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      Effort to Remove Marjorie Taylor Greene From Ballot Can Proceed, Judge Says

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      The case that Ms. Greene unsuccessfully sought to have dismissed mirrors efforts against other Republicans centered on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.A federal judge cleared the way on Monday for a group of Georgia voters to move forward with legal efforts seeking to disqualify Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from running for re-election to Congress, citing her role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.The disqualification effort is based on a constitutional provision adopted after the Civil War that barred members of the Confederacy from holding office. It mirrors several other cases involving Republican members of Congress, whose roles leading up to and during the deadly riot have drawn intense criticism.The judge, Amy Totenberg, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia by President Barack Obama, denied Ms. Greene’s request for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order in the high-profile legal feud.Ms. Greene, 47, who is known for her unflinching loyalty to former President Donald J. Trump and for her clashes with Democrats, has steadfastly denied that she aided and engaged in the attack on the Capitol.In the 73-page ruling, Judge Totenberg wrote that Ms. Greene had failed to meet the “burden of persuasion” in her request for injunctive relief, which she called an extraordinary and drastic remedy.“This case involves a whirlpool of colliding constitutional interests of public import,” Judge Totenberg wrote. “The novelty of the factual and historical posture of this case — especially when assessed in the context of a preliminary injunction motion reviewed on a fast track — has made resolution of the complex legal issues at stake here particularly demanding.”James Bopp Jr., a lawyer for Ms. Greene, said on Monday night that the ruling was flawed and minimized the adverse effect that the disqualification effort was having on Ms. Greene’s right to run for office.“This is fundamentally antidemocratic,” Mr. Bopp said, maintaining that Ms. Greene had “publicly and vigorously condemned the attack on the Capitol.”He called the effort to remove her from the ballot part of a well-funded nationwide effort to strip voters of their right to vote for candidates of their choice, with elections determined by “bureaucrats, judges, lawyers and clever legal arguments.”In her request for an injunction, Ms. Greene argued that it would be impossible to fully resolve the case before Georgia holds its primary elections on May 24. Absentee ballots will start to be mailed on April 25, Ms. Greene’s motion said.In the ruling, Judge Totenberg determined that Ms. Greene had failed to prove that there was a strong likelihood that she would prevail on the merits of her legal claims. A state administrative judge is scheduled to hear the case on Friday.The decision by Judge Totenberg stood in stark contrast with a recent ruling in a similar case involving Representative Madison Cawthorn in North Carolina. In blocking that disqualification effort, U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers II, an appointee of Mr. Trump, ruled that the 14th Amendment of the Constitution narrowly applied to members of the Confederacy after the Civil War.Ms. Greene’s critics have said that she frequently referred to efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential election results as “our 1776 moment” in public comments that led up to the riot at the Capitol. They contend that the phrase was a code used to incite violence, and point to the third section of the 14th Amendment in their argument to drop her from the ballot.That section says that “no person shall” be a member of Congress or hold civil office if they had engaged in insurrection or rebellion after “having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State.”Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 3Debating a criminal referral. More

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      Will Democrats Soon Be Locked Out of Power?

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      Throughout the Trump era it was a frequent theme of liberal commentary that their political party represented a clear American majority, thwarted by our antidemocratic institutions and condemned to live under the rule of the conservative minority.In the political context of 2016-20, this belief was overstated. Yes, Donald Trump won the presidential election of 2016 with a minority of the popular vote. But more Americans voted for Republican congressional candidates than Democratic congressional candidates, and more Americans voted for right-of-center candidates for president — including the Libertarian vote — than voted for Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein. In strictly majoritarian terms, liberalism deserved to lose in 2016, even if Trump did not necessarily deserve to win.And Republican structural advantages, while real, did not then prevent Democrats from reclaiming the House of Representatives in 2018 and the presidency in 2020 and Senate in 2021. These victories extended the pattern of 21st century American politics, which has featured significant swings every few cycles, not the entrenchment of either party’s power.The political landscape after 2024, however, might look more like liberalism’s depictions of its Trump-era plight. According to calculations by liberalism’s Cassandra, David Shor, the convergence of an unfavorable Senate map for Democrats with their pre-existing Electoral College and Senate disadvantages could easily produce a scenario where the party wins 50 percent of the congressional popular vote, 51 percent of the presidential vote — and ends up losing the White House and staring down a nearly filibuster-proof Republican advantage in the Senate.That’s a scenario for liberal horror, but it’s not one that conservatives should welcome either. In recent years, as their advantages in both institutions have increased, conservatives have defended institutions like the Senate and the Electoral College with variations of the argument that the United States is a democratic republic, not a pure democracy.These arguments carry less weight, however, the more consistently undemocratic the system’s overall results become. (They would fall apart completely in the scenario sought by Donald Trump and some of his allies after 2020, where state legislatures simply substitute their preferences for the voters in their states.)The Electoral College’s legitimacy can stand up if an occasional 49-47 percent popular vote result goes the other way; likewise the Senate’s legitimacy if it tilts a bit toward one party but changes hands consistently.But a scenario where one party has sustained governing power while lacking majoritarian support is a recipe for delegitimization and reasonable disillusionment, which no clever conservative column about the constitutional significance of state sovereignty would adequately address.From the Republican Party’s perspective, the best way to avoid this future — where the nature of conservative victories undercuts the perceived legitimacy of conservative governance — is to stop being content with the advantages granted by the system and try harder to win majorities outright.You can’t expect a political party to simply cede its advantages: There will never be a bipartisan constitutional amendment to abolish the Senate, on any timeline you care to imagine. But you can expect a political party to show a little more electoral ambition than the G.O.P. has done of late — to seek to win more elections the way that Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon won them, rather than being content to keep it close and put their hopes in lucky breaks.Especially in the current climate, which looks dire for the Democrats, the Republicans have an opportunity to make the Electoral College complaint moot, for a time at least, by simply taking plausible positions, nominating plausible candidates and winning majorities outright.That means rejecting the politics of voter-fraud paranoia — as, hopefully, Republican primary voters will do by choosing Brian Kemp over David Perdue in the Georgia gubernatorial primary.It means rejecting the attempts to return to the libertarian “makers versus takers” politics of Tea Party era, currently manifested in Florida Senator Rick Scott’s recent manifesto suggesting tax increases for the working class — basically the right-wing equivalent of “defund the police” in terms of its political toxicity.And it means — and I fear this is beyond the G.O.P.’s capacities — nominating someone other than Donald Trump in 2024.A Republican Party that managed to win popular majorities might still see its Senate or Electoral College majorities magnified by its structural advantages. But such magnification is a normal feature of many democratic systems, not just our own. It’s very different from losing the popular vote consistently and yet being handed power anyway.As for what the Democrats should do about their disadvantages — well, that’s a longer discussion, but two quick points for now.First, to the extent the party wants to focus on structural answers to its structural challenges, it needs clarity about what kind of electoral reforms would actually accomplish something. That’s been lacking in the Biden era, where liberal reformers wasted considerable time and energy on voting bills that didn’t pass and also weren’t likely to help the party much had they been actually pushed through.A different reform idea, statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, wouldn’t have happened in this period either, but it’s much more responsive to the actual challenges confronting Democrats in the Senate. So if you’re a liberal activist or a legislator planning for the next brief window when your party holds power, pushing for an expanded Senate seems like a more reasonable long ball to try to train your team to throw.Second, to the extent that there’s a Democratic path back to greater parity in the Senate and Electoral College without structural reform, it probably requires the development of an explicit faction within the party dedicated to winning back two kinds of voters — culturally conservative Latinos and working-class whites — who were part of Barack Obama’s coalition but have drifted rightward since.That faction would have two missions: To hew to a poll-tested agenda on economic policy (not just the business-friendly agenda supported by many centrist Democrats) and to constantly find ways to distinguish itself from organized progressivism — the foundations, the activists, the academics — on cultural and social issues. And crucially, not in the tactical style favored by analysts like Shor, but in the language of principle: Rightward-drifting voters would need to know that this faction actually believes in its own moderation, its own attacks on progressive shibboleths, and that its members will remain a thorn in progressivism’s side even once they reach Washington.Right now the Democrats have scattered politicians, from West Virginia to New York City, who somewhat fit this mold. But they don’t have an agenda for them to coalesce around, a group of donors ready to fund them, a set of intellectuals ready to embrace them as their own.Necessity, however, is the mother of invention, and necessity may impose itself upon the Democratic Party soon enough.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram. More

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      Trial Alleging Voter Suppression in 2018 Abrams-Kemp Georgia Race Begins

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      A trial is underway to determine whether Georgia’s handling of the 2018 election for governor was discriminatory, in a case brought by Stacey Abrams’s voting rights group.The 2018 race for governor in Georgia ended in a bitter dispute between Brian Kemp, a Republican who was serving as secretary of state at the time, and Stacey Abrams, the Democratic challenger who accused the state of voter suppression.The election, won by Kemp, was plagued by long lines, especially in communities of color where wait times occasionally exceeded two hours. And Kemp’s office put 53,000 voter registrations on hold under the state’s “exact match” rule, which requires that voters’ registration information exactly match what is on file with the state’s Department of Driver Services or Social Security Administration. Many of those 53,000 were Black voters, according to an investigation by The Associated Press in 2018.After the election, Fair Fight Action, the voting rights group founded by Abrams, sued the state, claiming its election practices were illegal and discriminatory.Now, more than three years after the suit was filed, the trial began on Monday in Atlanta — the first federal voting rights trial in Georgia in over a decade. Abrams is now in the middle of a second campaign for governor, a rematch with Kemp.After Judge Steve C. Jones tossed parts of the original lawsuit last year, Fair Fight opened its case challenging three specific tenets of the Georgia election system. These tenets, the group says, make it harder for people to vote, especially Black voters.“Through the three practices at issue in this case — exact match, affirmative mismanagement of the voter rolls and failure to train on absentee ballot cancellations — these defendants have erected a series of roadblocks — roadblocks that propose unjustifiable burdens on eligible voters in violation of both the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act,” Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, a lawyer for Fair Fight and the other plaintiffs, said in her opening statement.The office of Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state and the defendant in the case, has said repeatedly that the state has already beaten back most of the claims in court, and accused Fair Fight of playing politics.“They ran this litigation like a campaign,” Joshua B. Belinfante, a lawyer for the secretary of state, said in his opening remarks. He continued: “What the evidence will show is what the plaintiffs allege is part of a campaign is not what is happening on the ground in Georgia elections.”Echoes from the pastFair Fight and other groups have challenged Georgia’s election laws on both constitutional grounds and under a provision of the Voting Rights Act known as Section 2. The trial represents one of the first marquee challenges using this provision after the Supreme Court weakened its protections for voting rights last year.In her opening remarks, Lawrence-Hardy spoke of John Lewis, the Georgia Democrat and civil rights icon who died in 2020. And she drew comparisons between the current legal battle and the state’s history of suppressing voters. Georgia was one of the states that were put under special federal oversight by the Voting Rights Act when it was signed in 1965 because of the history of discrimination at the polls in those states.“The methods may be different than in the past, but the state’s creation of barriers to voting in Georgia have the same impact, particularly for people of color and immigrants who meet all eligibility requirements to vote in Georgia’s elections,” Lawrence-Hardy said. She added that when the state first proposed the exact-match identification policy in 2009, Georgia was still under federal oversight and the Justice Department rejected the initial proposal.The trial, which is expected to last roughly a month, will feature dozens of voters who claim that their right to vote was foiled by the state’s rules and regulations, with anecdotes from both the 2018 and the 2020 elections. Election workers will also testify.“You’ll hear how these election workers, who come from all political persuasions and demographic roots, operate under extraordinarily trying circumstances,” Belinfante, the lawyer for the secretary of state, said in his opening remarks. “And you’ll hear how at the end of the day they just want to get it right.”But the trial will not focus on the state’s controversial new voting law that was passed last year and that added numerous new restrictions on voting. The lawsuit was filed before that law was introduced and passed.A window of opportunityThough Raffensperger is on the defense, the trial also presents a political opportunity for the sitting secretary of state, who is seeking re-election. After he rebuffed Donald Trump’s entreaties to “find” enough votes to subvert the election in Georgia, Raffensperger became a key target of Trump, who has endorsed a well-funded challenger in Representative Jody Hice, a Republican who has publicly claimed that Trump won the election in Georgia.Raffensperger has not backed down from saying Trump legitimately lost the 2020 election in Georgia, a stance that has put him at odds with a segment of the Republican base who will be deciding his fate in the May 24 primary.But the trial has allowed Raffensperger the opportunity to attack Abrams and embrace issues that help endear him to the Republican base, such as noncitizen voting. Republicans have focused on noncitizens voting in their hunt for widespread voter fraud (there is no evidence of swaths of noncitizens voting, nor of widespread fraud) and also to justify new policies. Lawyers for Fair Fight contend that part of the “exact match” process could result in citizens being prevented from voting, including newly naturalized citizens.“I want to make sure it is citizen-only voting here in the state of Georgia,” Raffensperger said in a brief news conference before the trial began on Monday. “We are defending this basic protection of the integrity of Georgia’s elections.”Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, has accused Fair Fight of playing politics with the lawsuit. Dustin Chambers/ReutersWhat to read President Biden announced that the Environmental Protection Agency would lift summertime regulations on E15, an ethanol-gasoline blend, the latest sign that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has pushed the White House to embrace fossil fuels.U.S.-backed news outlets and Ukrainian activists’ efforts to deliver news to Russians are starting to show signs of working, sowing doubt in the Kremlin’s accounts of the invasion.North Carolina dropped Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, from its voter rolls, as officials investigate whether he fraudulently cast a ballot in the state in 2020.in the moment Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas used the migrant drop-off as a fund-raising opportunity. Joel Martinez/The Monitor, via Associated PressTexas sends a bus to … Fox News The arrival of a busload of migrants sent to Washington by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas made for quite the event.Not so much on the ground, but on cable news, on Twitter and in fund-raising emails.In response to the Biden administration’s plans to end a Trump-era pandemic policy that turned away most unauthorized migrants at the border, Abbott pledged to put immigrants on charter buses and send them to Washington. This morning, the first bus arrived near Union Station, with Fox News camera crews ready to record the moment.Understand the Battle Over U.S. Voting RightsCard 1 of 6Why are voting rights an issue now? More

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      in US Politics

      Stacey Abrams win in Georgia will lead to ‘cold war’ with Florida, DeSantis says

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      Stacey Abrams win in Georgia will lead to ‘cold war’ with Florida, DeSantis saysFlorida governor and potential Republican presidential contender says, ‘I can’t have Castro to my south and Abrams to my north’

      DeSantis takes on Disney in latest culture war battle
      The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, predicted a “cold war” with Georgia if it elects the Democrat and voting rights campaigner Stacey Abrams as governor this year.Star Trek makes Stacey Abrams president of United Earth – and stokes conservative angerRead more“If Stacey Abrams is elected governor of Georgia, I just want to be honest, that will be a cold war between Florida and Georgia,” DeSantis said at a press event in the north-west of his own state.“I can’t have [former Cuban leader Raúl] Castro to my south and Abrams to my north, that would be a disaster. So I hope you guys take care of that and we’ll end up in good shape.”DeSantis polls strongly among potential Republican nominees for president in 2024, with or without Donald Trump in the race. Accordingly, he has positioned himself as a major player on culture-war issues, recently signing a bill regarding the teaching of LGBTQ+ issues which critics labeled “don’t say gay”.In California, Los Angeles county has banned business travel to Florida and Texas over anti-LGBTQ+ policies. Such moves have also led DeSantis into direct confrontation with Disney, a major employer and economic engine in his state.On Friday, he said: “I don’t really care what the media says about that. I don’t care what, you know, very leftwing activists say about that. I do not care what big companies say about that. We are standing strong. We will not back down on that.”Abrams has become a major player in her own state and a hate figure among conservatives. A former state representative and a successful author, she ran for governor in 2018 and lost narrowly to Brian Kemp, refusing to concede while protesting his role as secretary of state in controlling his own election.Abrams’ work to turn out Democratic votes, particularly among minorities, helped flip Georgia to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and then elect two Democratic senators in runoffs in January the following year.She is running unopposed in the Democratic gubernatorial primary this year but trails both the incumbent governor, Kemp, and his Trump-backed primary challenger, former senator David Perdue, in early polling.Abrams did not immediately comment on DeSantis’s comment.A spokeswoman for DeSantis’s office said: “If Stacey Abrams wins the governorship of Georgia, we know that her approach to leadership will involve more heavy-handed government, taxes and bureaucratic influence.”Amid controversy, Craig Pittman, a Florida reporter and author, said the governor was “trying desperately to get attention from Fox News for saying something outrageous to own the libs and diss Black people”.TopicsStacey AbramsRon DeSantisUS politicsFloridaGeorgiaRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Herschel Walker, the Worst Candidate, Trump-Approved

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      Let’s just be blunt. No one, and I mean not one person, would seriously believe that Herschel Walker, the former football star and current leading contender for the Republican Senate nomination in Georgia, was at the top of his class at the University of Georgia.Yet Walker has claimed just that for years, saying multiple times that he graduated in the top 1 percent of his class.As CNN reported Friday, Walker never graduated from college. He left to play professional football. Furthermore, according to CNN: “A profile of Walker from 1982 in The Christian-Science Monitor and an article in The New York Times said he maintained a B average at the school. Walker himself told The Chicago Tribune in 1985 he maintained a 3.0 before his grades dropped.”But wait, that wasn’t the only problematic boast Walker made about his grades.In his 2008 book about suffering from dissociative identity disorder, Walker says that he grew up as a “fat kid” who stuttered (twin “sins” in his judgment), that his teachers looked through him as if he hadn’t been there and that the older children ridiculed him as “stupid.”But, Walker wrote: “If I’m proud of anything I did in my high school career, it’s what I did in the classroom that I reflect on and relish the most. I did more than just shed the ‘stupid’ label placed on me as a result of my speech impediment. I shed it, erased it and rewrote it with the titles: Beta Club president and class valedictorian.”CNN’s KFile reviewed Walker’s high school yearbooks and coverage of him in local newspapers at the time and could find no evidence to support the claim that he was a high school valedictorian.No one wants to be insensitive about a speech impediment or any other disorder, but exaggerating is exaggerating, and lying is lying. It goes to the character of the man much more than any physical or psychological condition.His consistent record of inflating his academic credentials isn’t the only thing to suggest that he’s highly problematic.He has also been accused by his ex-wife of making multiple threats against her life. In 2005 she secured an order of protection against him.As The Associated Press reported: “When his book was released, she told ABC News that at one point during their marriage, her husband pointed a pistol at her head and said, ‘I’m going to blow your f’ing brains out.’ She filed for divorce in 2001, citing ‘physically abusive and extremely threatening behavior.’”Now, after months of not seriously challenging Walker, some Georgia Republicans are waking up to the reality that they may have made a grave mistake and that he is likely to lose if he advances to the general election.And they have only Donald Trump to blame. Walker’s campaign was all Trump’s doing and at Trump’s urging.Raphael Warnock became the first Black senator in Georgia’s history, as well as the first popularly elected Black Democratic senator from the South, because of Black voters, who voted him into office just one day before rioters stormed the Capitol. In fact, Black voters were the majority of the coalition that elected him, according to exit polls — the first time that was the case for any Black senator.The results of Warnock’s race, along with Jon Ossoff’s simultaneous runoff election, tipped the balance of the Senate and sent shock waves through Georgia’s political establishment.Within months, state Republicans were speculating about Walker challenging Warnock in 2022.As The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote last summer about what then was still a potential run by Walker: “Herschel Walker hasn’t lived in Georgia for decades. He’s never held public office, doesn’t attend the sort of Republican events that are mainstays on the political calendar and has bypassed the backslapping fund-raising circuit that helps decide winners and losers in the state’s premier races.”But none of those obstacles got in the way. Trump weighed in last March, writing in a statement: “Wouldn’t it be fantastic if the legendary Herschel Walker ran for the United States Senate in Georgia?” The statement continued, “He would be unstoppable, just like he was when he played for the Georgia Bulldogs, and in the N.F.L. He is also a GREAT person. Run Herschel, run!”Trump kept up the pressure. He told the “The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show” in June that Walker had told him he was going to run, and Trump thought he would. The former president said, “I had dinner with him a week ago. He’s a great guy. He’s a patriot. He’s a very loyal person.”But why? Why Walker? Sure, he was an old Trump friend and ally, but he wasn’t a politician and hadn’t publicly expressed a desire to become one.Well, there were a few reasons, all of them part of a callous racial calculus, one in which Trump is well trained. First and foremost, Walker is Black. To many in the G.O.P., his race blunts the idea that Republicans are appealing to racists, relieves the pressure on Trump supporters for supporting a racist and gives them a shot at winning more of Georgia’s Black voters.Walker could be a tool and a weapon. But no weapon — at least not this weapon — formed by Trump shall prosper.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 and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More

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      Republican Senate hopeful overstated academic achievements for years

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      Republican Senate hopeful overstated academic achievements for yearsHerschel Walker, frontrunner for party nomination in Georgia, claimed to have graduated in top 1% – but never actually graduated A Republican Senate candidate in Georgia said for years that he graduated in the top 1% of his university’s class – but actually never graduated college at all.Herschel Walker, a former pro football player who is running as a Republican in Georgia’s US Senateprimary, has publicly stated multiple times that he graduated in the top 1% of his class at University of Georgia despite never completing his degree.Ex-NFL star Herschel Walker posts baffling video promoting US Senate runRead moreThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) first reported on Walker lying about his college degree in December 2021. Walker later deleted the claim from his campaign website and released a statement to AJC acknowledging that he never graduated.“I was majoring in Criminal Justice at [University of Georgia] when I left to play in the [United States Football League] my junior year,” said Walker in his statement. “After playing with the New Jersey Generals, I returned to Athens to complete my degree, but life and football got in the way.”But Walker has actually been misrepresenting his academic achievements for years in interviews and motivational speeches, as recently as 2017, according to an investigation by CNN.In a speech from that year, Walker said: “And all of sudden I started going to the library, getting books, standing in front of a mirror reading to myself. So that Herschel, that all the kids said was retarded, become valedictorian of his class. Graduated University of Georgia in the top 1% of his class.”Walker repeated those claims in a 2017 interview with Sirius XM radio: “I also was valedictorian of my class. I also was in the top 1% of my graduating class of college.”Walker never received a diploma from the University of Georgia. After maintaining a B average throughout college, as reported by the Christian-Science Monitor and the New York Times, Walker left to play professional football and never completed his degree.Walker’s campaign was not able to provide proof that he graduated from the University of Georgia to CNN, but did defend his athletic record.CNN found that Walker also repeated false claims about his academic achievements in high school. Walker has said on multiple occasions that he was valedictorian of his high school class. While Walker was a top student in his high school with an A average, CNN did not find proof that Walker was ever named valedictorian.CNN also found no evidence that his high school even named a valedictorian or salutatorian until 1994, after Walker had graduated.Walker’s campaign could not verify that Walker was his high school valedictorian, but did provide comment on Walker overstating his high school achievements to CNN.“There is not a single voter in Georgia who believes that whether Herschel graduated at the ‘top of his class’ or as valedictorian 40 years ago has any bearing on his ability to be a great United States senator,” said Mallory Blount, communications director for the campaign, in a statement.Walker has remained a contentious primary candidate, with some Georgia Republicans doubting he can win the GOP primary due to his personal baggage, reported Salon. Walker has admitted to past violent behavior against his ex-wife Cindy Grossman and faces other accusations of violence against women from incidents in 2002 and in 2012, which Walker denies.Grossman has publicly detailed domestic violence she suffered from Walker during their relationship. In divorce filings, Grossman said that Walker was physically abusive towards her, forcing her to obtain a protective order against him. In 2008 interview with ABC, Grossman also said that Walker pointed a gun at her head and threatened to kill her.Walker has spoken about his history with violence in an exclusive 2021 interview with Axios, saying that he is “accountable” to his past actions against Grossman and has pursued therapy to treat his mental health problems.Walker, who was endorsed by former president Donald Trump, is the expected Republican nominee against the Democratic senator Raphael Warnock in November.TopicsGeorgiaRepublicansUS politicsUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

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      Local Election Officials in Georgia Oppose G.O.P. Election Bill

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      As Republicans rush to pass a second round of new voting and election rules, a bipartisan group of election officials is fighting back.ATLANTA — A year ago, when Georgia Republicans passed a mammoth law of election measures and voting restrictions, many local election officials felt frustrated and sidelined, as their concerns about resources, ballot access and implementation went largely ignored.This year, Republicans have returned with a new bill — and the election officials are pushing back.A bipartisan coalition of county-level election administrators — the people who carry out the day-to-day work of running elections — is speaking out against the latest Republican measure. At a legislative hearing on Monday, they warned that the proposal would create additional burdens on a dwindling force of election workers and that the provisions could lead to more voter intimidation.“You’re going to waste time, and you’re going to cause me to lose poll workers,” said Joel Natt, a Republican member of the Forsyth County board of elections, referring to a provision in the bill that he said would force workers to count hundreds of blank sheets of paper. “I have 400 poll workers that work for our board. That is 400 people that I could see telling me after May, ‘Have a nice life,’ and it’s hard enough to keep them right now.”Among other provisions, the bill would expand the reach of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation over election crimes; limit private funding of elections; empower partisan poll watchers; and establish new requirements for tracking absentee ballots as they are verified and counted.The bill passed the Georgia House this month, roughly two weeks after it was first introduced. Initially, the State Senate appeared set to pass the measure at a similar speed. The state’s legislative session ends on April 4, giving lawmakers less than a week to pass the bill.But county-level election officials worked behind the scenes, in letters and phone calls to legislators, expressing their concerns about the bill and dissatisfaction that they had not been consulted in the drafting process.The pushback comes as the impact of the wave of election laws passed by Republicans last year is beginning to be felt. In Texas, where a new law altered the absentee ballot process, election officials dealt with widespread confusion among absentee voters in the March primary. Mail ballot rejections surged, and county officials worked around the clock to help voters fix their ballots. Still, more than 18,000 voters had their ballots tossed out.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.The vocal opposition from Georgia election officials represents a shift from a year ago, when some individual officials, mostly Democrats, spoke out against the first Republican bill. But many local officials simply felt ignored by lawmakers who were eager to appear to be addressing Republican voters’ false beliefs about fraud in the 2020 election.The statewide association of local election officials is now working to “start taking stances on legislation like this, where the association would have a view that represents a majority of our members,” said Joseph Kirk, the elections supervisor for Bartow County, which is deeply Republican, who serves as a secretary for the association. He added that the group had not taken a stance on the election bill but that many members were voicing their opinions individually.At a conference this month, Ryan Germany, general counsel for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, encouraged members to speak up.“They really need to know what you guys think about this stuff because they hear from a lot of people, but I don’t think they hear from a lot of election officials,” said Mr. Germany, who spoke favorably about several provisions in the bill, according to audio of the event obtained by The New York Times.Dozens of voting rights advocates and county election officials crowded the State Senate Ethics Committee hearing on Monday afternoon, saying the bill would make it harder for election administrators to do their jobs.From left, State Senators Sally Harrell, Butch Miller and Jeff Mullis listened as Cindy Battles, right, testified during the hearing on Monday. Nicole Craine for The New York Times“There are so many unfunded mandates being passed by this body. You are not giving county election officials the budget that they need to run their elections,” said Cindy Battles, the policy and engagement director at the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a civil rights group. “And then you are making it more difficult to get what they need.”Several officials pointed to a provision that would require elections administrators to account for all elections-related documents, including the pieces of paper that ballots are printed on. Mr. Natt, the vice chair of elections for Forsyth County’s board of elections, held up a ream of paper to represent one of the hundreds of blank sheets of paper that his office would need to count under the law.“That is a lot of counting. That is a lot of time and waste management,” he said.State Representative James Burchett, a Republican from southeastern Georgia and sponsor of the bill, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. He told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution this month that “the intent of the bill is to address issues that we’ve seen in the elections process.”During the hearing on Monday, State Senator Butch Miller, a Republican and member of the State Senate Ethics Committee, appeared to consider some of the officials’ concerns.“I think we’ll probably have additional work to be done,” he said. While Mr. Miller said he was not interested in sweeping changes to the bill, he also said he was not opposed to “tweaking them and accommodating certain issues.” The committee has not yet scheduled a vote on the bill.Election officials warned about language they considered too broad in a provision that restricts third-party donations to election offices. The proposal is popular among Republicans who believe grants from an organization tied to Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, had undue influence in the 2020 election. Some Georgia election officials said the legislation would require any organization that makes a donation to receive approval from the state board of elections. That could include churches or other local groups that offer their buildings as polling locations.“By a strict interpretation of this particular provision, that would be a grant of gift or donation,” Milton Kidd, the elections director in Douglas County, a deeply Democratic county, said in an interview.Mr. Kidd added that many churches did not have staff to handle the application process, which could threaten his ability to maintain enough polling locations.Officials also took issue with a provision requiring partisan poll watchers to be given “meaningful access” to observe the ballot-counting process. The language might jeopardize the privacy of the ballot, they said.“I am a big fan of poll watchers, of being observed, I want my polling places to have observation, it’s a very important part of the process,” said Mr. Kirk, the administrator in Bartow County, which is northwest of Atlanta. “But it’s also very important to have guardrails on that observation, to keep it from becoming disruptive, to make sure a person’s information stays safe.”A provision that gives the Georgia Bureau of Investigation the power to subpoena election records for fraud investigations has also stirred opposition, mostly among Democratic local officials, who view it as both unnecessary — the secretary of state’s office currently handles election investigations — and intended to scare off voters.“That just smacks of voter intimidation,” said Dele Lowman Smith, the chair of the DeKalb County board of voter registration and elections. “And that’s a big concern.” More

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      in Elections

      In Georgia, Trump Tries to Revive a Sputtering Campaign

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      The former president held a rally in rural Georgia on Saturday in an attempt to jump-start David Perdue’s campaign to unseat Gov. Brian Kemp.COMMERCE, Ga., — When Donald Trump recruited David Perdue to run for governor of Georgia, Mr. Trump’s allies boasted that his endorsement alone would shoot Mr. Perdue ahead of the incumbent Republican governor, Brian Kemp. Georgia Republicans braced for an epic clash, fueled by the former president’s personal vendetta against Mr. Kemp, that would divide the party.But two months out from the Republican primary election, Mr. Perdue’s campaign has been more underwhelming than epic. In an effort to boost Mr. Perdue and put his own stamp on the race, Mr. Trump came to Georgia on Saturday for a rally for Mr. Perdue and the slate of candidates the former president has endorsed. Thousands of Trump supporters turned out in the small city of Commerce, 70 miles northeast of Atlanta and about 20 miles outside of Mr. Kemp’s hometown, Athens.Early polls have steadily shown Mr. Perdue, a former senator, trailing Mr. Kemp by about 10 percentage points. The governor has the backing of many of the state’s big donors and remains far ahead of Mr. Perdue in fund-raising. After pursuing a deeply conservative legislative agenda, Mr. Kemp has secured support from most of the top state leaders and lawmakers, even those who have, until now, aligned with Mr. Trump.Mr. Perdue’s sputtering start may hint at a deeper flaw in Mr. Trump’s plan to punish the governor for refusing to work to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results: Mr. Trump’s grievances may now largely be his alone. While polls show many G.O.P. voters believe lies about fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election, there is little evidence that Republicans remain as fixated on the election as Mr. Trump. The challenge for Mr. Perdue, as well as for other candidates backed by Mr. Trump, is to make a case that goes beyond exacting revenge for 2020.“When you’re running against an incumbent governor, it’s a referendum on the incumbent,” said Eric Tanenblatt, a chief of staff to former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, the former senator’s cousin. “And if the incumbent has a good track record, it’s going to be hard to defeat him.”Mr. Tanenblatt backed David Perdue’s past Senate campaigns, including his losing bid last year. But Mr. Tanenblatt is now among the Republicans worried that Mr. Perdue is merely distracting the party from its top goal: fending off the likely Democratic nominee, Stacey Abrams.“Donald Trump’s not on the ballot. And there has to be a compelling reason why you would vote out an incumbent,” Mr. Tanenblatt said. “I don’t think there is one.”Former President Donald J. Trump listens as David Perdue speaks in Commerce, Ga., on Saturday.Audra Melton for The New York TimesAll seven of Mr. Trump’s endorsed candidates spoke at the rally. Nearly every speaker echoed Mr. Trump’s false election claims, placing the blame on Dominion voting machines and Democratic lawmakers for Republicans’ 2020 losses in Georgia. Mr. Perdue took things further, however, placing the blame for his Senate campaign loss and Mr. Trump’s defeat on Mr. Kemp.“Let me be very clear. Very clear,” Mr. Perdue said to the crowd. “In the state of Georgia, thanks to Brian Kemp, our elections were absolutely stolen. He sold us out.” How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.Power Struggle: Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, a band of anti-Trump Republicans is maneuvering to thwart the ex-president.Midterms Effect: Mr. Trump has become a party kingmaker, but his involvement in state races worries many Republicans.Post-Presidency Profits: Mr. Trump is melding business with politics, capitalizing for personal gain.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.Mr. Perdue’s allies argue that Governor Kemp’s track record is forever tainted by his refusal to try to overturn the election results or call a special legislative session to review them, even though multiple recounts confirmed Joe Biden’s win.“That’s the wound with the salt in it right now that hasn’t healed,” said Bruce LeVell, a former senior adviser to Mr. Trump based in Georgia. “David Perdue is the only one that can unify the Republican Party in the state of Georgia. Period.”Michelle and Chey Thomas, an Athens couple attending the rally, said they were unsure whether they would support Mr. Perdue in the primary or vote to re-elect Mr. Kemp as they knew little of Mr. Perdue before Saturday. Like many attendees, they were unsure if they could trust the results of the 2020 election. And Mr. Kemp, they believe, did not exercise the full extent of his power in November 2020.“A lot of candidates say they are going to do something and don’t,” Ms. Thomas said. Mr. Kemp, she added, “could’ve done a lot better job.”The candidates endorsed by Mr. Trump include Herschel Walker, a former Heisman Trophy winner running for Senate; U.S. Representative Jody Hice, a candidate for secretary of state; Vernon Jones, a former Democrat now running for Congress; and John Gordon, a conservative lawyer who helped Mr. Trump defend his false election claims in court. Mr. Trump this week endorsed Mr. Gordon’s bid for state attorney general.Mr. Kemp has had years to guard himself against a challenge from the party’s Trump wing. He was one of the first governors to roll back Covid-19 restrictions in early 2020, drawing the support of many on the right who were angry about government-imposed lockdowns. Last year, he signed into law new voting restrictions that were popular with the Republican base. And in January, the governor backed a law allowing people to carry a firearm without a permit and another banning mailed abortion pills.That record, Kemp supporters argue, won over Republican base voters, even those who agree with Mr. Trump that Mr. Kemp did not do enough to fight the election results in Georgia.“I think they’ve turned the page on the election,” said State Senator Clint Dixon, a Republican representing the Atlanta suburbs. “And folks that may have been upset about that, still, they see that Governor Kemp is a proven conservative leader that we need.”Of Mr. Trump’s rally, he added: “I don’t think it does much. And the polls are showing it.”In early March, a Fox News poll of Georgia Republican primary voters showed Mr. Kemp ahead of Mr. Perdue by 11 percentage points.Mr. Kemp has amassed a war chest of more than $12.7 million, compared with the $1.1 million Mr. Perdue has raised since entering the race in December. The Republican Governors Association has also cut more than $1 million in ads supporting Mr. Kemp — the first time the organization has taken sides in a primary race. (Since December, Ms. Abrams has been raising more than both men, bringing in $9.3 million by January.)Mr. Kemp has worked to line up key Republican leaders — or keep them on the sidelines. Earlier this month, he appointed Sonny Perdue chancellor of the state’s university system. The former governor intends to remain neutral in the primary, according to people familiar with his plans.Since losing Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020, Mr. Trump has tried to turn the state’s politics into a proxy war over his election grievances. He blamed Mr. Kemp for his loss, saying he did not win Georgia because the governor refused to block certification of the results. Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the results is under criminal investigation.Mr. Trump saw Mr. Kemp’s refusal as disloyal, in part because Mr. Trump endorsed the governor in a 2018 primary, helping to propel him to a decisive win.“It is personal,” said Martha Zoller, a Georgia-based conservative radio host and former aide to both Mr. Kemp and Mr. Perdue. “President Trump believes that he made Brian Kemp.”Gov. Brian Kemp spoke to supporters at the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta this month.Ben Gray/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressNow Mr. Perdue’s campaign is looking for the same boost from Mr. Trump. Although Mr. Perdue’s ads, social media pages and campaign website note that he is endorsed by Mr. Trump, Mr. Perdue’s campaign aides believe many voters are not yet paying attention and do not know that he has Mr. Trump’s support. The former corporate executive has been a Trump ally, but he hardly exuded the bombast of his political benefactor during his one term in the Senate.Mr. Perdue is now running to the right of Mr. Kemp. He recently campaigned with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene at a rally in her rural northwest Georgia district, even after the congresswoman appeared at a far-right conference with ties to white supremacy.At the rally, Mr. Perdue lamented the “assault” on Georgia’s elections and reminded the crowd that he “fought for President Trump” in November 2020. At the time, he said, he asked not only for Mr. Kemp to call a special legislative session, but also for the resignation of Georgia’s current secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger — remarks received with loud applause.Although Mr. Perdue’s campaign has largely focused on the 2020 election, he and Mr. Kemp have split over other issues. Mr. Perdue opposed construction of a Rivian Automotive electric truck factory in the state, saying that the tax incentives it brings could benefit wealthy liberal donors. Mr. Kemp embraced the deal as a potential economic boon.Mr. Perdue also split with Mr. Kemp when Mr. Perdue gave his support to a group of residents in Atlanta’s wealthy Buckhead neighborhood who are seeking to secede from the city. The idea gained traction among some who were concerned about rising crime rates in Atlanta, but the effort is now stalled in the state legislature.If Mr. Trump was concerned about the campaign, he didn’t show it at the rally. Before bringing Mr. Perdue onstage later in the evening, he promised supporters that the former senator would champion election integrity and defeat Stacey Abrams.“That’s a big crowd of people,” he said. “And they all love David Perdue.” More