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      Arizona Sues After County Puts an Election Skeptic in Charge of Voting

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      Cochise County, a hotbed of conspiracy theories, transferred election duties from a nonpartisan office to the county’s elected recorder, a Republican.An Arizona county is being sued by the state’s Democratic attorney general after it transferred voting oversight to the county’s Republican recorder, who has cast doubts about past election results in a place where former President Donald J. Trump won nearly 60 percent of the vote in 2020.It is the latest clash between Democrats in statewide office and Cochise County, a deeply Republican area in southeastern Arizona, where conspiracy theories about voter fraud and irregularities still swirl.The county’s nonpartisan elections director, Lisa Marra, announced in January that she would resign, citing threats against her after she refused to comply with rogue election directives from the Republicans who control county government, including plans to count ballots by hand after last year’s midterm elections. She recently accepted a position with the secretary of state’s office.The county’s board of supervisors then made David W. Stevens, the Republican recorder, the interim elections director, with the board’s two G.O.P. members supporting the new power structure in a Feb. 28 vote, and its lone Democrat opposing it.On Tuesday, Kris Mayes, who was narrowly elected as Arizona’s attorney general in November and took office in January, filed a lawsuit against the county and called the power shift an “unqualified handover.”Understand the 4 Criminal Inquiries Into Donald TrumpCard 1 of 5Intensifying investigations. More

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      It Would Be Foolish to Ignore What Just Happened in Chicago

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      Bret Stephens: Gail, the biggest political news from last week was the resounding defeat of the mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, in the primary. Your thoughts on her political downfall?Gail Collins: Well, running Chicago is a very tough job in the best of times, and Mayor Lightfoot was stuck doing it in the pandemic era.Bret: Hmmm …Gail: OK, that was my best shot at defending her. She was a huge disappointment — in a place like Chicago, you expect the mayor to get into a lot of fights, but she seemed to pick a new one every hour.If you’ve got a city beset by crime and economic problems, any incumbent mayor would need a great plan and a whole lot of emotional connection to the average voter to deserve another term. None of that there.What’s your opinion?Bret: Every thriving city needs to get two basic things right: It has to be safe for people and safe for commerce. Under Lightfoot, homicides, carjackings and shoplifting skyrocketed, and businesses fled the city. Nearly a third of Michigan Avenue’s retail space is vacant. Boeing decided to move its headquarters out of the city. When the McDonald’s C.E.O. complained about crime, Lightfoot scolded him. So I’m glad Chicago voters had the good sense to give her the boot. I just hope they also have the good sense to go with the centrist Paul Vallas in the runoff election instead of his opponent, Brandon Johnson, who may be even further to the left than Lightweight — er, Lightfoot.Gail: We’re gonna have more to discuss on that point.Bret: The election will also have national implications, Gail. Notice that President Biden has said he won’t veto a bill in Congress that would reverse a District of Columbia law that lightened sentences for various felonies. Higher crime rates are going to dog Democratic candidates everywhere until they start to get as tough on the issue as they were when Biden was in the Senate, promoting the federal crime bill.Gail: Doubt there’s a Democrat in America who isn’t sensitive to the crime issue now. But as we follow this story, just want to leave you now with one thought: Getting tough on lawbreakers is not enough to make a great chief executive. Nearly. Remember Rudy Giuliani.Bret: A highly successful mayor who brought down crime, made the city livable again and was endorsed in 1997 for a second term by the editorial board of … The New York Times. Granted, it’s a shame about the rest of his career.Gail: Now Bret, here’s a change of subject for you. Masks! Been so eager to converse about your anti-mask column the other day. Eager in part because people keep stopping me on the street and yelping: “Bret! Masks!”Bret: Oh, yeah. I’m aware.Just to be clear, Gail, my column was not against masks per se. It was anti-mask mandates as an effective means of curbing communitywide spread. Masks can obviously work in tightly controlled settings, like operating rooms. People who correctly wore high-quality masks probably protected themselves and others, at least if they never removed them in public.Gail: Go on …Bret: But the mandates didn’t work, and it’s not just on account of the recent Cochrane analysis that I cited in my column. Our Times colleague David Leonhardt came to basically the same conclusion last year based on U.S. data. What can work at the individual level can, and often does, totally fail at the collective level.It’s also common sense. If you’re required to wear a mask on an airplane but allowed to take it off to eat or drink, the requirement becomes useless. If you’re supposed to wear a mask while walking to a table at a restaurant but not when sitting down, it’s useless. If you’re supposed to wear a mask but nobody is very concerned about whether it’s an N95 or a cloth mask, it’s useless.Gail: “Less useful” yeah. But my understanding has always been that the masks aren’t as important for protecting the healthy as they are critical for keeping people who are already infected from spreading germs to others.Those folks are going to go out sometimes whether we like it or not, and if they’re the only ones who have to wear masks, it’s like a walking declaration of disease — ringing a bell to warn that the leper is coming.Make sense? Why do I suspect I haven’t persuaded you?Bret: Human nature. People who are infected but don’t know it will be no better about wearing masks properly than anyone else. People who are infected, know it and irresponsibly walk around with the disease are probably not going to be responsible mask-wearers, either.There’s also the fact that, in a culture like America’s, there was never a chance we’d get the kind of compliance we need to make a real difference. Maybe in China, which could be draconian in its enforcement, but I don’t think any of us would have wanted that here.Bottom line, the government would have been wiser telling people: If you are immunocompromised or you have a potential comorbidity like obesity or diabetes, please wear N95 masks at all times in public. If you aren’t, please be respectful of those who do wear them.Gail: Not necessarily. One of the things that struck me when mask wearing began was how it kinda defined community. Folks declaring solidarity with their fellow citizens in joining together to fight a common battle.Bret: To me, the lesson was the opposite. Many of the people who were most emphatic in their belief in mask wearing — particularly those with media bullhorns — worked the sorts of jobs that didn’t require them to wear masks all their working hours. Not like waiters or store clerks or Uber drivers who had to wear them 8, 10, 12 hours a day, and sometimes wound up with sores in their mouths. The mandates didn’t just polarize us politically, they also exacerbated class divides.Gail: I got into the habit of telling Uber drivers to feel free to take off the mask. Most of them didn’t, which made me presume they were voluntarily protecting themselves against the passengers.Bret: Gail, you scofflaw!Gail: But on to another topic entirely — the Murdaugh murder trial! I have to say when you spend most of your life listening to reports about political drama, a major murder trial reminds you how nondramatic that stuff can be.Did you follow the case? I did and figured he’d be convicted. But I was shocked by how fast the jury came to a decision.Bret: You and our colleague Farhad Manjoo, who looked at the case through a technological lens and offered a terrific, contrarian take on the trial. That said, from what I watched of the trial, Alex Murdaugh struck me as evil incarnate. My wife will probably kill me for saying this — er, so to speak — but while I can at least grasp how someone can murder a spouse, I simply can’t comprehend how anyone could murder his own child.Gail: Yeah, but about the jury: I remember years and years ago, being a juror on a trial where the defendant had punched an old lady on a bus. In front of a lot of other people. Tons of testimony and the defendant himself — if I recall this correctly — took the stand to offer the excuse that he found the old lady really irritating.Still, we deliberated for hours! Not because there was any doubt about what we were going to do. It just seemed to show respect for the process. And, maybe, to qualify for another excellent free courthouse lunch.Bret: Spoken like a true journalist: Anything for a free lunch.Gail, before we go, I hope all of our readers spend some time with Hannah Dreier’s moving and brilliantly rendered report on the thousands of migrant children, sometimes as young as 12, who came to this country alone and are now working grueling hours in factories, kitchens, construction sites, garment makers, slaughterhouses and sawmills trying to survive and sending what little extra money they have to help their families back home. It’s a powerful reminder that the migration crisis isn’t just happening at the southern border. In many ways, it’s just beginning there.Gail: Bret, I love the way you point to the great work our colleagues are doing. Hannah’s reporting on the migrant children was heartbreaking. Politically, both sides agree there’s a terrible problem here in regulating both migration itself and what happens to people who arrive in hopes of creating better lives.But do you see any hope — any at all — of their getting together on a solution? Even a partial one?Bret: The problem shouldn’t be difficult to solve through compromise. Discipline and order at the border combined with compassion and aid toward those who are vulnerable and suffering. America has shown in the past that we can meet that challenge. We just need to muster the will to meet it again.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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      J.B. Pritzker Is Democrats’ ‘Break Glass’ Candidate

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      CHICAGO — Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois sat comfortably in an office board room high above the Loop on Monday and halfheartedly batted away the notion that he was preparing a run for the White House.The billionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune may be seen by some Democrats as the “in case of emergency break glass” candidate, one of the few prominent politicians who could stand up a White House run at a moment’s notice. Although President Biden has said he intends to mount a campaign, that has not eased Democrats’ obvious worry: the famously dilatory Hamlet on the Potomac might decide not to run for re-election at 81, and worry could turn to panic.But while Mr. Pritzker declined to provide a yea or nay on whether he would run, he added that a last-minute swap of an understudy for Mr. Biden was “such an odd hypothetical if you ask me.”“I think it assumes a lot of things about someone who’s 80 in this world today. No kidding, you know, 80 is a lot different today than it was in the ’80s,” he said with his signature aw-shucks wave.Politicians hate hypotheticals, or say they do to dodge questions, but if Mr. Biden cannot or will not run, the Democratic Party would have 3.6 billion reasons — Forbes’s most recent estimate of Mr. Pritzker’s net worth — to turn to the Illinois governor.“I intend to be impactful in the 2024 elections, helping Democrats run for Congress, helping Democrats run for United States Senate, and helping Joe Biden win re-election,” said Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois.Evan Jenkins for The New York TimesFour months after winning a second term by 12.5 percentage points, Jay Robert Pritzker, 58, has maintained his political operation and his ambition. His influence and money reach far beyond state lines, and a string of progressive victories in the last year has raised his stature.“He would run for two good reasons,” said Ray LaHood, a former Republican congressman from Peoria who served as a transportation secretary in the Obama administration. “He’s a billionaire who’s not afraid to spend his own money, and he’s very progressive, which is where the Democratic Party is today.”Indeed, Mr. Pritzker has turned center-left Illinois into an island of prairie progressivism, much as Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who won re-election last year by 19 points, has enacted a blood-red “Florida Blueprint” that he is now pitching to the wider nation ahead of an expected campaign.And while Mr. DeSantis has created a conservative bastion in Florida over the wishes of millions in his diverse state, Mr. Pritzker’s policies have rankled much of Illinois beyond Chicagoland. Under his leadership, the legislature has approved a $15 minimum wage, legalized recreational cannabis, ended cash bail, guaranteed access to abortions and gender-affirming care and banned assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.Who’s Running for President in 2024?Card 1 of 6The race begins. More

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      A Battle Over Murals Depicting Slavery

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      More from our inbox:Corporal Punishment in SchoolsWhat We Don’t Know About Ron DeSantisHelp for CaregiversCalifornia and the Colorado RiverGuns and CrimeThe murals in the Chase Community Center have been covered at Vermont Law and Graduate School in South Royalton, Vt.Richard Beaven for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Artist and School Spar Over Murals of Slavery” (front page, Feb. 22):The decision to cover these murals is totally outrageous. One doesn’t learn from the past by covering it over. You learn by studying, and that is what an educational institution should provide. You don’t erase, or cover over, the past because it is unpleasant or disturbing.Of course it is, and continues to be, disturbing, but when you literally come face to face with it as these murals make possible, you then must consider what that discomfort means in terms of both our history as a nation and our laws and actions today.The school should take down the panels, expose the murals and their history once again and provide context and the opportunity for discussion.Elaine Hirschl EllisNew YorkThe writer is the president of Arts and Crafts Tours, which hosts trips about 19th- and 20th-century art and architecture.To the Editor:The quote from a law student who was distressed by a visual depiction of slavery by a white artist — “The artist was depicting history, but it’s not his history to depict” — is most disturbing. The argument is not whether the artistic merits of the mural should be considered? Or that the mood of the piece may be too harsh for a student center?Those who think censoring painters or other artists by limiting their creative themes according to their race or ethnic identity are closed-minded, and will erode free artistic expression.Steve CohenNew YorkTo the Editor:The diverse reactions to the murals in the article can be attributed to a debate over the periods that influenced the artist’s painting style.The intent of the school and the artist to represent the state’s role in helping slaves escape via the Underground Railroad was admirable. Yet the figurative style still harkens back to the comedically formulaic and stereotypical blackened ones of minstrels’ stage entertainment prevalent in the U.S. in the 19th and early 20th centuries.The spirit of mockery seen in the most famous minstrel, Jim Crow, persists today in the form of white supremacy, voter restriction and inequity. That style’s history would not be lost on many viewers.A discussion hosted by the school’s National Center for Restorative Justice about this issue could be a powerful learning tool for us all.Theresa McNicholCranbury, N.J.The writer is an art historian.Corporal Punishment in SchoolsCharles Lavine, the chairman of the New York State Assembly Judiciary Committee, is among the lawmakers who have filed bills to bar corporal punishment in private schools.Mark Lennihan/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Bills Push Corporal Punishment Ban in New York Private Schools” (news article, March 3):I was shocked to read that physical violence against children is still tolerated in some New York schools. I suffered the occasional whack from the nuns in parochial school, usually for “having a fresh mouth,” but that was many years ago. I thought that anachronistic practice had long since ended.I support the effort of Assemblyman Charles Lavine and his colleagues to protect students and bring all of our schools into line with the progressive values of a modern society.John E. StaffordRye, N.Y.What We Don’t Know About Ron DeSantis Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “My Fellow Liberals Are Exaggerating the Dangers of Ron DeSantis,” by Damon Linker (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, Feb. 27):Mr. Linker misses the point of voters’ anxiety about Florida’s governor. The fear stems not from what we know about Ron DeSantis, but what we do not. We know that he shares Donald Trump’s penchant for bullying, bigotry, trolling and media manipulation.What we do not know is whether Mr. DeSantis shares Mr. Trump’s contempt for the presidential oath of office. Will Mr. DeSantis use the bully pulpit to undermine faith in our elections, as Mr. Trump did? Will he try to overturn the results of a free and fair election, as Mr. Trump did? We cannot know, because Mr. DeSantis refuses to enlighten us.Until he speaks forthrightly to these questions, voters (not just “liberals”) have a right to view Mr. DeSantis as more dangerous than Donald Trump.Indeed, all Republican candidates should be expected to repudiate Mr. Trump’s malfeasance. Trust has been violated, and must be restored if we are to move forward together again as one nation.Andrew MeyerMiddletown, N.J.Help for CaregiversPresident Biden at an Intel facility under construction in New Albany, Ohio, in September. Pete Marovich for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Funds to Bolster U.S. Chip-Making Come With Catch” (front page, Feb. 28):The Biden administration’s efforts to leverage its investments in semiconductor infrastructure to expand child care are laudable and much needed, but the policy falls short of supporting millions of Americans caring for aging or disabled loved ones who also need support to stay and succeed in the work force.The 32 million working caregivers at this end of the spectrum continue to be left out of administrative and federal action to support working families. For example, working caregivers of older adults, people with disabilities and people living with serious medical conditions were excluded from the expansion of paid leave for federal workers and from the emergency paid leave provisions of Covid response legislation. As a result, these caregivers are more likely to report negative impacts at work because of caregiving responsibilities.Using administrative authority to help caregivers balance care and work is urgently needed given stalled efforts in Congress to pass policies like paid family and medical leave, affordable child care, and strengthened aging and disability care. But without a comprehensive approach, millions of family caregivers will continue to be left behind.Jason ResendezWashingtonThe writer is the president and C.E.O. of the National Alliance for Caregiving.California and the Colorado RiverA broken boat, which used to be underwater in Lake Mead now sits above the lake’s water line because of a decades-long megadrought, outside Boulder City, Nev., Feb. 2.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “California Wants to Keep (Most of) the Colorado River for Itself,” by John Fleck (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, Feb. 23):The essay does not acknowledge that only California has voluntarily offered to significantly cut its use of Colorado River water in the near term under a proposal that also ensures that cities in Arizona, Nevada and across the Southwest have the water they need for their residents.California’s proposal strikes a balance between respecting longstanding law and recognizing that every city and farm that relies on the river must reduce its water use — precisely the sense of fairness and shared sacrifice that Mr. Fleck lauds.The six-state proposal took the presumptuous approach of assigning the vast majority of cuts to water users that didn’t sign on: California, Native American tribes and Mexico. Ignoring existing laws will likely land us in court, costing time we don’t have.We have to work together to keep the Colorado River system from crashing and protect all those who rely on it. We can do this through developing true consensus through collaboration — not by bashing one state or community.J.B. HambyEl Centro, Calif.The writer is chairman of the Colorado River Board of California and the state’s Colorado River commissioner.Guns and CrimeTo the Editor:Re “Chicago Reflects Democratic Split on Public Safety” (front page, March 2):As Republicans look to exploit crime — gun violence in particular — as a campaign issue, Democrats would do well to point out the G.O.P.’s unwillingness to prevent illegal guns from spilling across state borders early and often.Bruce EllersteinNew York More

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      How Chicago’s Mayoral Runoff Could Play Out on a National Stage

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      The two mayoral candidates, both Democrats, are on opposite sides of the debate over crime and policing. Republicans, with an eye toward 2024, are watching closely.CHICAGO — For nearly three years, since the ebbing of the George Floyd protests of 2020, almost nothing has divided the Democratic Party like the issues of crime, public safety and policing, much to the delight of Republicans eager to center urban violence in the nation’s political debate.Now, an unanticipated mayoral runoff in the country’s third largest city between Paul Vallas, the white former Chicago public schools chief running as the tough-on-crime candidate, and Brandon Johnson, a Black, progressive Cook County commissioner questioning traditional methods of policing, will elevate public safety on the national stage and test how ugly the Democratic divide might get in a city known for bare-knuckled politics and racial division.Mr. Vallas, as Chicago’s schools chief, expanded charter schools, then virtually eliminated neighborhood public schools in the New Orleans school system.Taylor Glascock for The New York Times“Oh, it’s going to be good,” Christopher Z. Mooney, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said of the runoff contest, which will culminate on April 4. “It’s going to get pretty rancorous, and underlying all of it will be the racial subtext.”The mayoral runoff pits two Democrats against each other, divided not only by ideology but also by race in a city where racial politics have been prominent since it elected its first Black mayor, Harold Washington, 40 years ago.A Republican hasn’t controlled City Hall since William H. “Big Bill” Thompson left office in 1931, with an open alliance with Al Capone and three safe deposit boxes containing almost $1.6 million.But this year’s Chicago election will be watched by Republicans intently. Crime has already emerged as a potent weapon for a G.O.P. eager to win back the suburbs and chip away at Democratic gains among urban professionals.It has also highlighted the Democrats’ divide between a liberal left that coined the phrase “defund the police” and a resurgent center insisting the party does “back the blue.”In New York City, a moderate Democrat, Eric Adams, harnessed the surge of violence that hit cities across the country, exacerbated by the pandemic, to win the mayoral race in 2021. A Republican-turned-Democrat, Rick Caruso, leaned on the issue of crime last year to force a runoff in the nation’s second largest city, Los Angeles, though he ultimately lost the mayoralty to the more liberal candidate, Karen Bass.In San Francisco, Chesa Boudin, the liberal district attorney of a city once synonymous with liberalism, was recalled last year by voters infuriated by rising disorder, and similarly progressive prosecutors from Philadelphia to Chicago have become lightning rods in conservative campaigns against supposedly “woke” law enforcement. Michelle Wu, the newly elected mayor of Boston, was forced just this week to respond to criticism of her handling of violence, after Black leaders accused her of ignoring their safety.And while the G.O.P. was disappointed with its showing in November’s congressional elections, one bright spot for Republicans came in victories in New York and California that were fueled by advertisements portraying Democratic cities as lawless. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said her Democratic Party may well have held onto control of the House in November if candidates had a better answer to Republican attacks on crime, especially in New York.Add to that the issue of education, another sharp divide between Mr. Johnson and Mr. Vallas, and the mayor’s race in the city of broad shoulders may play out exactly as Republican presidential candidates would want. Ever since Glenn Youngkin recaptured Virginia’s governorship for his party in 2021 with an education-focused campaign, Republicans have made problems in the nation’s schools a centerpiece of their attempted national comeback, especially in the suburbs.And that has included a pitch for more school choice, whether through charter schools or vouchers to help public school students attend private schools. Again, Mr. Vallas and Mr. Johnson represent polar opposite positions on the issue: Mr. Vallas, as Chicago’s schools chief, expanded charter schools, then virtually eliminated neighborhood public schools when he took over the New Orleans school system after Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Johnson, a former schoolteacher and teachers union leader, stands firmly against that movement.Mr. Johnson, a former schoolteacher and teachers union leader, has fought against charter schools.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times“This is a microcosm of a larger battle for the soul of the nation,” said Delmarie Cobb, a progressive political consultant in Chicago, “and being the third largest city, it’s going to get all the national coverage. This is going to be an intense five weeks.”For the national parties, those five weeks will be tricky. The runoff between Ms. Bass and Mr. Caruso in Los Angeles forced the Democratic establishment to get behind Ms. Bass, a known quantity with a long career in the House of Representatives. If the Democratic establishment rallies around Mr. Johnson, the outcome of the Chicago mayor’s race could mirror Los Angeles, come Election Day.But Mr. Johnson’s ardent progressivism, including his outspoken skepticism of policing as the answer to rising crime, could make him toxic to Democrats with national ambitions, including Illinois’ billionaire governor, J.B. Pritzker.Likewise, Mr. Vallas’s pledge to beef up Chicago’s police force and unshackle officers from the controls put on them after high-profile police shootings like the killing of Laquan McDonald could make him a hero of Republicans eying a run at the White House next year. But their endorsements would run counter to Mr. Vallas’s efforts in the nonpartisan mayoral race to persuade Chicagoans that he really is a Democrat.Rodney Davis, a former Republican House member from central Illinois, said that he had no doubt Mr. Vallas was a Democrat, but that the ideological divide in the mayoral contest was no less important because the contestants are from the same party.“Are voters going to think about whether Brandon Johnson calls Paul Vallas a Republican, or are they going to think, ‘Do I feel safe when I leave my kid in the car to go back inside and grab something? Do I feel like the public school system is getting better or worse?’” he said, adding, “This has set up a fight that really is less about politics and more about issues.”National Republicans, eager to make the crime debate central as they joust with each other for their party’s presidential nomination in 2024, are not likely to stay quiet.“They may want to exploit the situation,” said Marc H. Morial, a former New Orleans mayor who now heads the National Urban League.Last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida swung through New York City, the Philadelphia suburbs and a bedroom community outside Chicago to speak to police unions about crime, and to lambaste what he called “woke” urban officials who he contends have eased up on policing and criminal prosecutions.“They just get put right back on the streets and they commit more crimes and it’s like a carousel,” Mr. DeSantis, an as-of-yet undeclared candidate for president, said Tuesday night during a speech in The Villages, a heavily Republican retirement community in Central Florida.Next, Mr. DeSantis is taking his critique of big cities on a national tour, including stops in states with the first three Republican primary contests, and will promote his new book, “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival.”Though Donald J. Trump erected a gleaming skyscraper on the Chicago River, he has made the city his No. 1 example of what is wrong with urban America.“It’s embarrassing to us as a nation,” Mr. Trump said on a visit in 2019. “All over the world, they’re talking about Chicago.”Criminal justice could be a centerpiece in the coming fight between Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis for the 2024 nomination. As president, Mr. Trump signed the “First Step Act,” a bipartisan criminal justice law that has freed thousands of inmates from federal prison. As a House lawmaker from Florida, Mr. DeSantis supported Mr. Trump’s bill in Congress in 2018, but as governor in 2019, when the state passed its own version of that federal legislation, he opposed a measure that would have allowed certain prisoners convicted of nonviolent felonies to be released after serving at least 65 percent of their sentences.The Trump measure was opposed by some Republicans, including Mr. Trump’s own attorney general at the time, Jeff Sessions, and the former president has since appeared eager to distance himself from the law.The race in Chicago will pit a candidate with the police union’s support against one who has the teachers’ union on his side.Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesDuring the past two years, Mr. Trump has spoken more about the need for tougher criminal justice laws, renewing his widely criticized proposal to execute drug dealers, and less about the benefits or outcomes of the First Step Act. Speaking to New Hampshire Republicans in late January, in the first public event of his latest presidential campaign, Mr. Trump said he would have a tougher response to civil rights protests if elected to a second term.“Next time, it’s one thing I would do different,” Mr. Trump said.A Republican intervention in the mayoral runoff here would not be helpful to Mr. Vallas. He was forced to denounce Mr. DeSantis’s appearance in Elmhurst, Ill., last week lest he be tied to the polarizing Florida governor ahead of Tuesday’s voting.But Mr. Johnson almost certainly represents too perfect a target for Republicans to sit this one out. He may have walked back earlier comments on “defunding” the police, but last month, he was the only mayoral candidate who refused to say he would fill the growing number of vacancies in the Chicago Police Department.“Spending more on policing per capita has been a failure,” Mr. Johnson said at a news conference outside City Hall last month.“Look, I get it,” he continued. “People are talking about policing as a strategy. But, keep in mind, that is the strategy that has led to the failures we are experiencing right now.”A substantive debate on the best approach to public safety could be good for Chicago and the country — if it stays substantive, Mr. Morial said. Policing is not only about the number of officers, he said, but about the accountability of the force and the trust of the citizens.Mr. Morial expressed doubt that Mr. Trump or Mr. DeSantis would keep the debate focused that way. But the nation will be watching, starting with the Chicago mayoral runoff, he said.“I’m watching this race closely,” he said. “I think it’s going to become a national conversation, which I think is going to be good.”Jonathan Weisman reported from Chicago, and Michael C. Bender from Washington. More

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      Chief of a Democratic Super PAC Is Stepping Down

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      Guy Cecil has led Priorities USA since 2015 and will leave at the end of March, as outside political groups begin to make plans for the 2024 races.The chairman and chief strategist for a major Democratic outside group is stepping down after eight years, a shift in leadership while plans for 2024 are taking shape for the constellation of entities expected to support Democrats up and down the ballot.Guy Cecil, who has led that Democratic group, the super PAC Priorities USA, since early 2015, will leave at the end of March, the group announced on Wednesday. It has been a key force in Democratic politics for over a decade, and during Mr. Cecil’s tenure, it became deeply involved in politics beyond presidential races. In the 2022 midterms, it spent heavily on digital ads.Allies of President Biden are assessing what the support from outside groups for Mr. Biden’s expected re-election campaign will look like. In 2020, officials involved with his campaign indicated that they wanted people to engage with Priorities USA.It is unclear who will replace Mr. Cecil, but officials said the group has top staff members who have been there for six years. It spent tens of millions on anti-Trump ads in 2020, and it has roughly $11 million in cash on hand and $16 million in further commitments. “Priorities will continue to lead and grow, and I look forward to watching them take on the fight to re-elect President Biden,” Mr. Cecil said in a statement. “I’m also looking forward to some new adventures of my own and am more committed than ever to making a difference wherever and however I can.”Who’s Running for President in 2024?Card 1 of 6The race begins. More

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      How Paul Vallas Became the Chicago Mayoral Election Front-Runner

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      Mr. Vallas, a former public school executive with more conservative views on crime and education, will face Brandon Johnson, a progressive county commissioner, in an April runoff.CHICAGO — When Paul Vallas ran for mayor of Chicago four years ago, it did not go well. He finished in a distant ninth place, winning only 5 percent of the vote and barely registering as an electoral afterthought.But this time, after finishing well ahead of eight other candidates on Tuesday in the first round of balloting, Mr. Vallas has emerged as the front-runner. He will face Brandon Johnson in an April 4 runoff to lead America’s third-largest city.That matchup gives Chicagoans a choice between two Democrats with starkly different philosophies and life experiences: The younger, unabashedly progressive Mr. Johnson, a county commissioner and teacher who is Black; and the older, far less liberal Mr. Vallas, a white man who is a former public school executive and vocal supporter of law enforcement.Mr. Vallas’s reversal of political fortune since his defeat four years ago reflects a much different electoral mood in Chicago and the appeal of tough-on-crime policies for urban voters. Though his personal style and story are different, Mr. Vallas’s platform has similarities to the message Mayor Eric Adams of New York City used to win election in 2021.“Public safety is the fundamental right of every American: It is a civil right and it is the principal responsibility of government,” Mr. Vallas said Tuesday night in a speech. “And we will have a safe Chicago. We will make Chicago the safest city in America.”Mr. Vallas, 69, grew up on Chicago’s South Side and is a familiar figure in local government. He led Chicago Public Schools from 1995 to 2001 before leaving to run the school systems in Philadelphia, New Orleans and Bridgeport, Conn. In those positions, he cultivated a reputation as a crisis manager and charter school supporter willing to take on hard jobs and implement sweeping changes, an approach that garnered a mix of praise and criticism.Paul Vallas, former superintendent of schools, visiting students as he toured the campus of A.P. Tureaud Elementary School in New Orleans in 2007.Cheryl Gerber for The New York TimesBut it was Mr. Vallas’s hard-line message on crime and policing that elevated him in this year’s nine-candidate mayoral field. After unsuccessful runs for governor in 2002, lieutenant governor in 2014 and mayor in 2019, Mr. Vallas positioned himself this year well to the political right of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, and even further to the right of Mr. Johnson.On Chicago’s influential political left, the prospect of a Vallas mayoralty has been met with fear, derision and implications that he is really more of a Republican than the lifelong Democrat he claims to be.“We cannot have this man as the mayor of the city of Chicago,” Mr. Johnson, 46, whose campaign is backed by the powerful and politically liberal Chicago Teachers Union, told his supporters on Tuesday night. “Our children and families across Chicago can’t afford it.”Supporters of Mr. Johnson said they appreciated his approach on education and policing. Mr. Johnson at one point suggested that he agreed with the movement to reduce funding for police departments, though he later backtracked.“I like his opinions about funding the police differently, not defunding but doing it differently,” said Carla Moulton, 61, a legal secretary who voted for Mr. Johnson.Mr. Vallas was the only white politician in the field, which included seven Black candidates and one Hispanic contender. Chicago, which has a history of racial and ethnic groups sometimes voting as blocs, has roughly equal numbers of Black, white and Hispanic residents.Progressives united against Mr. Vallas because of his views on the police, his track record supporting charter schools and, most recently, a Chicago Tribune report that his Twitter account liked an array of offensive posts on Twitter about Ms. Lightfoot. (Mr. Vallas suggested his account was breached.) Mr. Vallas also said in a television interview in 2009 that he considered himself more of a Republican than a Democrat, a strike against him in the eyes of many voters in overwhelmingly liberal Chicago.Police officers in Chicago watched as Chicago Public Schools students staged a walkout and a rally in front of school district headquarters in downtown Chicago. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesAs he made his case to voters, Mr. Vallas welcomed an endorsement from the local Fraternal Order of Police, called for the replacement of Chicago Police Department leaders and put forth a plan to improve arrest rates and prosecute more misdemeanor crimes. His campaign website described Chicago as a near dystopia in which “city leadership has surrendered us all to a criminal element that acts with seeming impunity in treating unsuspecting, innocent people as prey.”For many voters, unnerved by homicide rates that soared to generational highs during the coronavirus pandemic, that message resonated.“I was never scared before,” said Martha Wicker, 61, who voted for Mr. Vallas. “Now I don’t want to be on the train alone when it’s dark.”Mike Curran, 50, a real estate broker, said he also voted for Mr. Vallas because of public safety concerns.“I’m very disappointed in the last four years,” Mr. Curran said. “I grew up in Detroit and know what can happen to a city. I voted for Vallas because I’m extremely fed up with crime in the neighborhood.”During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Mr. Vallas became a sought-after leader for school systems in crisis. He took over Chicago Public Schools in the years after the district was referred to as the country’s worst. He led the Philadelphia school system and expanded charter schools after the state took over the district. And after Hurricane Katrina, he oversaw the rebuilding of the New Orleans school system.Creg Williams, who worked as a school district administrator under Mr. Vallas in multiple cities, described his former boss as an energetic, determined leader who was open to criticism but steadfast in advancing his vision.“He looks at problems and he thinks about, ‘How do I innovate and how do I create? How do I make this change, and make that change a lasting change?’” said Dr. Williams, who later worked as a school superintendent in other districts and who has supported Mr. Vallas’s campaign.During his stint with the Chicago school district, Mr. Vallas had a cordial relationship with the Chicago Teachers Union, an organization that battled repeatedly with the last two Chicago mayors and that helped elevate Mr. Johnson’s profile in this year’s campaign.Mr. Vallas turning in his ballot at a Chicago elementary school on Tuesday.Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesDeborah Lynch, whose tenure as president of the teachers’ union overlapped briefly with Mr. Vallas’s stint as chief executive of the Chicago schools, said she appreciated Mr. Vallas’s approach even though she did not agree with him on every issue.“He was a leader with lots of energy, lots of ideas, lots of plans,” said Ms. Lynch, who now lives in suburban Chicago and who supports Mr. Vallas’s mayoral campaign. “Some of those plans went as intended. Some, you know, were lessons learned. But I think who he was then, and who he is now: He has a vision, but he also backs up his vision with specific plans.”His work, however, has also brought criticism. Mr. Vallas was appointed in 2017 to the board of trustees at Chicago State University,which was struggling financially.After arriving there, he quickly moved into a top administrative role, where he was charged with helping set the course for the university’s future. But as it became clear he was planning to run for mayor in 2019, he was forced out. The Rev. Marshall Hatch Sr., who at the time was the chairman of the university’s board, said he believed Mr. Vallas “didn’t help at all” and had “no impact,” though others on campus defended his work.“It didn’t make a lot of sense, other than the school was in trouble and it looked like the school’s in such a crisis that, hey, let’s throw a fixer like Paul over there,” Mr. Hatch said. “It didn’t last long.”Julie Bosman More

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      Why Chicago’s Mayoral Election Matters, Even if You Don’t Live in Chicago

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      America’s cities increasingly face similar problems, particularly worries about crime and hangovers from the pandemic. That’s why the mayor’s election in Chicago on Tuesday is about more than Chicago.CHICAGO — Mayor Lori Lightfoot faces eight challengers in a fierce mayoral election and risks being ousted from City Hall after one term. Here’s why the election, at a time of widespread unease in the nation’s cities, reflects issues that are resonating around the country.The race is a referendum on crime and policing.On the campaign trail and in debates, the election in Chicago has been driven by one issue above all others: crime.Under Ms. Lightfoot, who was elected in 2019, homicide rates soared to generational highs, an increase that was most deeply felt in pockets of the South and West Sides that have historically been plagued by gun violence. And residents throughout the city say they are unsettled by a spike in robberies, muggings, carjackings and other property crimes, and they have placed the blame on Ms. Lightfoot.She is facing her most serious competition from a tough-on-crime candidate, Paul Vallas, a former public schools executive who began attacking her record on public safety early in the campaign.The same political dynamic has played out in mayoral races in New York City and Los Angeles, with varying results: Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, a former police captain, won office in 2021 amid widespread concerns about crime. But last fall, Los Angeles voters chose Karen Bass, a veteran Democratic congresswoman, over Rick Caruso, a billionaire mall developer who spent close to $100 million on a campaign that focused directly on concerns over crime and disorder.Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago met with Mayor Eric Adams of New York last year to discuss crime-fighting strategies.Tyler Pasciak Lariviere/Chicago Sun-Times, via Associated PressMs. Lightfoot has crisscrossed Chicago telling voters that crime is down in the city and that her focus on the issue is yielding results: Homicides dropped in 2022 after rising in the two previous years. For many voters, it may be coming too late.The next Chicago mayor could reshape downtown.“Make no little plans,” Chicagoans like to say, quoting the city planner and architect Daniel Burnham, whose vision transformed Chicago’s lakefront and skyline.Cities around the county are struggling to redefine and revitalize their downtowns in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. And whoever wins the mayoral election in Chicago will have the opportunity to make very big plans for the city’s downtown, including its most prominent neighborhood, the Loop. The area was battered during the pandemic and has yet to fully recover.Ms. Lightfoot has already made proposals that could nudge the Loop away from its identity as a center for office workers, and toward becoming a more residential neighborhood and hub of cultural life. (The Chicago Loop Alliance, a business advocacy group, says the area is already well on its way: There are now more people living in the Loop than before the pandemic, reflecting growth of about 9 percent since 2020.)One plan introduced under the Lightfoot administration addresses the high vacancy rates for commercial space in the Loop, calling for older office buildings on LaSalle Street in the heart of Chicago’s business district to be turned into apartments and condominiums, including affordable housing. If the plan is successful, it may become a model for other big cities that find themselves with excess commercial real estate as remote workers continue to balk at returning downtown.Whoever wins the mayoral election in Chicago will have the chance to shape downtown Chicago as it adapts to the effects of the pandemic.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesBig-city politics are in flux.Mayoral elections in Chicago are officially nonpartisan, but none of the nine candidates on the ballot on Tuesday is a Republican. (In the 2020 presidential election, 83 percent of Chicago voters voted Democratic.) Assuming none wins an outright majority on Tuesday, the top two finishers in the race will advance to a runoff on April 4. Who those candidates turn out to be may offer a glimpse into the direction of urban politics in post-pandemic America.Ms. Lightfoot has been attacked from both the right and the left, and her challengers fit in familiar niches on the national Democratic spectrum. Mr. Vallas has attracted support from more conservative voters, especially in heavily white wards on the Northwest and Southwest Sides, where many police officers, firefighters and other city workers live. He has also gained support from Democrats who voted for Ms. Lightfoot in 2019 but are now fed up over crime and are willing to vote for a more conservative candidate.The mayor also faces serious challenges from the liberal wing of the party, especially from Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner endorsed by the liberal Chicago Teachers Union. Mr. Johnson has gained momentum in the last several weeks, polls suggest, as progressive voters who are unwilling to give Ms. Lightfoot another chance have searched for an alternative. But at a time when public safety is the No. 1 issue for many voters, Mr. Johnson’s previous support for reducing police funding — a stance he later backtracked from — may complicate his mayoral bid. More