Georgia

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Marjorie Taylor Greene accused of lying in hearing in Capitol attack case

      by

      Marjorie Taylor Greene accused of lying in hearing in Capitol attack caseLawyers for groups challenging Republican say text Greene sent to Meadows, released by House panel, shows she lied in testimony Lawyers for voters seeking to bar the far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress over her support for the January 6 insurrection have accused her of lying in a hearing in the case.JD Vance’s Senate run is a test of Trump’s influence on the Republican partyRead moreIn a filing Friday, lawyers for groups challenging Greene said a text from the Georgia congresswoman to then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, released by the House committee investigating January 6, shows she lied in testimony.At the hearing in Atlanta earlier this month, a fractious affair in front of an administrative judge, Greene said she could not recall advocating for Donald Trump to impose martial law after the Capitol attack, as the then president sought to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden.In the text message released this week, Greene told Meadows on 17 January 2021, 11 days after the riot and three days before Biden’s inauguration: “In our private chat with only Members several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call Marshall [sic] law.“I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next.”As reported by Bloomberg News, attorneys for Greene’s challengers said: “Greene’s testimony at the hearing that she could not remember discussing martial law with anyone was already dubious.“This text with President Trump’s chief of staff makes her testimony even more incredible because it seems like the kind of message with the kind of recipient that a reasonable person testifying truthfully would remember.”Greene’s lawyer, James Bopp Jr, told Bloomberg: “The text very clearly said she doesn’t know about those things. It couldn’t be clearer.“It’s just another outrageous fabrication that we have been seeing from the other side throughout this case, because they don’t have the law on their side.”The attempt to push Greene off the ballot in the Republican primary is based on section three of the 14th amendment to the US constitution. Ratified in 1868, shortly after the civil war, the amendment bars from office anyone who has taken an oath under the constitution but then engaged in insurrection.A bipartisan Senate committee linked seven deaths to the Capitol attack, which occurred after Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” in service of his lies about electoral fraud.Riot participants have tied Greene to their cause. She has repeated Trump’s lie that the election was stolen but also denied links to rioters and said she was not calling for political violence when she backed Trump’s claims.In the immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot, Greene was one of 147 Republicans in the House and Senate who objected to electoral college results.The groups challenging Greene have challenged other Trump supporters.An effort to exclude Madison Cawthorn, from North Carolina, failed when a judge said an 1872 civil war amnesty law was not merely retroactive. Attempts to eject two Arizonans, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, were also rejected.The judge in Greene’s case has said he will soon make a recommendation to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, who will then rule.Raffensperger is a conservative Republican but also the official who blocked Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat in Georgia. Raffensperger has said that caused him to fear for his safety.Greene appears in This Will Not Pass, a hotly anticipated new book by two New York Times reporters, both in her relation to the January 6 attack and as a thorn in the side of congressional Democrats.“If there was one Republican who had shown she had no business serving in Congress,” Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns write, “Democrats believed it was” Greene.The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, though, “thought it would be pointless to try expelling Greene from the House. Even if an expulsion vote succeeded, the speaker believed Greene would easily win a special election in her district and return.”TopicsGeorgiaUS Capitol attackUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      The fight over voting continues. Here’s the latest.

      by

      The conflict over sweeping new restrictions on voting, largely confined to statehouses and governors’ desks since 2020, is spilling over into the midterm elections.About two dozen states have tightened laws regulating matters like who is eligible to vote by mail, the placement of drop boxes for absentee ballots and identification requirements. Many of the politicians driving the clampdown can be found on the ballot themselves this year.Here are some of the latest developments.In Pennsylvania, the four leading Republican candidates for governor all said during a debate on Wednesday that they supported the repeal of no-excuse absentee voting in that state.In 2020, about 2.6 million people who were adapting to pandemic life voted by mail in Pennsylvania, more than a third of the total ballots cast. But Republicans, smarting over President Donald J. Trump’s election loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr. and promulgating baseless voter fraud claims, have since sought to curtail voting by mail. A state court in January struck down Pennsylvania’s landmark law expanding absentee voting, a ruling that is the subject of a pending appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court.Lou Barletta, one of the four on the debate stage and a former congressman, asserted that no-excuse absentee voting was conducive to fraud.“Listen, we know dead people have been voting in Pennsylvania all of our lives,” Mr. Barletta said. “Now they don’t even have to leave the cemetery to vote. They can mail in their ballots.”Several states had already conducted elections primarily through mail-in voting before the pandemic, with there being little meaningful evidence of fraud. They include Colorado and Utah, a state controlled by Republicans.Elsewhere in Pennsylvania, officials in Westmoreland County, which includes the suburbs east of Pittsburgh, voted this week to scale back the number of drop boxes used for absentee ballots to just one. The vote was 2-to-1, with Republicans on the Board of Commissioners saying that the reduction from several drop boxes would save money. The lone Democrat said that the change would make it more difficult for people to send in their ballots.In Arizona, two Trump-endorsed Republican candidates — Kari Lake in the governor’s race and Mark Finchem for secretary of state — sued election officials this month to try to stop the use of electronic voting machines in the midterm elections. Helping to underwrite the lawsuit, along with similar efforts in other states, is Mike Lindell, the MyPillow chief executive.In Nevada, a push by Republicans to scale back universal mail-in voting while introducing a new voter ID requirement ran into a major setback on Monday when two different judges in Carson City invalidated those efforts.In Georgia, Brian Kemp, the Republican governor, signed a bill on Wednesday empowering the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to pursue criminal inquiries into election fraud, an authority solely held by the secretary of state in the past. More

    • 150 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Kemp and Perdue Debate, Looking Back at 2020 and Ahead to Abrams

      by

      Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia and his Republican primary opponent, former Senator David Perdue, bickered over the previous election — and over who would be more likely to defeat Stacey Abrams in November. ATLANTA — Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia and former Senator David Perdue, a former ally who is challenging him in the Republican primary next month, met in an explosive first debate on Sunday night that was marked by a lengthy rehashing of the 2020 election’s outcome and testy attacks each other’s veracity.During the hourlong exchange, the candidates sparred over their conservative bona fides, a handful of policy issues popular on the right and who would ultimately be the stronger candidate against Stacey Abrams in November.Mr. Perdue, who was defeated in a runoff last year by Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, repeatedly echoed former President Donald J. Trump’s baseless claim that the 2020 election had been “stolen and rigged” against the two of them, though multiple ballot recounts confirmed they had lost fair and square. Mr. Perdue, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump to challenge Mr. Kemp in the May 24 primary, assailed Mr. Kemp for refusing to call a special Georgia legislative session to try to overturn the election’s results.Mr. Perdue insisted he would still be a sitting United States senator if Mr. Kemp hadn’t “caved.”But when Mr. Perdue claimed that he had repeatedly asked Mr. Kemp to call such a special session, the governor pushed back forcefully, reminding voters of the many days he and his family had spent on Mr. Perdue’s campaign bus, trying in vain to help him win a second term. “Folks, he never asked me,” Mr. Kemp said. And when Mr. Perdue repeatedly accused the governor of lying, Mr. Kemp challenged him to produce witnesses to back up his claims.Each man portrayed the other unfavorably in light of 2020: Mr. Perdue said Mr. Kemp had betrayed Republican voters by failing to overturn the election, and Mr. Kemp pointed to Mr. Perdue’s loss to Mr. Ossoff as proof that he is too weak to defeat Ms. Abrams, the Democrat who narrowly lost to Mr. Kemp in 2018 and is making a second run for governor this year.Ms. Abrams’s candidacy loomed large over the entire evening, as both men underlined the danger they said she posed to Georgia if she wound up in the governor’s mansion. While Mr. Kemp holds a double-digit lead over Mr. Perdue in several polls, Mr. Perdue sought to remind voters of Mr. Kemp’s 1.4-percentage-point victory margin in 2018.“He barely beat Stacey Abrams in ’18, when I helped him secure President Trump’s endorsement, which he still today doesn’t think helped him at all,” Mr. Perdue said. The slugfest never let up, as a focus on Georgia policy issues in the debate’s second half-hour devolved into a fight over who was more authentically conservative, each candidate seeking to outflank the other from the right on education, public safety and jobs. Mr. Kemp doubled down on his support for a bill that prohibits teaching of “divisive concepts” on race and history, saying that Republicans in the state “passed this piece of legislation to make sure that our kids are not going to be indoctrinated in our schools,” and that curriculums should focus on “the facts, not somebody’s ideology.”But Mr. Perdue accused Mr. Kemp of abrogating his responsibility to protect students, parents and teachers alike. “They need to make sure that the woke mob’s not taking over the schools, and you’ve left them high and dry,” he said, asserting that the Atlanta schools were “teaching kids that voter ID is racist.”Answering a question about Latino voters, Mr. Perdue criticized Mr. Kemp’s record on immigration, recalling a 2018 campaign ad in which Mr. Kemp promised to use his own pickup truck to “round up illegals.” “Governor, what happened? Your pickup break down?” Mr. Perdue asked.Mr. Kemp said that the Covid-19 pandemic had intervened, saying that “picking up” people would only have helped spread infection in the state — and then reminded voters, for the umpteenth time, of Mr. Perdue’s defeat last year.“The fact is, if you hadn’t lost your race to Jon Ossoff, we wouldn’t have lost control of the Senate, and we wouldn’t have the disaster that we have in Washington right now,” Mr. Kemp said.A few clear-cut policy rifts did come into view over Georgia-specific issues.The two took opposite views of a new factory to produce electric trucks that is being built by Rivian Automotive in the state. Mr. Kemp exalted the project for the thousands of jobs it is expected to create, while Mr. Perdue cited an investment by the Democratic megadonor George Soros to dismiss Rivian as a “woke company,” saying that the project would redirect Georgians’ tax dollars into Mr. Soros’s pocket.Mr. Perdue attacked Mr. Kemp from several angles over rising crime in Atlanta, saying the governor had shrunk the size of the Georgia State Patrol and faulting him for failing to get behind an effort by some residents of Atlanta’s wealthy Buckhead neighborhood, alarmed about the surge in violent crime, to secede from the city. He accused the governor of staying out of the fray over the Buckhead secession movement for the sake of the “big company cronies downtown that are his big donors, that are desperate to not let that happen.”Mr. Kemp said he had raised troopers’ salaries, enhanced their training, created a crime suppression unit and deployed more troopers in metro Atlanta. And he pointed to his signing this month of a law allowing Georgians to carry concealed firearms without a permit.That was another way of fighting crime, he said.“The bad people already have the guns,” Mr. Kemp said. “We’re trying to give law-abiding citizens the ability to protect themselves, their family and their property.”Right to the end, both candidates were on message, and the message was largely a dim view of each other.In his closing, Mr. Perdue called Mr. Kemp a “weak governor trying to cover up a bad record.”Mr. Kemp, in his own summation, said Mr. Perdue was attacking his record in office “because he has none of his own, which is why he didn’t win his Senate race.” More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Marjorie Taylor Greene appears in court over attempt to bar her from Congress

      by

      Marjorie Taylor Greene appears in court over attempt to bar her from CongressEffort, brought by voters and liberal groups, to ban Republican for aiding the Capitol attack comes under the 14th amendment

      US politics – live coverage
      The far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared in court in Georgia on Friday for a hearing in an attempt to bar her from Congress for aiding the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.Republican leader Kevin McCarthy considered urging Trump to quit, audio revealsRead moreA lawyer for Greene, James Bopp, tried to portray her as a “victim” of the Capitol attack, rather than an instigator.Ron Fein, for the challengers, said: “The most powerful witness against Marjorie Taylor Greene’s candidacy … is Marjorie Taylor Greene herself.”Greene, who testified, is set to appear on the Republican ballot for Georgia’s 24 May primary and has been endorsed by Donald Trump.The administrative judge overseeing the hearing will present his findings to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who will then determine whether Greene is qualified.Raffensperger, a Republican, stood up to Trump when the then president tried to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in Georgia. Raffensperger has said that as a result, he feared for his family’s safety.In a statement on Thursday, Trump incorrectly blamed Raffensperger and the Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, for allowing the challenge against Greene, saying she was “going through hell in their attempt to unseat her”.The effort to bar Greene from re-election was brought by a coalition of voters and liberal groups and comes under the 14th amendment to the US constitution.Passed after the civil war, the amendment was written to prevent anyone sitting in Congress if they have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or “given aid or comfort to the enemies” of the constitution.On Friday, some in the room in Atlanta cheered and applauded as Greene took her seat – prompting the judge to later say such behaviour would not be tolerated. Matt Gaetz of Florida, another far-right Republican and Trump supporter, was in the room. He tweeted: “I’m here in Atlanta to support ⁦[Greene] against the assault on democracy that is this effort to remove her from the ballot.”As the hearing began, Greene tweeted: “Only the People have the right to choose who they send to Congress.”Supporters of Trump attacked Congress on 6 January 2021 in an attempt to stop certification of his defeat by Biden, in service of Trump’s lies about electoral fraud.A bipartisan Senate committee connected seven deaths to the riot. More than 100 officers were hurt. About 800 people, including members of far-right and militia groups, have been charged, some with seditious conspiracy. Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection but acquitted. A House investigation continues.Organisers of events on January 6 have said Greene communicated with them. Greene has denied it and said she does not encourage violence. In October, however, she told a podcast hosted by Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist: “January 6 was just a riot at the Capitol and if you think about what our Declaration of Independence says, it says to overthrow tyrants.”After the riot, Greene was one of 147 Republicans in Congress who objected to results in battleground states.An effort to use the 14th amendment against Madison Cawthorn, a Trump ally from North Carolina, was unsuccessful, after a judge ruled an 1872 civil war amnesty law was not merely retroactive. In Greene’s case, a federal judge said the 1872 law did not apply.In Atlanta on Friday, Bopp said the challengers were making a very serious charge.“They want to deny the right to vote to the thousands of people living in the 14th district of Georgia by removing Greene from the ballot,” he said, adding that Greene “did not engage in the attack on the Capitol”.Greene met Trump about objections to state results because of concerns about voter fraud, Bopp said. At the time of the riot, he said, she was at the Capitol urging people via social media to be safe and remain calm.“Representative Greene was a victim of this attack,” Bopp said, adding that she believed her life could be in danger.The challenge opened with questioning of a historian about the 14th amendment and uprisings including the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, which was quashed by George Washington.Ron Fein, a lawyer for the voters who filed the challenge, said Greene took an oath but broke it by engaging in an insurrection. Unlike past insurrections, Fein said: “The leaders of this insurrection were among us, on Facebook, on Twitter, on corners of social media that would make your stomach hurt.”Although Greene was not on the steps of the Capitol, she played an important role in stoking Republican fury, Fein said. The day before the insurrection, Greene posted: “It’s our 1776 moment!” on the conservative-friendly Parler platform.“The most powerful witness against Marjorie Taylor Greene’s candidacy … the most powerful witness in establishing that she crossed the line into engagement in insurrection is Marjorie Taylor Greene herself,” Fein said.Bopp raised frequent objections. When Greene took the stand, the lawyer Andrew Celli became frustrated when she did not directly answer or said he was speculating.Celli asked the court “to acknowledge that this is an adverse witness” and said: “Ms Greene, I’m just asking questions.”“I’m just answering,” Greene said.Celli asked Greene about posts on social media and other statements. Greene repeatedly said she did not recall them.Whenever Celli suggested Greene endorsed the use of violence to interrupt the certification of the electoral votes, Greene said she did not support violence and was encouraging peaceful protest.Celli played a clip of an interview the day before the riot in which Greene referred to “our 1776 moment”. Asked if she was aware some Trump supporters saw that as a call to violence, Greene said that was not her intention and she was talking about plans to object to electoral votes.“I was talking about the courage to object,” she said.The Associated Press contributed reportingTopicsUS politicsUS Capitol attackRepublicansGeorgianewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Only the Feds Can Disqualify Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene

      by

      The events of Jan. 6, 2021, are casting a long shadow over the midterm elections. Voters in North Carolina are seeking to bar Representative Madison Cawthorn from running for re-election to his House seat, and those in Georgia are trying to do the same to Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.These voters have filed complaints with state elections officials arguing that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment disqualifies members of Congress who engage in insurrection from appearing on the congressional ballot. (Challenges to other elected officials have also begun involving other candidates.)But these challenges face an intractable problem: Only the federal government — not the states — can disqualify insurrectionists from congressional ballots. States cannot unilaterally create procedures, unless authorized by federal statute, to keep accused insurrectionists off the congressional ballot.If these members of Congress engaged in insurrection, then the U.S. House of Representatives may exclude them, or federal prosecutors may charge them with the federal crime of insurrection. But in light of an important 1869 judicial decision, the cases against Mr. Cawthorn and Ms. Greene — which are currently mired in both state and federal proceedings — cannot remove the candidates from the congressional ballot.The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 in the wake of the Civil War. Section 3 disqualified many former Confederates from holding certain public offices if they had taken an oath to support the U.S. Constitution but subsequently, as Section 3 declares, “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.” Since 1868, the federal judiciary has had few occasions to interpret Section 3. As a result, the courts are largely in uncharted territory. Nevertheless, there is some important on-point precedent.An 1869 case concerning Hugh W. Sheffey is instructive for the Jan. 6 litigation and how courts might see things today. Mr. Sheffey took an oath to support the Constitution but later served as a member of the Confederate Virginia legislature, thereby actively supporting the Confederacy.After the war, he served as a state court judge. As Judge Sheffey, he presided over the trial and conviction of Caesar Griffin for shooting with an intent to kill. Later, Mr. Griffin challenged his conviction in federal court. He argued that Section 3 should have disqualified Mr. Sheffey from serving as judge. Griffin’s case, as it is known, was heard on appeal by the federal circuit court in Virginia. Salmon P. Chase, the chief justice of the United States and an appointee of President Abraham Lincoln, presided over the appeal. Chief Justice Chase ruled against Mr. Griffin, finding that Section 3 did not disqualify Judge Sheffey, despite the fact that he had taken an oath to support the U.S. Constitution and that it was “admitted,” as the case stated, that he later committed a Section 3 disqualifying offense.Chief Justice Chase reasoned “that legislation by Congress is necessary to give effect to” Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — and that “only” Congress can enact that legislation. Chief Justice Chase added that the exclusion of disqualified office holders “can only be provided for by Congress.” Congress must create the procedure that would determine if a defendant violated Section 3. Section 5 of the 14th Amendment emphasizes this principle: Congress, it states, “shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”In short, Griffin’s case teaches that in legal terms, Section 3 is not self-executing — that is, Congress must establish, or at least authorize, the process that affords accused insurrectionists an opportunity to contest the allegations brought against them.Mr. Cawthorn and Ms. Greene deny that they engaged in insurrection and oppose any assertion that they violated the law, which would include Section 3 disqualifying offenses. Moreover, in the Cawthorn and Greene cases, the plaintiffs have not pointed to any federal legislation authorizing the states to police Section 3 by disqualifying accused insurrectionists from the congressional ballot. Without federal authorization, state elections boards and even state courts could very well be powerless to make determinations about congressional candidates and Section 3.There may be another way, based on an existing statute, to disqualify a candidate from congressional ballots: the Insurrection Act of 1862. This legislation, which predated the 14th Amendment, mirrors one of the disqualifying offenses established in Section 3.The modern Insurrection Act is virtually unchanged from the statute Lincoln signed in 1862. If the Justice Department indicts and succeeds in convicting Mr. Cawthorn, Ms. Greene or others of insurrection under that act, then on that basis, state elections boards and state courts may remove these candidates from the congressional ballot.Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesBut so far, the Justice Department has not charged any congressional candidates with inciting or engaging in an insurrection or with any other disqualifying offenses. Most of the Jan. 6 federal charges have been based on things like property crimes or for obstructing official proceedings or assaulting officers rather than insurrection.If the Justice Department does not secure a conviction of a Section 3 disqualifying offense before the state ballot is printed (the primary in North Carolina is scheduled for May 17 and the one in Georgia for May 24), then, generally, state boards of election and even state courts will be powerless to remove otherwise eligible congressional candidates from the ballot.Recently, some scholars and advocates have contested Chief Justice Chase’s opinion in Griffin’s case as precluding the state challenges against Mr. Cawthorn and Ms. Greene. In their view, even in the absence of a federal statute, state election officials who conclude that a person engaged in insurrection may proceed to remove that candidate from the congressional ballot. There is no Supreme Court precedent that squarely forecloses that position. Moreover, Chief Justice Chase’s decision was not rendered by the United States Supreme Court, and so it is not controlling precedent. On Monday, a federal court in Georgia allowed the state court disqualification proceeding to go forward against Representative Greene. The federal judge did so without citing or distinguishing Griffin’s case.Still, we think the chief justice’s opinion is persuasive; we expect state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, will likely follow this historically entrenched position. Chief Justice Chase’s approach is the simplest path. If the courts find that Section 3 is not self-executing, there is no need for state election officials to decide far more politically charged questions about whether Mr. Cawthorn and Ms. Greene — and potentially, looking ahead to 2024, Donald Trump — engaged in insurrection.Congress has not authorized the states to enforce Section 3 by striking congressional candidates from the ballot. Thus, state courts and elections boards lack jurisdiction to exclude alleged insurrectionists from the congressional ballot. In such circumstances, state governments must let the people decide who will represent them in Congress.Josh Blackman is a law professor at South Texas College of Law Houston. S.B. Tillman is an associate professor at the Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology. They recently wrote a law review article about the application of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to President Trump.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

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Herschel Walker’s Senate Bid in Georgia Is Powered by Fandom

      by

      The football-star-turned-candidate has been converting Bulldogs fans into supporters. But some Republicans worry voters are blinded by his celebrity.LaGRANGE, Ga. — Most came dressed in University of Georgia jerseys, hats and T-shirts. Some carried footballs and framed posters. It was a campaign stop for a Senate candidate, but for many Georgians who came to see Herschel Walker, politics was hardly the only draw.“It’s ‘Herschel, Herschel, Herschel’ — he doesn’t even have to have his last name,” said Gail Hunnicutt, a Walker fan since he dominated the University of Georgia football program from 1980 to 1982, winning the Heisman Trophy and unending adoration from many in football-obsessed Georgia. “I’m wondering why he wants to jump into the mess of Washington politics. But we’re proud to have him there.”Mr. Walker is a risky choice for a Republican Party desperately trying to win back a Senate seat lost in the state’s Democratic wave two years ago. He has never held elected office, and he lived in Texas for the better part of the last decade. He has been accused of domestic abuse and has acknowledged violent thoughts as part of his past struggles with mental illness. He has made exaggerated and false claims about his business success, according to local news reports. And his public speeches are characterized by unclear and sometimes meandering talking points.But little of this seems to matter to the Republican voters embracing his Senate primary campaign. Mr. Walker’s one-name-only fame has propelled him to the top of the field. In less than nine months as a candidate, he has amassed $10 million in cash. He campaigns with no fear of his primary opponents and all the confidence of an all-star athlete.Lee Richter, 67, a retired coach at LaGrange College, had his hat autographed by the candidate.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesA Georgia Bulldogs jersey signed by Herschel Walker during his campaign event.Nicole Craine for The New York Times“I go into these cities and give people hope,” Mr. Walker said on Monday in an interview at the meet-and-greet in LaGrange, a small town about an hour south of Atlanta. “Most everybody in Georgia knows who I am. The people that want to try to deny they know who I am aren’t from Georgia. Let’s be real.”But even some Republicans worry their party is being blinded by fandom. Mr. Walker may be on track for victory in the May 24 primary, but he faces a harder challenge against Senator Raphael G. Warnock.Mr. Warnock, the freshman Democrat, has raised more than $13 million in the last three months, according to campaign finance data, and he will be backed by national Democrats eager to prove their 2020 victories were more than just a rejection of former President Donald J. Trump, but instead were a permanent shift in a rapidly changing Southern state. Mr. Warnock’s campaign declined to comment.Mr. Walker campaigns as both a political outsider and a celebrity, drawing comparisons to Mr. Trump, whose friendship and early endorsement have lifted Mr. Walker’s prospects. But unlike Mr. Trump, Mr. Walker eschews large events and spends most of his time at private fund-raisers, listening sessions and small-scale grass-roots events with limited media access. In speeches, he zigzags from hot-button issues such as transgender students’ participation in high school sports, to riffs on the mechanics of his campaign.Former President Donald J. Trump greeting Mr. Walker at an event in Atlanta in 2020.Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times“When I decided to run a lot of people called. The senators called and said, ‘Herschel can you raise the money? Herschel can you get people to cross over?’ I’m doing both,” Mr. Walker said, alluding to some Republicans’ concerns about his appeal to Democratic and independent voters.Despite his war chest, Mr. Walker has not yet bought any television or radio advertisements. He skipped the first primary debate in April and has not committed to attending another scheduled for May 3.That has prompted some supporters to question his strategy. Debra Jo Steele, a county party official who attended Mr. Walker’s event on Monday wearing a navy blue Trump cap, asked Mr. Walker directly why he did not attend the Senate debate.Mr. Walker said he was out of town, receiving a business leadership award. Several in the crowd hushed her down and yelled for him to call on someone else.“It would be nice to have him be in a debate and he should sharpen his skills before he goes,” Ms. Steele, the secretary of the Republican Party in Heard County, north of LaGrange, said in an interview after Mr. Walker’s remarks. “If he wins the primary, he’s going to have a debate, I’m sure, with the Democratic contender. And it’s just kind of arrogant not to be on the stage.”Herschel Walker, who is running for Senate, speaks at a campaign event in LaGrange, Ga.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesGary Black, a former state agriculture commissioner and next highest-polling candidate in the Senate race, is the loudest Republican voice against Mr. Walker. Mr. Black has tried to highlight Mr. Walker’s turbulent past and argue that he is unelectable in the fall.“If Herschel Walker is the nominee for the Republican Party in Georgia, the race will be about Herschel Walker” Mr. Black said. “If I’m the nominee, the race will be about Raphael Warnock and why we should fire him.”In March, Mr. Black’s campaign launched a website detailing the accusations of violence, complete with a two-minute advertisement listing them. A super PAC supporting Mr. Black’s candidacy, Defend Georgia, has said it plans to help spend millions on ads carrying a similar message, though none have aired. Their goal is to pull Mr. Walker below a 50 percent threshold, forcing a runoff. Recent polls show Mr. Walker winning nearly two-thirds of Republican primary voters.Mr. Walker’s ex-wife has accused him of attacking and threatening to kill her. Mr. Walker hasn’t denied the allegations, but he and his campaign have denied accusations made by two other women who say he threatened and stalked them. In his book published in 2008 and later interviews, he attributed past erratic and threatening behavior to a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder.“He obviously had a very public fall with mental health and has gotten back up,” said Mallory Blount, a spokeswoman for Mr. Walker’s campaign.For some Republicans, that explanation is part of Mr. Walker’s appeal.“He’s adjusted to every circumstance in every situation, where he was,” said Ms. Hunnicutt. When asked if she could see herself supporting any other Republican in the race, she replied quickly.“No,” she said. “And I know who they are.” More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Democratic Dollars Flow Once Again to Likely Lost Causes

      by

      New fund-raising figures show emerging Democratic stars like Marcus Flowers in Georgia and Gary Chambers Jr. in Louisiana, with no clear path to victory.Gary Chambers Jr. burst onto the national scene in 2020 with a viral video of him castigating the racism of the East Baton Rouge school district. Now, he has captured the hearts and wallets of young liberals with a video for his improbable Senate campaign that shows him smoking a large joint and calling for the legalization of marijuana.He has almost no paths to victory over a sitting Republican senator in a red state like Louisiana. But he has raised $1.2 million.The same most likely goes for the Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, a gay minister who has raised $1.4 million to oust Representative Madison Cawthorn, the far-right Republican, from his North Carolina seat. And for Marcus Flowers, a cowboy-hat-wearing veteran in Georgia who raised $2.4 million just in the first three months of the year to try to dislodge Marjorie Taylor Greene from a heavily Republican district.Every election year in recent cycles, celebrity Democratic candidates have emerged — either on the strength of their personalities, the notoriety of their Republican opponents or both — to rake in campaign cash, then lose impossible elections. Some Democrats say such races are draining money from more winnable campaigns, but the candidates insist that even in losing, they are helping the party by pulling voters in for statewide races, bolstering the Democratic brand and broadening the party’s appeal.“We are asking folks to join us, join us in winning this race and doing the organizing we need,” Ms. Beach-Ferrara said in an interview, “and to say we can’t look at the map and say we aren’t running there. When you do that you get a Madison Cawthorn in office.”As first-quarter fund-raising numbers roll in, the stars are emerging. The biggest bucks belong to incumbents. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a Republican widely viewed as vulnerable this year, was criticized six years ago for anemic fund-raising; this time around, he raised nearly $8.7 million in the first quarter. Senator Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat facing a difficult re-election, raised $13.6 million against the $5.2 million raised by his main Republican opponent, Herschel Walker.Competitive races are already awash in money. Representative Val Demings, Democrat of Florida, raised more than $10 million to challenge Senator Marco Rubio, who raised $5.8 million.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.Then there’s Mr. Flowers, whose $2.4 million haul in the first quarter easily topped Ms. Greene’s $1.1 million, in a Northwest Georgia district that has given Republicans 75 percent of the vote since it was created in 2012.Mr. Flowers has proved remarkably adept at raising small-dollar donations with a barrage of emails — sometimes multiple emails each day — that capitalize on the behavior of the far-right congresswoman he is running against. An Army veteran who served in combat, he has emphasized his military service, talking tough while attacking Ms. Greene’s sympathy for the Jan. 6 rioters and far-right conspiracy theories.Jon Soltz, the co-founder and chairman of VoteVets.org, a liberal veterans organization that gave Mr. Flowers the maximum allowable contribution, said support was not necessarily about winning the seat but holding Ms. Greene in check and using his run to elevate her profile as the face of the Republican Party in suburban districts that are more winnable.“She can’t be free to travel around the country and spew her lies and disinformation,” Mr. Soltz said. “We’re making her spend her money.”In the process, Mr. Flowers can build name recognition for future runs and might energize the Democrats who live in Northwest Georgia to come out and vote for him, Mr. Warnock and the Democratic candidate for governor, Stacey Abrams.The Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, a Democrat, is running against Representative Madison Cawthorn.Angeli Wright/Asheville Citizen-TimesMr. Cawthorn appeared at a rally with former President Donald J. Trump this month in Selma, N.C.Veasey Conway for The New York TimesMs. Beach-Ferrara is similarly buoyed by her opponent, Mr. Cawthorn, the young face of far-right conservatism in the Trump era. A married lesbian mother of three, Ms. Beach-Ferrara insists her unlikely life story will help her in a district where an influx of politically active outsiders in the Asheville area could change the region’s direction.North Carolina’s 11th House district, with new lines, is slightly less Republican than it was in 2020, when Mr. Cawthorn was first elected. She said Mr. Trump still would have won it by 10 percentage points but the state’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, would have lost by only 4 points.Her advantage two years later comes from disenchantment with Mr. Cawthorn, whose antics — he has called Ukraine’s president a thug and most recently said his colleagues had invited him to cocaine-filled orgies — have prompted seven Republicans to challenge him in the upcoming primary.“As people walk away from Cawthorn, our job is to meet them,” she said, adding, “For those who don’t know what to make of a gay Christian minister, what is very clear with them is I’m being honest with them from the start.”In Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, Mr. Chambers does not have the villain that Democrats have made nationally of Ms. Greene. His campaign is based on his irreverent appeal — an outspoken Black progressive voice willing to smoke weed in a commercial, burn a Confederate flag and call white school board members racist to their faces for defending a school named after Robert E. Lee.He raised $800,000 in the first three months of the year from 18,500 donors. The average contribution was $41, many of those small-dollar donors youthful and excited, the campaign said.Critics say such campaigns are more about building the brand of Democratic consultants than making a play for a Senate seat. The man who created Mr. Chambers’s marijuana and Confederate flag ads, Erick Sanchez, helped run Andrew Yang’s presidential campaign and also hawks “Fouch on the Couch” throw pillows of Dr. Anthony Fauci for $40 a pop.But Randy Jones, one of Mr. Chambers’s campaign chiefs, said the candidate should not be discounted. Mr. Chambers, he said, is taking a page from Ms. Abrams, who energized Georgia voters of color, urban liberals and the scatterings of rural Democrats to nearly win the governorship four years ago, build a political organization and set herself up for a rematch this year with the Republican governor, Brian Kemp.Mr. Jones ran the campaign of another celebrity Democrat, Richard Ojeda of West Virginia, whose House campaign in 2018 was instructive in other ways. Mr. Ojeda, a trash-talking Bronze Star winner, sought to remake his party’s image in his emerging Republican stronghold as more muscular and more working class. He raised nearly $3 million, then lost by nearly 13 percentage points.Richard Ojeda campaigning in Logan, W.Va., in 2018.Andrew Spear for The New York TimesEmbittered by the experience, Mr. Ojeda moved to North Carolina to leave a home state he describes with the same epithet Mr. Trump used for developing countries. He uses his political notoriety to lift his group No Dem Left Behind, which promotes candidates in rural Republican areas, as he builds a new house.Even as he defended his campaign, Mr. Ojeda criticizes the party in ways that echo criticism of his own effort. Democrats across the country dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the Senate campaigns of Jaime Harrison in South Carolina and Amy McGrath in Kentucky, when the money could have been spent on more winnable local races, he said. He insisted he could have won if Mr. Trump hadn’t come to his corner of West Virginia twice.But he also sees no point in ever trying again in a state so thoroughly Republican in the Trump era.“West Virginia is going to have to burn to the ground before it will ever rise from the ashes — that’s it,” Mr. Ojeda said. “In West Virginia, all you can do as a Democrat is stand up, fight the battle so it’s recorded and say, ‘You guys are full of’” it. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Attempt to bar Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress can proceed, judge says

      by

      Attempt to bar Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress can proceed, judge saysFederal judge cites ‘whirlpool of colliding constitutional interests’ in allowing 14th-amendment challenge to far-right Republican An attempt to bar the far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress over her support for the January 6 attack can proceed, a federal judge said.‘Election integrity summits’ aim to fire up Trump activists over big lieRead moreCiting “a whirlpool of colliding constitutional interests of public import”, Amy Totenberg of the northern district of Georgia sent the case on to a state hearing on Friday.A coalition of liberal groups is behind the challenge, citing the 14th amendment to the US constitution, passed after the civil war.The amendment says: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”Supporters of Donald Trump attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, seeking to stop certification of his defeat by Joe Biden. A bipartisan Senate committee connected seven deaths to the riot. About 800 people have been charged, some with seditious conspiracy.Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection. Acquitted, he is free to run again.Organisers of events in Washington on January 6 have tied Greene to their efforts. Greene has denied such links and said she does not encourage violence.In October, however, she told a radio show: “January 6 was just a riot at the Capitol and if you think about what our Declaration of Independence says, it says to overthrow tyrants.”In the immediate aftermath of the Capitol attack, Greene was one of 147 Republicans in Congress who objected to results in battleground states, an effort inspired by Trump’s lies about electoral fraud.An effort to use the 14th amendment against Madison Cawthorn, an extremist from North Carolina, was unsuccessful, after a judge ruled an 1872 civil war amnesty law was not merely retroactive.In her ruling on Greene’s attempt to dismiss her challenge, on Monday, Totenberg said: “This case involves a whirlpool of colliding constitutional interests of public import. Upon a thorough analysis of each of the claims asserted in this case, the court concludes that [Greene] has not carried her burden of persuasion.”Even if a state judge rules against Greene, she could challenge the ruling. The Georgia primary is on 25 May, cutting time short. Greene seems likely to win re-election.Writing for the Guardian this month, the Georgetown University professor Thomas Zimmer said: “Greene’s position within the Republican party seems secure … in fact, Greene is the poster child of a rising group of rightwing radicals … [not] shy about their intention to purge whatever vestiges of ‘moderate’ conservatism might still exist within the Republican party.”Extremists like Marjorie Taylor Greene are the future of the Republican party | Thomas ZimmerRead moreOne of the groups behind the challenge to Greene is Free Speech for the People. In January, the group’s legal director, Ron Fein, told the Guardian the group aimed to set “a line that says that just as the framers of the 14th amendment wrote and intended, you can’t take an oath to support the constitution and then facilitate an insurrection against the United States while expecting to pursue public office”.On Monday, Fein said: “We look forward to asking Representative Greene about her involvement [in January 6] under oath.”Mike Rasbury, an activist with the Bernie Sanders-affiliated Our Revolution group and a plaintiff in the lawsuit against Greene, said he was “elated” by Totenberg’s ruling.Greene, Rasbury said, “took an oath of office to protect democracy from all enemies foreign and domestic, just as I did when I became a helicopter pilot for the US army in Vietnam. However, she has flippantly ignored this oath and, based on her role in the January 6 insurrection, is disqualified … from holding any future public office”.TopicsRepublicansThe far rightUS Capitol attackUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsUS constitution and civil libertiesnewsReuse this content More