Subterms
America’s Strangest Redistricting FightFelice Belman�� Reporting on New EnglandJoseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesLawmakers nationwide are redrawing congressional districts, with the party in power usually seeking an advantage. But New Hampshire’s Republican governor says his party’s proposed redistricting map isn’t competitive enough.He’s threatening a veto → More
The Democrats’ House Majority PAC is spending nearly $102 million to reserve advertising time in 51 media markets, staking out a broad battlefield for the coming midterm elections.WASHINGTON — The House Democrats’ main political action committee is spending nearly $102 million to reserve advertising spots in 50 media markets, from Bangor, Maine, to San Diego, Calif., a battlefield that is considerably larger and more expensive than it was in the past two congressional elections.The breadth of the congressional map reveals the scope of Democrats’ worries about holding seats in midterm elections. Areas once considered safe, like South Texas, greater Pittsburgh and Seattle will see Democratic advertising.But Democrats will be playing some offense, too, especially in California, where redistricting has opened up Republican targets.“We are doing whatever it takes to hold the majority, and there are opportunities across the map,” said Abby Curran Horrell, the executive director of the House Democrats’ political action committee, known as House Majority PAC, adding, “We feel confident about the races that we plan to play in.”Her Republican counterpart, Dan Conston of the Congressional Leadership Fund, said the huge expenditure is a sign of weakness and an admission that inflation, rising crime rates and an unpopular Democratic president will not only cost Democrats swing districts but also make some districts President Biden won handily fiercely competitive.“I think they believe they’ve already lost the majority,” he said. “This is about staving off losses in some deep blue, traditionally Democratic areas.”The spending comes even as redistricting has shriveled the number of districts considered competitive based on election results in 2020. House district maps gerrymandered by both parties have left fewer than 40 seats — potentially far fewer — that would have been closely divided between Republican and Democratic voters in 2020. But the new advertising reservations point to a map that has expanded far beyond those districts.What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Analysis: For years, the congressional map favored Republicans over Democrats. But in 2022, the map is poised to be surprisingly fair.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.Wednesday’s reservations in 51 markets stand out, even in recent history. In 2020, House Majority PAC made initial advertising reservations in 29 media markets, with half the money it is spending Wednesday. In the Democratic wave year of 2018, $43 million was put down early for reservations in 33 markets.Democrats holding swing seats will see advertising spent on their behalf. Among the beneficiaries will be Representatives Jared Golden of Maine, Abigail Spanberger and Elaine Luria of Virginia, Cindy Axne of Iowa, Sharice Davids of Kansas, Angie Craig of Minnesota and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan.But with Mr. Biden’s approval ratings hovering near 40 percent, House Majority PAC is reserving advertising time to defend some entrenched Democratic incumbents, whose political holds are weakened not just by the president but by newly drawn districts. Representative Sanford Bishop, for instance, has represented a swath of southern Georgia since 1993. Yet the PAC is reserving $2.6 million of ad space in three media markets to boost his re-election.A member of the Kildee family has represented the area around Flint, Mich., for 45 years — first Dale Kildee, then his nephew Dan, who took the seat nearly a decade ago. But new district lines and a stiff political headwind have forced House Majority PAC to make a hefty advertising reservation of more than $1 million to try to save the younger Kildee’s House career. Media stations in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., will get more than $1.7 million as the PAC tries to save Representative Matt Cartwright, another veteran.In Colorado, the last several elections seemed to turn the districts around Boulder and Denver into a reliable shade of blue. But redistricting and the retirement of Representative Ed Perlmutter have prompted House Majority PAC to pony up $4.4 million in the Denver media market to defend the state’s seventh and eighth districts.And the marked movement of Hispanic voters toward the Republican Party is forcing Democratic spending in South Texas to try to secure two House districts that stretch from the once reliably Democratic Rio Grande Valley to San Antonio and its suburbs.Rep. Katie Porter at a town hall meeting in Irvine, Calif., in 2019.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesRep. Mike Levin at an event hosted by the Democratic Party of Orange County, Calif., in 2019.Allison Zaucha for The New York TimesDemocrats are also preparing to spend big to stave off defeats in Southern California, focusing their defenses on Representatives Katie Porter and Mike Levin.The advertising reservations also show how painful it will be to defend the seats of the 31 House Democrats who have announced their retirements or are seeking other offices. Millions of dollars will be spent to save the seats of Mr. Perlmutter and other retiring Democrats, including Ron Kind of Wisconsin, Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona, Cheri Bustos of Illinois and G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina.Democrats are defending the seats of the 31 House Democrats who have announced their retirements or are seeking other offices. They include, from left, Rep. Cheri Bustos, Rep. Ron Kind, Rep. Ed Perlmutter, Rep. G.K. Butterfield, and Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick. Win McNamee/Getty Images, Lauren Justice for The New York Times, Pool photo by Anna Moneymaker, Erin Schaff/The New York Times, Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times, Kelly Presnell/Arizona Daily Star, via Associated PressThe multitude of races in some states is also challenging Democratic efforts. In Nevada, for instance, where Democrats are trying to hold onto the governorship, a Senate seat, and three House seats, House Majority PAC is shelling out $11.6 million in Las Vegas alone.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More
The election to fill the seat of the Alaska congressman, who died last week, promises to be a Yukon adventure. It’s also a fascinating political experiment in the making.How do you replace a man who once willingly put his hand in a steel trap during a congressional hearing until it turned blue? Who waggled an 18-inch walrus penis bone at a top administration official? Who held a knife to the throat of a fellow lawmaker?How, in sum, do you replace Don Young?The death of Representative Young at age 88 last week leaves a void that won’t easily be filled, Alaskan political insiders tell us. Young was the longest-serving Republican in the history of Congress, a living relic who decorated his House office with stuffed animal trophies and larded his speech with profanity. He cultivated the image of a crude frontiersman in Washington while protecting Alaska’s extractive industries and, as our colleague Emily Cochrane writes today, steering billions of federal dollars to pet projects back home.Young flouted ethics rules with abandon. Regulators once forced him to repay nearly $60,000 for trips to hunting lodges that had been financed through campaign money. On another occasion, he was accused of taking bribes, though no formal charges were brought against him. His irascible outbursts often got him into trouble, as when he referred to Latino immigrants with an ethnic slur or when, before an audience of high school students, he used a profane term for anal sex when describing a photography exhibit.In a replacement, Alaskans are looking for “someone who will go to Washington, give the bureaucrats hell and bring home the pork,” said Michael Carey, a columnist for The Anchorage Daily News and a longtime Young observer. “But I don’t think anybody can wrap themselves in his mythos.”Just days after Young’s death, the race to succeed him is well underway. Friday is the deadline to file official paperwork, and potential candidates are already lining up.Al Gross, a former orthopedic surgeon who ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2020, is running as a “nonpartisan.” He is perhaps best known for a goofy music video promoting his candidacy that includes the line, “He’s killed a bear, caught lots of fish, not swayed by party politics” and ends by describing him as “Alaska’s own bear doctor.”John Coghill, a former state senator with ties to the evangelical community, is running as a Republican. Nick Begich III, the Republican scion of Alaskan political royalty, has also indicated that he will enter the race, as has Christopher Constant, an openly gay Democrat who is a member of the Anchorage Assembly.Few expect Sarah Palin, a former Alaska governor and the Republican nominee for vice president in 2008, to run. She told Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, last week that she was weighing whether to “throw my hat in the ring,” but made no commitment.Some in the Republican establishment favor Joshua Revak, an Iraq war veteran who previously worked for Young and is now a state senator. There’s also Tara Sweeney, an Alaska Native whose husband, Kevin Sweeney, is a consultant for Senator Lisa Murkowski’s re-election campaign. Tara Sweeney served in the Trump administration as assistant secretary of the interior for Indian affairs.Young’s death came as he faced growing doubts about his political longevity, with the prospect of being squeezed from left and right for the first time.“For years, Don was this untouchable Alaskan institution,” said John-Henry Heckendorn, a political consultant in Anchorage. “He had always been able to turn his fire and intensity on one enemy. But he had never really had to fight a war on two fronts.”Alaska’s political experimentWhoever ultimately decides to run, the House special election to replace Young will be watched closely. For the first time, the state will be using its unique “top four” primary system — and Alaskans aren’t sure what to expect.In the first round of the special election, to be held on June 11, every candidate appears on the same ballot. Voters each pick one candidate, and the four top vote-getters move ahead to the special general election, scheduled for Aug. 16. Voters then rank up to four favorites, including a write-in option. If no one earns an outright majority, election officials eliminate the lowest-ranking candidate, repeating the process up to three times until there is a winner.Supporters of the system say it will break the stranglehold political parties have over primary elections, give voters more choices and create incentives for bipartisan cooperation.“We’re already seeing more and different kinds of names, which is great for voters,” said Jason Grenn, the executive director of Alaskans for Better Elections, a nonprofit group that promotes the top-four system.Some confusion might be inevitable. In a quirk of scheduling prompted by Young’s death, the regular open primary for his seat will be held the same day as the special general election for his seat. That means Alaskans will be choosing someone to represent them in Washington for the next two years even as they also choose someone to represent them for the remainder of 2022. It could be the same person — or someone completely different. Senator Lisa Murkowski is defending her seat against Kelly Tshibaka, a Republican challenger.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesThe Murkowski factorThe top-four system will also be used in Alaska’s Senate election, a fact that has spawned accusations of political intrigue.Former President Donald Trump has made it his mission to oust Murkowski, who is defending her seat against Kelly Tshibaka, a Republican challenger. Murkowski was one of only seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump during the impeachment trial last year, earning her a rebuke from the state’s Republican Party. As an incumbent, she has the backing of Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, pitting the party’s establishment against its Trump wing.Tshibaka’s campaign team claims that the top-four system, which was adopted by ballot initiative in 2020, was devised to aid Murkowski’s re-election.There’s little evidence of that, though Kathryn Murdoch, an independent donor who helped fund the ballot initiative, said in an interview this month that the top-four system “allows Lisa Murkowski to be herself instead of worrying about her extreme right flank.”The claim prompts a chuckle from supporters of the system, who say that it is meant to alleviate the gridlock that often paralyzes Alaskan politics, and that it is not a product of Washington power games.“I haven’t talked to Lisa Murkowski in three or four years,” said Grenn, who is also a former state legislator. “There are no dark shadows behind the scenes.”What to read Republicans in Florida and Ohio are pushing for a greater advantage on their congressional maps.President Biden’s budget request for fiscal year 2023 includes about $45 billion to take on climate change, which will be crucial to setting U.S. policy ahead of the midterms.California leaders are drafting legislation to help make the state a sanctuary for transgender youths and for people seeking abortions, as conservative states move forward with anti-abortion and anti-L.G.B.T.Q. laws.Federal prosecutors and congressional investigators have found growing evidence that a tweet by Donald Trump in December 2020 urging supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6 was a catalyst for far-right militants.briefing bookJustice Clarence Thomas with his wife, Virginia Thomas, before he spoke at the conservative Heritage Foundation in October.Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesThe ballad of Clarence and GinniCongressional investigators want to know why Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, exchanged conspiracy-theory-tinged texts with Trump administration officials about overturning the 2020 election in the weeks leading up to the Capitol riot. Democrats are calling for Justice Thomas to recuse himself from any Supreme Court cases about the events of Jan. 6, while they press for more details about her involvement in that day’s drama.To better understand this unorthodox Washington pair, we chatted with Danny Hakim, an investigative reporter for The New York Times who recently wrote, with Jo Becker, a deeply reported Times Magazine article on the Thomases. Here’s our conversation:What first sparked your interest in them as a couple?The court has really moved toward Justice Thomas in the post-Trump era, since the pick of Amy Coney Barrett took place in the waning days of the Trump administration. For years, Justice Thomas was known for solo dissents or sharply written dissenting opinions, but now some of those might become majority opinions as the court’s dynamics have tilted.At the same time, his wife was a hard-line activist on the fringes of the party before she flourished in the Trump era, to the point she had direct access to the president. She has remained an important figure in the Trump wing of the party.There’s a line in your article that mentions that Ginni Thomas was in a group she later denounced as a “cult.” Were you able to learn anything more about her time there?The group was called Lifespring, and it was popular for a while. The best story I read about it was a 1987 piece in The Washington Post by Marc Fisher, who went to some meetings. The group would sort of break you down and get you crying and then try to build you back up, but it was quite controversial. One trainee told Fisher it was “like an enema of your emotions.”Ms. Thomas took part in the group in the early 1980s and then rejected it. And she took Clarence Thomas with her to at least one meeting of an anti-cult group that she attended in the wake of her departure from Lifespring.Ginni Thomas refers to her “best friend” in one of the texts that has emerged. Is it a leap to assume that’s a reference to her husband?We can’t say for sure, but they have used that kind of language when they describe each other. In his memoir, Justice Thomas refers to his wife as his “best friend.” She has called him “the best man walking the face of the Earth,” and friends of theirs whom we talked with told us they referred to each other that way. Justice Thomas has gone even further and called the two of them “one being — an amalgam.”Is your sense that Ginni Thomas is someone whose advice carries weight in the Republican Party, or is she someone who is humored because of her political connections and because of who her husband happens to be?It’s a good question. I think both. Her proximity to Justice Thomas is central to her influence, and it’s the reason she got the access she did to the Trump White House. She does not hesitate to invoke her husband’s name in her interactions with party officials and activists.At the same time, while establishment Republicans are often exasperated by her and see some of her views as outlandish, she does have a following among the hard-line wing of the party that is so prominent now, and she has spent years working in Washington alongside people like Steve Bannon to move the party to the right.Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.— Blake & LeahIs there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed a map drawn by his fellow Republicans in the Legislature. In Ohio, Republicans closed in on a G.O.P.-friendly map for the midterm elections.With the midterm election cycle fast approaching, Republicans in the key states of Florida and Ohio have made critical progress in their push to add to their dominance on congressional maps by carving new districts that would be easier for G.O.P. candidates to win.In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday vetoed congressional maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature and called for a special session to draw new maps in mid-April, a rare fracture between the Republican governor and state lawmakers. Mr. DeSantis had previously pledged to veto the maps and had pushed his own maps that would have given his party a stronger advantage in the state’s congressional delegation.In Ohio, a new map of congressional districts that is gerrymandered to heavily favor Republicans appeared highly likely to be used in the midterm elections after the State Supreme Court indicated on Tuesday that it would not rule on a challenge to the map until after the May 3 primary election.The Republican pressure comes as Democrats have fared better than expected in this year’s redistricting cycle. Democrats have drawn aggressive gerrymanders in states like New York, Oregon, Illinois and Maryland, while Republicans have sought to make their current seats safer in states like Texas and Georgia.The result is an emerging new congressional landscape that will not tilt as heavily toward Republicans as it did after the last redistricting cycle, in 2011. In the first elections after that round of redistricting, in 2012, Democrats won 1.4 million more votes for the House of Representatives, yet Republicans maintained control of the chamber with 33 more seats than Democrats.The realignment in this year’s redistricting has rankled some Republicans across the country, who had called on G.O.P.-led state legislatures to be more aggressive in drawing maps.“Republicans are getting absolutely creamed with the phony redistricting going on all over the Country,” former President Donald J. Trump said in a statement last month.Mr. DeSantis seemed to share Mr. Trump’s view, taking the rare step of interjecting himself into the redistricting process and proposing his own maps, twice. His most recent proposal would have created 20 seats that would have favored Republicans, and just eight that would have favored Democrats, meaning the G.O.P. would have been likely to hold 71 percent of the seats. Mr. Trump carried Florida in 2020 with 51.2 percent of the vote.Legislators in the Florida House of Representatives discussed redistricting at a session in January.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressBut Republicans in the State Legislature, who often acquiesce to Mr. DeSantis’s requests, largely ignored the governor’s proposed maps and passed their own maps that would have most likely given Republicans 18 seats, compared with 10 for Democrats. Mr. DeSantis declared the maps “DOA” on Twitter when they passed.In a news conference on Tuesday announcing his veto, Mr. DeSantis said the map drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature violated U.S. Supreme Court precedent.What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Analysis: For years, the congressional map favored Republicans over Democrats. But in 2022, the map is poised to be surprisingly fair.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.“They forgot to make sure what they were doing complied with the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” Mr. DeSantis said at the State Capitol.The vetoed map did away with a seat held by a Black Democrat, Representative Al Lawson of Tallahassee, and created a smaller district in Jacksonville where a Black Democrat might get elected. Mr. DeSantis had proposed maps earlier this year that further eroded minority representation, including in Mr. Lawson’s district.Mr. DeSantis acknowledged that the map lawmakers end up drawing in the special session would still be likely to face a court challenge. The state’s current map was drawn by the courts after Florida voters wrote anti-gerrymandering provisions into the State Constitution in 2010.On Tuesday, the governor appeared to take aim at those provisions, calling them far-reaching and inconsistent. He hinted that in the future, the state might argue in federal court that the provisions were unconstitutional, but he said his intent was not necessarily to repeal them.“Our goal in this was just to have a constitutional map,” he said. “We were not trying to necessarily plot any type of litigation strategy.”He added, “We will obviously say it’s unconstitutional to draw a district like that, where race is the only factor,” referring to Mr. Lawson’s heavily Black district in North Florida.Legislative leaders in Florida told lawmakers to plan to be in Tallahassee for the special session April 19-22. Florida has a relatively late primary election, set for Aug. 23, and voting is unlikely to be threatened by the uncertainty over the maps. However, some House races have yet to attract a full field of candidates, in part because the district lines remain unclear.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More
In the spring of a new president’s second year in office, political junkies know all too well what to expect from the midterm elections.A president (of whatever party), elected largely thanks to public distaste for his opponent, came in with his party in control of Congress and intent on not wasting an opportunity for transformative policy change. For all his talk of building new coalitions, he focused on the priorities of his party’s core activists, and by now it’s pretty clear that most voters don’t love what they see. The only way his party will avoid losing at least one house of Congress is if the other party somehow makes itself even more obnoxious. The question for November is whom the public will like less.Something like this has been the pattern of our politics for three decades now — long enough that we rarely stop to wonder much at just how strange it is or how we might change it. Neither party does much to expand its appeal or its coalition. Both double down on the voters they can count on, hoping they add up to a slim, temporary majority. If that doesn’t work, they just do it again.For political parties, whose very purpose is to build the broadest possible coalitions, such behavior is malpractice. So why has it persisted for so long? Why is public disaffection not pushing politicians to change their strategies or their agendas and seek durable majorities?The very fact that voters are unhappy with both parties makes it hard for either one to take a hint from its electoral failures. Even more than polarization, it is the closeness of elections that has degraded the capacity of our democracy to respond to voter pressure. In an era of persistent, polarized deadlock, both parties are effectively minorities — but each continues to think it is on the verge of winning big.To see why, it’s worth first noticing how unusual such persistent deadlock is. As the political scientist Morris Fiorina showed in his 2017 book, “Unstable Majorities,” our two-party system has usually produced durable partisan patterns of governance. Realignments have occasionally transformed a longstanding minority into the dominant party of a new era, but long stretches in which power has shifted back and forth have been rare. The only previous one was from 1874 to 1894. Ours has already been longer.Consider the previous hundred years or so. Republicans won seven of the nine presidential elections from 1896 to 1928 and controlled both houses of Congress for most of that stretch. Then from 1932 through 1950, Democrats won five presidential elections in a row and controlled Congress for all but two years. After that came more than four decades of durably divided government: Republicans won seven of 10 presidential elections from the 1950s through the 1980s — including a 24-year stretch with only one, single-term, Democratic presidency. But in that time, the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives for 40 straight years and the Senate for 34 of those years. You might say that was an age of two overlapping majorities, in contrast to our age of two polarized minorities.But since 1992, elections for president and Congress have been consistently up for grabs. Two presidents have been elected while losing the popular vote, which happened only twice in the previous two centuries. Control of Congress has swung back and forth more rapidly than in any previous era.The effects of this flux have been perverse. You might think that two minority parties would each feel pressure to expand its coalition and become a majority, but actually both have behaved as if they were the rightful majorities already. Each finds ways to dismiss the other’s wins as narrow flukes and treat its own as massive triumphs.This is sustainable only because elections are so close. Politicians learn big lessons from big losses or big wins, so neither of our parties has learned much in a long time, and neither can quite grasp that it just isn’t very popular and could easily lose the next election.This dynamic has many causes — from the advent of party primaries to the evolution of the media and much in between. Polarization doesn’t have to mean deadlock, but a long-term pattern of growing negative polarization, in which each party sees the other as the country’s biggest problem, creates incentives for the parties to seek narrower but ideologically purer wins rather than build broader if less ideologically coherent coalitions.Yet the pattern isn’t inevitable, and it’s crucial to see that the very closeness of elections blinds politicians to potential ways of breaking out of it. As the political scientist Frances Lee has shown, the minority party in Congress now always thinks it’s one election away from power and so sees no reason to change its appeal or to bargain to address the country’s longer-term needs. Younger politicians who have known only this period assume there is no other way — that short-termism is unavoidable and governing means frantically expending rather than patiently amassing political capital.This also intensifies party cohesion. As the political scientist Daniel DiSalvo has argued, internal factions let parties evolve toward new voters and vice versa, but our era has seen fewer and weaker factions. Narrow elections invite strict unity, so the parties now hunt heretics rather than seek converts. Witness, for instance, the Arizona Republican and Democratic Parties censuring Gov. Doug Ducey and Senator Kyrsten Sinema for undermining party unity. Both parties act as if they have too many voters, rather than too few.Breaking this pattern would have to start by acknowledging a truism: Bigger majorities are possible if politicians seek broader support. That sounds obvious, yet it has eluded our leaders for a generation because it requires seeing beyond our age of deadlock.That doesn’t mean reaching for the center in a shallow ideological sense, let alone hoping swing voters catch up with the priorities of party activists. It requires not so much offering different answers to the questions that have long shaped our political divisions but taking up some new questions better rooted in the public’s contemporary concerns — about new sources of financial insecurity and high living costs, threats to parenthood and childhood, dangers of concentrated corporate power, sources of cultural dislocation, perils of internet governance and other challenges that scramble familiar partisan dogmas. Such questions can be answered in right-leaning or left-leaning ways, but they first need to be asked.Some Republicans have long pointed to the need to move beyond the terms of Reaganism, and some even hoped that Donald Trump’s ascent might enable such a move. But Mr. Trump’s vile cult of personality only reinforced the trench-warfare dynamics. He mostly offered a model of how to squander opportunity: He won independents by six percentage points in 2016 and then lost them by 13 in 2020. That Republicans are even contemplating nominating him again shows they are not attuned to the need to break out of the age of deadlock.Some Democrats can see the problem, too. In an important recent paper for the Progressive Policy Institute, two veterans of the Clinton White House, William Galston and Elaine Kamarck, raised the alarm about the narrowness of their party’s appeal. “Unless they want to spend their careers in a minority party,” they argued, Democrats “must acknowledge the need to win swing states — and the political implications of this necessity.” But such arguments can barely be heard over the din of party activists who aggressively alienate potential swing voters with heedless cultural radicalism.Each party is therefore left pursuing a losing strategy and saved from disaster only by the fact that the other party is doing the same. The first to realize that this is not working will face a real opportunity. The party that grasps that it has been losing for a generation will have a chance to make itself the next big winner in our politics.Yuval Levin is a contributing Opinion writer and is the editor of National Affairs and the director of social, cultural and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream.”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
With his party facing potentially gale-force headwinds in the midterm elections, President Biden released a budget on Monday that tacks toward the political center, bowing to the realities facing endangered Democrats by bolstering defense and law enforcement spending and tackling inflation and deficit reduction in service of what he called a “bipartisan unity agenda.”Under the plan, the left wing’s hopes for a peace dividend at the end of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be scotched in favor of a new Great Powers military budget that would bring the Defense Department’s allocation to $773 billion, an increase of nearly 10 percent over the level for fiscal 2021. Rather than cuts, Mr. Biden pledges to bolster the nation’s nuclear weapons program, including all three legs of the nuclear “triad”: bombers, land-based intercontinental missiles and submarines.“We are at the beginning of a decisive decade that will determine the future strategic competition with China, the trajectory of the climate crisis, and whether the rules governing technology, trade and international economics enshrine or violate our democratic values,” the budget states, justifying large increases to project U.S. military and diplomatic strength globally.Far from defunding the police and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, two popular slogans on the left, the budget robustly funds both. Customs and Border Protection would receive $15.3 billion, ICE $8.1 billion, including $309 million for border security technology — a well-funded effort to stop illegal migration. The nation’s two primary immigration law enforcement agencies would see increases of around 13 percent.The budget even includes $19 million for border fencing and other infrastructure.Federal law enforcement would receive $17.4 billion, a jump of nearly 11 percent, or $1.7 billion over 2021 levels. And the president, acknowledging widespread concerns that are driving Republican attacks against Democrats, vows to tackle the rise in violent crime.The proposals track with some of the main attack lines Republicans are using against Democrats in the run-up to the November contests, as they portray Mr. Biden and his allies in Congress as weak on security, soft on crime and profligate with federal spending to the point of damaging the economy.Liberal Democrats would see some of their priorities addressed, including “through substantial funding for climate programs and “environmental justice” initiatives, as well as changes to incarceration policy. But many on the left will be disappointed. In lieu of broad student debt forgiveness, an executive order that many Democrats have been pressing for since Mr. Biden’s inauguration, the Education Department’s student lending services would receive a huge increase, 43 percent, to $2.7 billion.Swing-district Democrats who have been pressing Mr. Biden to address widespread concerns about rising prices would be able to point to a number of programs to combat inflation, the biggest issue weighing down their prospects. The president promises large-scale efforts to unclot supply-chain bottlenecks that are raising costs and large-scale deficit reduction that could cool the economy. More
The ruling, in which the judge said Democrats had drawn an “extreme gerrymander,” was the first time this redistricting cycle that the party’s legislators had a congressional map defeated in court.A Maryland judge ruled on Friday that Democrats in the state had drawn an “extreme gerrymander” and threw out the state’s new congressional map, the first time this redistricting cycle that a Democratic-controlled legislature’s map has been rejected in court.The ruling by Senior Judge Lynne A. Battaglia of the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County found that the map drawn by Democrats had “constitutional failings” and ignored requirements of focusing on “compactness” and keeping similar communities together.“All of the testimony in this case supports the notions that the voice of Republican voters was diluted and their right to vote and be heard with the efficacy of a Democratic voter was diminished,” Judge Battaglia wrote in her opinion.The congressional map drawn by Democrats would have most likely guaranteed them at least seven of Maryland’s eight House seats, or 87 percent of the state’s seats. President Biden carried the state with 65 percent of the vote in 2020.Judge Battaglia ordered the General Assembly to redraw the map by March 30, an extraordinarily tight deadline for a complicated process that often takes weeks, and she set a hearing for the new map for April 1. This year, the Maryland Court of Appeals moved the state’s primary election from June 28 to July 19 because of pending legal challenges to the new map.Democrats across the country have taken a much more aggressive tack this redistricting cycle than they have in the past, seeking to counteract what they have long denounced as extreme Republican gerrymanders from the 2010 cycle. Republicans’ map-drawing gains that year helped the party maintain power in the House of Representatives despite a Democratic victory at the presidential level in 2012. Democratic state legislatures in New York, Illinois and Oregon drew new maps this year that would have given them a significant advantage over Republicans — and congressional delegations at odds with the overall partisan tilt of each state. What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Analysis: For years, the congressional map favored Republicans over Democrats. But in 2022, the map is poised to be surprisingly fair.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.Rather than looking to aggressively add new seats this cycle, Republicans, for the most part, have sought to shore up their previous advantages in gerrymandered maps in states like Texas and Georgia, removing competition and packing Democrats together in deeply blue districts.Maryland was one of the few states during the last redistricting cycle where Democrats enacted an aggressive gerrymander, pushing to add a Democratic seat to the state’s delegation, which consisted of six Democrats and two Republicans at the time. The eventual map added a batch of new Democratic voters to the Sixth District, leading to the defeat of Representative Roscoe Bartlett, a 20-year Republican incumbent. Former Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat and former presidential candidate, has since acknowledged in a court deposition that the goal of the last redistricting process was to draw a map that was “more likely to elect more Democrats rather than less.”Judge Battaglia’s decision comes as state courts have emerged as a central battleground for parties and voters to challenge maps by calling them partisan gerrymanders, after a 2019 Supreme Court ruling that partisan gerrymandering could not be challenged at the federal level. This year, state courts in Ohio and North Carolina have tossed out maps drawn by legislators as unconstitutional gerrymanders. Judge Battaglia, who was appointed by former Gov. Parris N. Glendening, a Democrat, is a former U.S. attorney in Maryland. She also served as chief of staff to former Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, a Democrat from Maryland. Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican whose veto of the map was overridden by the Democratic-controlled legislature, praised the decision and called on the General Assembly to pass a map drawn by an independent commission he created. “This ruling is a monumental victory for every Marylander who cares about protecting our democracy, bringing fairness to our elections, and putting the people back in charge,” Mr. Hogan said in a statement. The office of Brian Frosh, the attorney general of Maryland and a Democrat, said that it was reviewing the decision and that it had not yet decided whether to appeal it.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More
Representative Jeff Fortenberry was accused of lying to F.B.I. agents investigating illegal foreign donations.LOS ANGELES — A Nebraska congressman was convicted Thursday on charges that he lied to federal authorities about having received an illegal campaign contribution from a foreign citizen.Representative Jeff Fortenberry was convicted in federal court in Los Angeles on one count of falsifying and concealing material facts and two counts of making false statements. Each carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, according to the United States Department of Justice. A sentencing hearing was set for June 28.“The lies in this case threatened the integrity of the American electoral system and were designed to prevent investigators from learning the true source of campaign funds,” said Tracy L. Wilkison, one of the prosecutors.Mr. Fortenberry’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But outside the courthouse, Mr. Fortenberry said that the process had been unfair and that he would appeal immediately, according to The Associated Press.In October, when he was charged, the congressman vowed to fight the accusations and maintained his innocence.“Five and a half years ago, a person from overseas illegally moved money to my campaign,” Mr. Fortenberry said in a video he posted online at the time. “I didn’t know anything about this.”He was convicted after a weeklong trial.Mr. Fortenberry, a Republican who has been in Congress for almost two decades, received a $30,000 donation to his re-election campaign at a fund-raiser in 2016, according to the federal indictment in the case. Foreign citizens are prohibited from donating to U.S. election campaigns.Rather than report the contribution in an amended filing with the Federal Election Commission or return the money, as federal law dictates, prosecutors said Mr. Fortenberry kept it and told investigators in 2019 that he had been unaware of any contributions made by foreign citizens.The charges did not stem from the donation itself, which came from Gilbert Chagoury, a Lebanese Nigerian billionaire who was accused of conspiring to make illegal campaign contributions to American politicians in exchange for access to them.The charges came after prosecutors said Mr. Fortenberry denied knowing that the donation, which had been funneled through an intermediary, were from Mr. Chagoury — even after the congressman told a cooperating witness, a fund-raiser referred to in court filings as Individual H, that the donation “probably did come from Gilbert Chagoury.”Federal investigators first interviewed Mr. Fortenberry in 2019 as part of an investigation into Mr. Chagoury, who admitted to giving $180,000 to four candidates from June 2012 to March 2016. Mr. Fortenberry was one of those four.Mr. Chagoury ultimately reached a deal with the U.S. government and paid a $1.8 million fine.In court documents, prosecutors said Mr. Chagoury had been told to donate to “politicians from less-populous states because the contribution would be more noticeable to the politician and thereby would promote increased donor access.”Katie Benner contributed reporting. More
