Florida

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Val Demings likely to run for Senate against Marco Rubio – report

      by

      Marco Rubio avoided a Senate challenge from Ivanka Trump but he seems certain to face one from Val Demings, a Democratic Florida congresswoman who was the first Black female police chief of Orlando and who was considered as a potential vice-president to Joe Biden.An unnamed senior adviser told Politico Demings, 64, was “98.6%” certain to run against Rubio in the midterm elections next year.“If I had to point to one” reason why Demings had decided to run, the adviser was quoted as saying, “I think it’s the Covid bill and the way Republicans voted against it for no good reason.“That really helped push her over the edge. She also had this huge fight with [Ohio Republican representative] Jim Jordan and it brought that into focus. This fight is in Washington and it’s the right fight for her to continue.”Biden’s $1.9tn coronavirus rescue bill passed Congress in March without a single Republican vote. In April she made headlines by raising her voice when Jordan, a provocateur and hard-right Trump supporter, interrupted her during a House judiciary committee hearing on an anti-hate crimes bill.“I have the floor, Mr Jordan,” Demings shouted. “What? Did I strike a nerve?“Law enforcement officers deserve better than to be utilised as pawns, and you and your colleagues should be ashamed of yourselves.”Demings was a member of Orlando police for 27 years and chief from 2007 to 2011. She was elected to Congress in 2016. Her husband, Jerry Demings, is a former sheriff and current mayor of Orlando county.Police brutality and institutional racism have become a national flashpoint in light of the killings of numerous African American men.Demings is a political moderate but Quentin James of the the Collective Pac, a Florida group working on Black voter registration, told Politico her police background and political views would not necessarily handicap her.Young and progressive Floridians “aren’t really anti-police”, he said. “They’re against police brutality.”Rubio is a two-term senator who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. He was brutally beaten in that race by Donald Trump, then swiftly aligned himself with his persecutor when he won the White House.The prospect of a primary challenge from Ivanka Trump, the former president’s oldest daughter, was briefly the talk of Washington but she has said she will not run.The Senate is split 50-50 and controlled by Democrats through Kamala Harris’s casting vote as vice-president. Demings’s all-but-confirmed decision to run sets up an intriguing contest in a state where the large Latino population has increasingly broken for Republicans. Rubio is the son of Cuban migrants.Demings’s move also leaves the field open for challengers to Ron DeSantis, the Trump-supporting governor seen by some as a possible presidential candidate in 2024. In 2018 Democrats ran a progressive, Andrew Gillum, a former mayor of Tallahassee.Discussing Demings’s likely Senate campaign, James told Politico: “We came very close with Gillum. But now we’re back with a really great candidate.” More

    • 175 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Naughty favours’: Matt Gaetz seeks to ridicule allegations he paid underaged girl for sex

      by

      The embattled Florida congressman Matt Gaetz has compared allegations of sexual misconduct involving a minor to earmarks, a congressional process by which spending measures beneficial to representatives’ districts are attached to legislation.“I’m being falsely accused of exchanging money for naughty favors,” he said, speaking to Republicans in Ohio on Saturday.Gaetz also said he wanted to be “Robin” to Jim Jordan’s “Batman”.Jordan is an Ohio representative and hard-right leader in the House, like Gaetz a vocal ally of Donald Trump. He is also dogged by scandal, over his alleged failure to act on sexual abuse by a team doctor when Jordan was a wrestling coach at Ohio state. Jordan denies wrongdoing.Gaetz is reportedly being investigated for alleged sex trafficking involving an underaged woman, other alleged payments for sex and drug use, and possible influence trading with representatives from the medical marijuana industry.He denies all wrongdoing and has said he will not resign. But his outlook clouded on Friday when a former associate indicated he would plead guilty in court in Florida on Monday to charges including paying for sex with a 17-year-old girl.Joel Greenberg, a former Seminole county tax collector, did not name other men in his plea agreement but he is thought likely to help prosecutors investigating Gaetz.Also on Friday, the Daily Beast cited two sources who said a woman the website said Greenberg will identify as having been paid for sex accompanied Gaetz to a “cocaine-fueled party” after a fundraiser in Orlando in 2019. The website also said the woman secured a “taxpayer-funded no-show job” through her connection to Greenberg.A public relations firm hired by Gaetz told the Beast he would not comment, but “the privacy of women living private lives should be protected”.Republican House leaders have not taken action against Gaetz. On Saturday, the congressman spoke at the Ohio Political Summit, a Republican event in suburban Cleveland.“I’m being falsely accused of exchanging money for naughty favors,” Gaetz said. “Yet Congress has re-instituted a process that legalises the corrupt act of exchanging money for favors, through earmarks, and everybody knows that that’s the corruption.”Earmarks have been absent from Congress for a decade but both parties now support their use. Some observers say earmarks promote bipartisan co-operation.Gaetz also took a shot at another Ohio Republican congressman, Anthony Gonzalez.“Is it likely that the Anthony Gonzalez congressional career might mirror the Anthony Gonzalez NFL career?” Gaetz asked. “Whole lot of hype, first-round draft pick, out in four years.”Gonzalez was a wide receiver who spent five years with the Indianapolis Colts, who made him the 32nd and last pick in the first round of the 2007 NFL Draft. He also had a brief spell with the New England Patriots. He was not at the event in Cleveland but he appeared to rebuke his colleague, if obliquely, on Twitter.“Ending child exploitation remains one of my top policy initiatives in Congress,” Gonzalez tweeted. “Anyone engaged in these heinous acts needs to be held accountable and taken off the streets.”At the event in Ohio, Gaetz received a standing ovation. More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      The sleazy, sordid Matt Gaetz scandal: are the walls now closing in on him?

      by

      There could have been no more fitting venue for the bellicose US congressman Matt Gaetz to launch his nationwide “America first” speaking tour than The Villages. Where better to perpetuate the fantasy that all is going well for a politician seen as the “ultimate Maga bro” than Florida’s ultra-conservative “Disney World for retirees”?The Republican loyalists who filled the ballroom of the Brownwood hotel and spa on Friday night didn’t come to hear whether the embattled Gaetz ever paid a 17-year-old minor for sex, took sleazy sex-trafficking trips to the Bahamas or assisted in his disgraced former “wingman” Joel Greenberg’s efforts to install cronies in well-paid positions of political power.But the scandal now engulfing Gaetz is truly one of the most remarkable, sleazy and tabloid-ready in recent American politics. Away from all the Donald Trump cheerleading by Gaetz and his fellow rightwing fire-starter Marjorie Taylor Greene during their national tour of distraction, it is hard to escape the notion that the walls are closing in.Much of the focus is on a justice department inquiry into the 39-year-old Florida congressman that, in recent days, is reported to have grown beyond initial sex trafficking allegations to an inquiry involving alleged corruption.According to the Associated Press, federal investigators are now looking into Gaetz’s connections with medical marijuana, and whether certain friends and associates with interests in the nascent yet lucrative industry in Florida influenced or enriched themselves from legislation the politician was sponsoring.Neither Gaetz or the justice department responded to requests for comment, and the FBI has previously told the Guardian that it “declines to confirm nor deny the existence or status of an investigation”.But it is the salacious side of the allegations, and his friendship with Greenberg, the former Seminole county tax collector now in jail on 33 federal charges from stalking to sex trafficking a child, which have garnered most attention.Gaetz, who represents a large swath of Florida’s panhandle, has tried to distance himself from Greenberg, despite an avalanche of evidence that the pair were close. It includes tweets showing the two friends with Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis; receipts of Venmo payments from Gaetz to Greenberg in the same amount that Greenberg then immediately paid to a teenage girl; and a “creepy” voicemail the pair sent in 2019 to Anna Eskamani, a young Democratic state congresswoman.Perhaps the most damning development came a week ago when the Daily Beast published a stunning “confession” letter it said was written by Greenberg to Roger Stone, a close ally and political “fixer” of Trump, allegedly seeking a pardon from the then president in exchange for $250,000.Notably, it implicated Gaetz directly in paying numerous women for sex, including a girl who was 17 at the time and who is now said to be a sex industry worker. “My lawyers, that I fired, know the whole story about MG’s involvement,” Greenberg allegedly wrote in one text to Stone, according to the Beast.“They know he paid me to pay the girls and that he and I both had sex with the girl who was underage.”Stone acknowledged to the Beast that Greenberg had tried to hire him to secure a pardon from Trump, but denied seeking or receiving payment for his assistance.Gaetz, meanwhile, has always insisted the claim he had a relationship with a minor is “verifiably false”. In a bizarre, freewheeling appearance on Fox News in March, the same day the New York Times first reported the existence of the federal inquiry, Gaetz claimed he was himself the victim of an $25m extortion plot involving a justice department official.He also attempted to draw the Fox host, Tucker Carlson, into the scandal by claiming that Carlson and his wife had been to dinner with Gaetz and a female friend whom he said was later “threatened by the FBI”.A surprised Carlson said he did not recall meeting the mystery woman, and subsequently called it “one of the weirdest interviews I’ve ever conducted”.Prosecutors, meanwhile, have a 15 May deadline to strike a plea deal with Greenberg, set by US district court judge Gregory Presnell in April. Greenberg’s attorney Fritz Scheller said after the hearing that his client was cooperating, telling reporters: “I am sure Matt Gaetz is not feeling very comfortable today.”Outwardly, Gaetz has remained defiant, ignoring some calls from within his own party to resign while still enjoying the support of Republican leadership. The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, has said he will not take any action unless charges are filed.But the scandal has caused two Gaetz aides to resign, and political opponents in Florida have stepped up their criticism as the Greenberg plea deal deadline approaches.Eskamani said she went public with the voicemail partly to expose the “bro culture” in Tallahassee politics within which, she said, Gaetz and Greenberg flourished.“Political institutions as a whole are very male-dominated, there’s a sense of privilege and often those in public office come from a family lineage or wealth or establishment,” she said. “It’s hard to get in if you don’t come from those experiences.“It’s not like Matt Gaetz created bro culture, but he absolutely benefited from it, exploited it and is being protected by it today. It’s slimy characters, tons of money, inappropriate use of power when it comes to lavish trips, and the use of sex and drugs to also exhibit your power. It’s just gross all around.”She added: “[But] there is no doubt in my mind that there will be charges he will face. I think it’s going to take time for the DoJ to build that case, but I feel confident there will be consequences for his behavior.” More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      A mother’s happy day: military spouse deported by Trump returns to family

      by

      Three years ago Alejandra Juarez fell victim to Donald Trump’s cruelty as the wife of a decorated US Marine Corps veteran and mother of two young US citizen daughters was deported to Mexico under the former president’s zero-tolerance immigration policies.On Saturday Juarez will rejoin her family in Florida as one of the first beneficiaries of a humanitarian program set up by Joe Biden’s administration to reunify parents Trump separated from their children.But while Juarez’s Mother’s Day weekend reunion with daughters Pamela, 19, Estela, 11, and husband Temo will close a lengthy, painful journey of isolation and depression, she sees it as a door opening for other families torn apart by deportation.“I’m happy this is behind me and my family, and hoping this will lead to a permanent solution not only for military spouses like myself, but for everyone,” she told the Guardian from Mérida, Mexico, where she has been living since being forced from her home in Davenport, Florida, in 2018.“I hope it will have a domino effect and bring many more people back.”The Biden administration’s family reunification taskforce was set up by the new president’s executive order in February and began returning some of those “unjustly separated at the US-Mexico border” during the Trump era this week by granting them “humanitarian parole”.The numbers, however, are uncertain. The homeland security department (DHS) taskforce has been working to identify cases, but admits finding them all will be a lengthy process. It is scheduled to deliver its first report on 2 June.Also unclear is how many military families were affected by what Biden has called the “human tragedy” of separations during the four years Trump was in office. Federal agencies do not record military service in immigration cases, but a 2018 report by the advocacy group American Families United estimated that up to 11,800 active service men and women, all US citizens or permanent residents, had a spouse vulnerable to deportation.Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary who is also the taskforce’s chair, said this week’s first wave of reunifications was “just the beginning”.“Many more will follow, and we recognize the importance of providing these families with the stability and resources they need to heal,” he said, noting the taskforce was “exploring options” for long-term legal stability for reunified families.Juarez, 41, and her 43-year-old husband Cuauhtemoc, known as Temo, were both born in Mexico. But while he came to the US legally as a child and was naturalized in 2002, shortly before a 16-month deployment in Iraq, she spent the 18 years of their marriage until her deportation undocumented.As a teenager she was caught crossing the border illegally and chose to sign a document in English she said she didn’t understand and return to Mexico voluntarily instead of being placed in detention. The document permanently forfeited her right to legal status, which she did not discover until after her marriage.She returned to the US and lived anonymously in Florida with her husband until a traffic stop in 2013 exposed her undocumented status. Even then, under the more relaxed policies of Barack Obama’s administration, she was allowed to stay with twice-yearly check-ins with immigration authorities.Juarez self-deported in 2018 after Trump implemented his no-tolerance approach, and before authorities could enforce a removal order issued against her. She rented an apartment in Mexico with Estela while her husband remained in Florida to run his roofing business and allow Pamela to finish high school, but with money running out and two households to run, visits to Mexico became less frequent.When the coronavirus pandemic struck, Juarez said, her jobs teaching English slowed up and Estela returned to Florida. The knowledge her daughters were growing up without their mother, she said, caused her depression for which she needed therapy.Darren Soto, a Florida Democratic US congressman, lobbied the White House for Juarez to be allowed to return, and has introduced the Protect Patriot Spouses Act to Congress to protect military families from deportations.“President Trump’s administration was an aberration in American history with regard to immigration. Now we have humanitarian considerations, which are American values, reincorporated into our federal government,” said Soto, who also backs the American Families United Act that would allow some undocumented immigrants with US citizen family members to stay.“It’s been a long time coming, but Alejandra never gave up on us and we never gave up on her. They’ve missed almost three years of cherished memories together and it’s been traumatic for all of them.”Juarez said she was grateful for the efforts of Soto, her immigration lawyers and daughter Estela, who was one of her mother’s biggest cheerleaders. The 11-year-old excoriated Trump at last year’s Democratic national convention, reading a letter in which she told him: “You tore our world apart.”In January, she appealed for Biden’s help in an emotional video in which she likened her father’s military service to that of the new president’s late son Beau. Estela, Juarez said, is documenting the family’s story in a forthcoming book titled Until Someone Listens.For now, Juarez said, her intention is making up for lost time.“They need my cooking and they already told me what they want for breakfast on Sunday, so I’ll go grocery shopping like I always did, make breakfast for all of them and go to church like we used to,” she said. “I just want to enjoy my house and my family again.” More

    • 75 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Florida's New Voting Rights Law Explained

      by

      Voting rights groups filed lawsuits shortly after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation reducing voting access in the battleground state. Critics said the law will disproportionately affect people of color.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican, signed new voting restrictions into law on Thursday, reducing voting access in one of the nation’s critical battleground states.Florida, which former President Donald J. Trump won by about three percentage points in 2020, is the latest Republican-controlled state, following Georgia, Montana and Iowa, to impose new hurdles to casting a ballot after November’s elections.Voting rights experts and Democrats say that some provisions of the new law will disproportionately affect voters of color.Here’s a guide to how the law changes voting in Florida.What are the changes in the new law?The law, Senate Bill 90, limits the use of drop boxes where voters can deposit absentee ballots, and adds more identification requirements for anyone requesting an absentee ballot. It also requires voters to request an absentee ballot for each two-year election cycle, rather than every four years, under the previous law. Additionally, it limits who can collect and drop off ballots.The law also expands a current rule that prohibits outside groups from holding signs or wearing political paraphernalia within 150 feet of a polling place or drop box, “with the intent to influence voters,” an increase from the previous 100 feet.Why are people upset?The new law weakens key parts of an extensive voting infrastructure that was built up slowly after the state’s chaotic 2000 election. In 2020, that infrastructure allowed Florida to ramp up quickly to accommodate absentee balloting and increased drop boxes during the coronavirus pandemic.Voters of color are most reliant on after-hours drop boxes, critics of the law say, as it’s often more difficult for them to both take hours off during the day and to organize transportation to polling places.Republican legislators promoting the bill offered little evidence of election fraud, and argued for limiting access despite their continued claims that the state’s 2020 election was the “gold standard” for the country.Florida has a popular tradition of voting by mail: In the 2016 and 2018 elections, nearly a third of the state’s voters cast ballots through the mail.In both years, more Republicans than Democrats voted by mail. But in 2020, more than 2.1 million Democrats cast mail ballots, compared with 1.4 million Republicans, after Mr. Trump claimed repeatedly that expanding mail-in voting would lead to fraud.Has voter fraud been a problem in Florida?Voting ran smoothly in 2020, by all accounts.“There was no problem in Florida,” said Kara Gross, the legislative director and senior policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. “Everything worked as it should. The only reason they’re doing this is to make it harder to vote.”And Mr. DeSantis has praised Florida’s handling of November’s elections, saying that his state has “the strongest election integrity measures in the country.”But on the need for the new law, he said: “Florida took action this legislative session to increase transparency and strengthen the security of our elections.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1jiwgt1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;margin-bottom:1.25rem;}.css-8o2i8v{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-8o2i8v p{margin-bottom:0;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Are other states pursuing similar restrictions?Yes. The Texas House of Representatives passed a similar measure this week after a lengthy debate. The bill will soon be taken up by the state’s Republican-controlled Senate. Other states including Arizona, Michigan and Ohio are considering their own bills.What can we expect to happen next?Voting rights groups filed lawsuits shortly after Mr. DeSantis signed the bill into law during a live broadcast on a Fox News morning program.The League of Women Voters of Florida, the Black Voters Matter Fund and the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans joined in one suit, arguing that “Senate Bill 90 does not impede all of Florida’s voters equally.”“It is crafted to and will operate to make it more difficult for certain types of voters to participate in the state’s elections, including those voters who generally wish to vote with a vote-by-mail ballot and voters who have historically had to overcome substantial hurdles to reach the ballot box, such as Florida’s senior voters, youngest voters, and minority voters.”Another suit was brought by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Disability Rights Florida and Common Cause, who argued that the law violates constitutional protections and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.The law took effect immediately, and will be in force for the 2022 election, when Mr. DeSantis is up for re-election. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Florida governor signs new restrictive bill in ‘blatant attack on right to vote’

      by

      The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, has signed a bill imposing new limits on voting by mail and using ballot drop boxes, the latest Republican-backed voting restrictions to become law in a US election battleground state.The White House swiftly criticized the law, saying Florida was “moving in the wrong direction”.The new law restricts the use of absentee ballot drop boxes to the early voting period, adds new identification requirements for requesting such ballots, and requires voters to reapply for absentee ballots in each new general election cycle. Previously, Florida voters only had to apply once every two election cycles.The law also gives partisan election observers more power to raise objections and requires people offering voters assistance to stay at least 150ft (45 meters) away from polling places, an increase from the previous 100ft radius.The deputy White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, blamed the new voting restrictions on Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” – the baseless assertion that there was widespread fraud in the presidential election.“There is no legitimate reason to change the rules right now to make it harder to vote,” Jean-Pierre said. “The only reason to change the rules right now is if you don’t like who voted. And that should be out of bounds.”Republican legislators in dozens of states have pursued measures to restrict voting rights in the aftermath of former president Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud. Lawmakers in the Texas house of representatives were poised on Thursday to advance sweeping new voting limits despite opposition from numerous businesses.Minutes after DeSantis signed the law, the League of Women Voters of Florida and two other civil rights groups sued Florida’s 67 counties to try to block the new restrictions. They are represented by Marc Elias, a Democratic lawyer who also sued Georgia over voting limits the state passed in March.The Florida branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Disability Rights Florida and the good government group Common Cause also sued the state on Thursday, arguing the limits would disproportionately hurt Black, Latino and disabled voters.Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, called the move a “blatant and calculated attack on the right to vote” and a “horrifying reminder” of the “fragility of democracy”.Republican lawmakers have cited the unfounded claims made by Trump, a Florida absentee voter himself, after his decisive loss to Joe Biden.Judges rejected such claims in more than 60 lawsuits that failed to overturn the election result. Lawmakers in Republican-controlled states, including Georgia, Texas and Arizona, nevertheless proposed legislation they said was necessary to curb voter fraud, which is extremely rare in the United States.Local news outlets were barred from DeSantis’s signing of the bill on Thursday. The governor, who is expected to soon announce his re-election campaign, instead gave Fox News an “exclusive” of the event.“It was on national TV, it wasn’t secret,” DeSantis told reporters.The governor’s unusual decision to grant only Fox access to the event prompted complaints from journalists that DeSantis was preventing the public from witnessing crucial government business.DeSantis acknowledged in February that Florida had “held the smoothest, most successful election of any state in the country”, but said new limits on absentee ballots were needed to safeguard election integrity.DeSantis, who signed the law in an appearance on the Fox News Channel show Fox & Friends, said, “Me signing this bill here says, ‘Florida, your vote counts, your vote is going to be cast with integrity and transparency.’”Mail-in ballots or absentee ballots were used by Democratic voters in greater numbers than Republicans in the 2020 election, as many people avoided in-person voting during the coronavirus pandemic.Florida Republicans used mail-in voting slightly more than Democrats in the 2014, 2016 and 2018 general elections. But in November, Democrats submitted 2.2m mail-in ballots compared with 1.5m from Republicans, state records show, after Trump falsely asserted for months that mail voting was rife with fraud.In March, Georgia’s Republican governor signed a law that tightened absentee ballot identification requirements, restricted ballot drop-box use and allowed a Republican-controlled state agency to take over local voting operations.Democrats and voting rights advocates sued Georgia over the measure, saying it was aimed at disenfranchising Black voters, who helped propel Biden to the presidency and deliver Democrats two US Senate victories in Georgia in January that gave them control of the chamber. Top US companies also decried Georgia’s law, and Major League Baseball moved its all-star game out of the state in protest. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      DeSantis Shuts Out Reporters as he Signs Florida Voting Restrictions Into Law

      by

      MIAMI — Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed new voting restrictions into law on Thursday that put him in line with other Republicans around the country — with a display of nose-thumbing contempt toward journalists that evoked former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. DeSantis’ brash style has made him stand out from other potential heirs to Mr. Trump’s populist legacy. But his actions are part of a national effort by Republicans to limit the use of popular ballot drop boxes, add identification requirements for voters requesting absentee ballots and do away with local laws that allow automatic registration for absentee voting.The next big move could happen in Texas, although the situation at the State Capitol in Austin is in flux. There is movement in virtually every state with a Republican-controlled legislature — including in Arizona, where G.O.P. lawmakers are conducting an audit of the November results, an exercise that has been plagued by lapses in basic security and accounting procedures.All of this comes in the wake of Mr. Trump’s loss, and his subsequent false claims that expansion of ballot access led to rampant voter fraud. Official audits of election results around the country, conducted by officials from both parties, found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.Mr. DeSantis enacted the legislation even after he had promoted Florida’s handling of the November elections. Mr. Trump won the state by three percentage points.The governor gave Fox News, his preferred major cable news outlet — and Mr. Trump’s — an exclusive to broadcast the bill signing ceremony from West Palm Beach on Thursday morning, in an event that resembled a campaign rally as much as an official act of state government.Supporters of Mr. DeSantis gathered inside a Hilton near the airport, donning DeSantis and Trump campaign gear. Before they entered, some people waved Trump-DeSantis and DeSantis 2024 banners, according to photos on social media shared by journalists locked outside the doors.“Right now, I have what we think is the strongest election integrity measures in the country,” a seated Mr. DeSantis told Fox as a rowdy crowd cheered behind him.Mr. DeSantis and his predecessors have been known to sign bills, especially controversial ones, in private. Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a lower-key politician who has kept Mr. Trump at a relative arm’s length, signed his state’s bill in a conference room in his office, as a Democratic state legislator knocked on the door, demanding to be let in.Giving exclusive access to a cable news network was unusual, if not unprecedented. A reporter from a local CBS station said it was supposed to carry the broadcast feed for other stations, a practice known as pooling, but was also not allowed inside.Florida is the latest state to pass voter restrictions as Republicans move to reverse gains made by Democrats in Georgia, Arizona and elsewhere. In Texas, Republicans in the legislature are brushing aside objections from corporate titans like Dell Technologies, Microsoft and American Airlines and moving on a vast election bill that would be among the most severe in the nation. It would impose new restrictions on early voting, ban drive-through voting, threaten election officials with harsher penalties and greatly empower partisan poll watchers. The main bill passed a key committee in a late-night session on Thursday, and could head to a full floor vote in the House as early as next week.Bills to restrict voting have also been moving through Republican-led legislatures in Arizona and Michigan. More