campaign in a battleground state that has been swinging away from Democrats since 2016. Florida’s exceptionally tight governor’s races have been decided by around one percentage point since 2010, always in Republicans’ favor. The last Democrat to win election to the governor’s mansion was Lawton Chiles, who won a second term in 1994.Mr. Crist’s advisers see him as the Democrat with the most experience running statewide and appealing to a coalition of liberal and moderate voters in the way that President Biden did nationally — though not in Florida, which former President Donald J. Trump won by three percentage points.Mr. Crist has an extensive political history in Florida and is widely known throughout the state. He served as governor as a Republican from 2007 to 2011 before running unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as an independent, losing to Marco Rubio. After switching parties, he later lost a Democratic bid for governor in 2014 against the Republican incumbent, Rick Scott.The arc of his political evolution was evident in the video he used on Tuesday to announce his candidacy. It featured footage of the hug with former President Barack Obama that led to Mr. Crist’s departure from the Republican Party 11 years ago.But Mr. Crist’s experience is unlikely to deter other Democratic candidates from joining the race. His clout has been diminished by years of electoral failures and by a party that is increasingly open to a wider range of more diverse public figures to be its standard bearers. Two women, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried and Representative Val Demings of Orlando, are considering their own runs for the governor’s mansion as Democrats.Ms. Fried scheduled a news conference in the State Capitol for the same time as Mr. Crist’s announcement. “As the only statewide elected Democrat, it makes absolute sense for me to be running for governor,” she said, but she added that she was not making an announcement at that time.Ms. Demings released a video on Tuesday that, while not declaring a candidacy, highlighted her career as Orlando police chief, impeachment manager in Congress and a shortlisted vice-presidential pick for Mr. Biden.Similar jockeying — though not quite as intense — is underway among Democrats looking to go up against Mr. Rubio, who also faces re-election next year.Asked about Mr. Crist’s announcement on Tuesday, Mr. DeSantis mocked Mr. Crist’s party-switching. “Which party is he going to run under, do we know for sure?” he said.Referring to Democrats in general, he said: “I implore them, from my political interest: Run on closing schools. Run on locking people down. Run on closing businesses.” He added, “I would love to have that debate.”In advance of Mr. Crist’s announcement, Mr. DeSantis held an official event on Monday at Mr. Crist’s favorite seafood restaurant in St. Petersburg, touting the wins he had racked up during the session the Republican-controlled Legislature concluded last week — which he and Republican lawmakers used to champion policies that will appeal to Florida’s increasingly conservative electorate.And on Monday, Mr. DeSantis signed a bill and an executive order doing away with most of Florida’s remaining pandemic restrictions, contrasting his administration’s aversion for mandates to the restrictions in states led by Democrats.Still, Mr. Crist was withering in his criticism of the governor on Tuesday.“Gov. DeSantis’s vision of Florida is clear: If you want to vote, he won’t help you,” Mr. Crist said. “If you’re working, he won’t support you. If you’re a woman, he will not empower you. If you’re an immigrant, he won’t accept you. If you’re facing discrimination, he won’t respect you. If you’re sick, he won’t care for you.” More

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      Bee Nguyen, Georgia Democrat, Enters Race for Secretary of State

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      Ms. Nguyen, the daughter of Vietnamese refugees, is the first major Democrat to announce a bid for the seat held by Brad Raffensperger, the Republican who defied former President Donald Trump.ATLANTA — Next year’s secretary of state election in Georgia was already shaping up to be a tense and dramatic fight: the incumbent, Brad Raffensperger — who enraged former President Donald J. Trump for refusing to overturn the state’s election results — is facing a primary challenge from a Trump-endorsed fellow Republican, Representative Jody Hice.On Tuesday morning, the race got even more interesting with the entry of the first major Democratic candidate, State Representative Bee Nguyen, the daughter of Vietnamese refugees who has helped lead the fight against Republican-backed bills that restrict voting rights in the state.“Republicans have done everything in their power to silence the voices of voters who chose an America that works for all of us, and not just some of us,” she said in her announcement video. “But we will not allow anyone to stand in the way of our right to a free and fair democracy.” In an interview this week, Ms. Nguyen, 39, said that Mr. Raffensperger deserved credit for standing up to Mr. Trump and rejecting his false claims of voter fraud after the November election. But she also noted that since then, Mr. Raffensperger had largely supported the voting rights law passed by the Legislature in March and continued to consider himself a Trump supporter after the former president promulgated his falsehoods about the Georgia election.“I’ve been at the forefront of battling against voter suppression laws in Georgia,” Ms. Nguyen said. “Watching everything unfold in 2020 with the erosion of our Democracy, I recognized how critically important it was to defend our right to vote.”She added, “I believe Georgians deserve better, and can do better.”Mr. Trump lost Georgia by around 12,000 votes. After the election, he made personal entreaties to both Mr. Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp, asking the two Republicans to intervene and help overturn the results. When they declined, Mr. Trump vowed revenge.In late March, the former president endorsed Mr. Hice, a pastor and former radio talk-show host from Georgia’s 10th Congressional District. “Unlike the current Georgia Secretary of State, Jody leads out front with integrity,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.It’s not the only race in Georgia that Mr. Trump is hoping to influence in an attempt to exact retribution against those he deems disloyal. In January, Mr. Trump vowed to campaign against Mr. Kemp as he sought re-election. Since then, former State Representative Vernon Jones, a former Democrat and a vocal Trump supporter, has entered the race, but Mr. Trump has not endorsed him.On Monday, however, the Georgia political world took notice when State Senator Burt Jones, a Republican, tweeted a photo of himself and Mr. Trump meeting at Mr. Trump’s Florida home. Mr. Jones, who did not return calls for comment Monday, hails from a wealthy family and could put his own funds into a statewide race. But if he is interested in higher office, he has a number of choices beyond governor, including possibly jumping into next year’s contest for the U.S. Senate seat held by the Democrat Raphael Warnock.Ms. Nguyen, a supporter of abortion rights and critic of what she has called Georgia’s “lax” gun laws, could struggle to connect with more conservative voters beyond her liberal district in metropolitan Atlanta. She first won the seat in December 2017 in a special election to replace another Democrat, Stacey Abrams, the former state House minority leader who left her position to make her ultimately unsuccessful challenge to Mr. Kemp in 2018.Ms. Abrams, who is African-American, may be gearing up to run against Mr. Kemp again next year, and if Ms. Nguyen can land a spot on the general election ballot, it will reflect the changing demographics that helped Democrats like President Biden score upset wins in Georgia in recent months.In March, Ms. Nguyen was among a group of Asian-American Georgia lawmakers who forcefully denounced the mass shootings at Atlanta-area massage parlors in which eight people were killed, including six women of Asian descent.Georgia’s secretary of state race, normally a low-profile affair, will be watched particularly closely next year given the razor-thin margins of the state’s recent elections, and its growing reputation as a key battleground in the presidential election.Mr. Raffensperger finds himself in a frustrating position. A statewide poll in January found that he had the highest approval rating of any Republican officeholder in the state, the likely result of the bipartisan respect he earned for standing up to Mr. Trump. But Mr. Hice has a good chance of overpowering Mr. Raffensperger in a G.O.P. primary, given rank-and-file Republicans’ loyalty to the former president.Two other Republicans, David Belle Isle, a former mayor of the city of Alpharetta, a suburb of Atlanta, and T.J. Hudson, a former probate judge, are also running.Daniel Victor More