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      A Crucial Question in Thailand’s Election: Can You Criticize the King?

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      Liberal voters have intensified their scrutiny of the Thai monarchy in recent years. Conservatives have responded with a campaign to defend the institution at all costs.When Thais go to the polls on Sunday, they will be voting in a closely fought election that is seen, in part, as a referendum on whether it is illegal to criticize the Thai monarchy.Thailand has one of the world’s strictest laws against defaming or insulting the king and other members of the royal family. Once considered taboo, the topic of the monarchy was brought to the forefront after tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets and called for checks on the institution’s power in 2020.The protests represented two sides of an impassioned struggle to determine the role of the crown in modern Thailand. The election could determine whether the Southeast Asian nation of 72 million will revive its once-vibrant democracy or slide further toward authoritarian rule, with royalists firmly in power.On one side of the debate are conservative political parties whose standard-bearer is Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the general who has governed Thailand for nine years after seizing power in a coup. He and his supporters argue that amending the law could lead to abolishing the monarchy altogether, and have vowed to defend the royal family.On the other side is the progressive Move Forward Party, which is polling in second place and argues that the law needs to be amended because it is being used as a political weapon. Several young people who participated in the 2020 protests are now running as candidates with the Move Forward Party.Anti-government protesters flashing a three-fingered salute, a sign of resistance, at a demonstration in Bangkok in 2020.Adam Dean for The New York Times“Perhaps one of the deepest fault lines in Thai society is about the monarchy,” said Sunai Phasuk, a senior researcher on Thailand for Human Rights Watch.Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the youngest daughter of the ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and the front-runner for prime minister, is treading carefully. Her father, a populist billionaire, is one of the most divisive political figures in Thailand. He lives in self-exile after being ousted in a coup in 2006 and can only return to Thailand with the king’s permission.Royalists have consistently accused Mr. Thaksin of wanting to overthrow the monarchy, a charge that he denies. Ms. Paetongtarn has said her party, Pheu Thai, would not abolish the law protecting the monarchy from criticism, but that the issue of reform must be openly discussed in Parliament.King Maha Vajiralongkorn greeting his supporters in Bangkok during a ceremony in remembrance of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.Adam Dean for The New York TimesOpinion polls show that the party of Mr. Prayuth, United Thai Nation, is trailing in third place behind Pheu Thai, which has topped the polls. In recent weeks, there has also been a surge in support for the Move Forward Party, which is polling a close No. 2.Move Forward is the largest party pushing to amend the law, irking conservatives who have accused it of undermining the monarchy. The party wants to cut the jail terms of violators of the law and designate the Bureau of the Royal Household as the only agency allowed to file lawsuits. (Any Thai citizen is able to file complaints under the current version of the law.)Conservative politicians have threatened to disband Move Forward. The party’s previous iteration, the Future Forward Party, was dissolved in 2020 by the Constitutional Court. In a sign of how sensitive the topic of reform has become, Move Forward has attempted to moderate its position, saying reform would not take precedence in its campaign.For decades, the monarchy and the military have had a symbiotic relationship, with the army frequently reminding the public that it is the true guardian of the Thai crown. Thais are taught from a young age that they have to love the king and that any criticism of the monarchy is strictly forbidden.But today, many Thais no longer stand at attention when the royal anthem is played in public spaces such as movie theaters. Royalist Marketplace, a Facebook group set up to satirize the monarchy, had more than 1 million members before Facebook blocked access to it in 2020, citing a Thai government request.The law criminalizing criticism of the monarchy carries a minimum sentence of three years if violated — the only law in Thailand that imposes a minimum jail term — and a maximum sentence of up to 15 years. After the 2020 protests, the authorities charged at least 223 people, including 17 minors, for violating the law, known as Article 112.In the area around the Grand Palace in Bangkok, posters of the king and queen are ubiquitous.Adam Dean for The New York TimesTantawan “Tawan” Tuatulanon, a 21-year-old law student, was accused of violating the rule in 2022 after she and her friends conducted a poll asking whether the royal motorcade was an inconvenience to Bangkok residents.In recent weeks, she has been pressing political parties on whether they would amend the law — which she is in favor of abolishing — after the election. On Wednesday, Ms. Tantawan was arrested after she called for the release of a 15-year-old charged with violating the rule.“I feel we don’t need any law that specially protects anybody or any family,” said Ms. Tantawan, who mounted a hunger strike earlier this year in protest against the government. “He is a person like us, not a god or a demigod.”King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun, who ascended the throne in 2016, is not as beloved as his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who reigned for 70 years. While King Bhumibol was revered in Thailand, his son used to spend most of his time in Germany, though he has been seen more often in public since the 2020 protests.In the wake of the protests, Mr. Prayuth instructed all government officials to “use every single law” to prosecute anyone who criticized the monarchy. Royalists stepped up their campaign against people they accused of insulting the crown, filing more complaints and attacking anti-monarchy activists.In 2021, Warong Dechgitvigrom, a former doctor, founded Thailand’s first far-right party, Thai Pakdee, in response to what he called the “Three Fingers Mob,” referring to the three-finger salute adopted by young Thais as a symbol of resistance during the 2020 protests.A supporter holds up a poster of King Bhumibol Adulyadej during a rally for Thai Pakdee, a right-wing party that is centered on defending the monarchy against criticism.Jorge Silva/ReutersHe now says the current law protecting the monarchy does not go far enough, as it is limited to shielding four key members of the royal family. Former Thai kings, princes, princesses and the word “monarchy” itself should also be protected, he said.Although Mr. Warong’s views are considered extreme, he says he has collected about 6,000 to 7,000 signatures for his proposal, and that he is confident he can gather the 10,000 signatures needed for the House of Representatives to consider passing the bill.Mr. Warong says people need to understand that the Thai monarchy is unique. He recalled France’s former monarchy as one characterized by the oppression of its people. “But ours is like father and children,” he said. “We have good feelings together, there are no bad feelings.”Those views are at odds with how many young people feel about the king. During the 2020 demonstrations, protesters questioned the wealth of the royal family, which is one of the richest in the world.Protesters in 2020 at a pro-democracy rally in front of the Siam Commercial Bank, demanding that the king return royal assets to the people and reform the monarchy.Adam Dean for The New York TimesKasit Piromya, a former foreign minister, said it would be challenging for Mr. Warong and his party to lead a successful campaign backing the constitutional monarchy because many young people “don’t see what is in it for them.”“If you cannot speak this in the open, then it gives more room and ammunition to the students, to the Thaksin supporters to say, ‘We are more democratic,’” Mr. Kasit said, referring to calls to reform the monarchy.Arnond Sakworawich, an assistant professor of statistics at the National Institute of Development Administration, said that preserving Article 112 was necessary because the king and the royal family do not defend themselves against criticism.“It’s a different culture, because in Thailand, people believe that the king is their parent, and parents never hurt their children,” said Mr. Arnond, who is known for his royalist views. “So there must be some people to protect the king.”In their zeal to defend the monarchy, many royalists may ultimately end up hurting the institution more than they protect it.Siripan Nogsuan Sawasdee, the head of the department of government at Chulalongkorn University, said it was “very precarious and risky” for parties such as Thai Pakdee to use the monarchy as a campaigning platform.“Even though the monarchy is above politics, it’s now drawn into the divide,” she said. “It will polarize the voters and parties into two camps, inevitably.”Young protesters flash the three-fingered, anti-government salute at a pro-democracy rally at Democracy Monument in Bangkok.Adam Dean for The New York TimesRyn Jirenuwat More

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      Texas Republicans Push New Voting Restrictions Aimed at Houston

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      The bills propose limits on polling places, tougher penalties for illegal voting and a way for the Republican-led state to order new elections in its largest city.HOUSTON — Across Harris County, an emerging Democratic stronghold in reliably red Texas, roadside signs posted last November urged harried drivers to vote Republican. A celebrity furniture salesman, beloved by many Houstonians, cut ads with the Republican candidate for the top county administrator’s post.The 2022 races for local judges and county leaders were among the hardest fought and most expensive yet seen in the sprawling county of 4.8 million, which includes Houston, as Republicans looked to capitalize on crime concerns to make headway in the state’s largest urban area.But they fell short.Now, the county is in the cross hairs of the Republican-dominated state Legislature, which is trying to exert more control over voting there. Lawmakers are pushing dozens of new election bills, including limits on polling places, felony penalties for illegal voting and a mechanism for the state to order new elections when voting problems occur in Texas counties with more than 2.7 million people, a category that includes only Harris County.At the same time, more than a dozen election challenges have been filed by losing Republican candidates in the county who have argued that significant problems at a limited number of polling places on Election Day, including insufficient supplies of ballot paper, were enough change the outcomes of races. While local leaders acknowledge issues, evidence has not been presented that they affected the results.Still, the two-front fight, both in the courts and in the State Capitol, highlighted just how important it is for Republicans to keep Harris County in play and not let it become another strongly blue urban center along the lines of Austin or Dallas. As recently as 2014, the party controlled the county, whose Republican top official was re-elected in a landslide. But it has been moving left ever since.“I tell people, we could be the reason we lose Texas, just because of our size,” said Cindy Siegel, the chair of the county Republican Party, sitting in her office under a painting of George W. Bush with smoke rising from Lower Manhattan after Sept. 11, 2001.“We’re the wall,” she added. “And they say, so goes Texas, so goes the country. So Harris County is the battleground.”Harris County, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island, includes the reliably Democratic city of Houston.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesThe election bills aimed at the county are part of a broad effort by Republican state leaders to increase their control over Texas’ Democratic-run urban areas. They include bills prohibiting local governments from adopting certain local ordinances, including over worker pay or hours, and allowing for the removal of elected local prosecutors who refuse to enforce certain laws, such as those banning abortion. The approach mirrors those in other red states with large blue cities, such as Tennessee and Florida.Republican lawmakers in Texas passed an overhaul of election rules just two years ago in a bitter fight with Democrats. They returned to the subject this session in large part to address the results in Harris County in November.The election there provided a contentious backdrop because there were real issues during the vote. Some polling places opened late, while others struggled with enough paper to accommodate the two-sheet ballot printouts needed for the county’s huge list of races. The local district attorney, a Democrat, opened an investigation last year.“The legislative push is to make sure that this never happens in any county in Texas,” said Senator Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican and the sponsor of several of the bills. “I believe the lack of ballot paper is voter suppression.”But county officials said the election bills do not address the issues that arose in Harris County. Instead, they said, the proposed laws could dampen turnout by limiting voting options and would give a partisan secretary of state, an official appointed by the governor, the power to overturn results and order a new vote if ballot paper issues arose again.Christian Menefee, the Harris County attorney, said the election challenges appeared to try to lay the groundwork for giving Republicans more control over the elections in a Democratic county. “It is a solution in search of a problem that’s not widespread,” he said.“As a Black man whose grandfather paid a poll tax, this whole ordeal is infuriating,” said Mr. Menefee, a Democrat. “It’s a complete misuse of the word disenfranchisement from people who, by the way, are still working to disenfranchise folks.”The scale of the problems on Election Day — which featured new voting machines and a lengthy ballot that required two pages of paper per voter — remain a matter of dispute, both in court and before the Legislature. But they do not appear to have affected the vast majority of the county’s 782 polling locations.Election workers organized ballot machines and results at NRG Arena in Houston on Election Day in 2022.Annie Mulligan for The New York TimesAt a hearing before a State House committee in March, the head of the secretary of state’s elections division said that despite logistical problems, the 2022 election “was one of the best elections we’ve seen” in several years in Harris County, though he acknowledged it was a low bar given the roundly criticized primary election earlier in the year.Republicans have said the November results were indeed affected because, they have argued, the ballot issues arose in precincts where their voters turn out in large numbers. Democratic county officials have said the problems occurred in other areas as well and were limited in scope: A postelection report by the election administrator, Clifford Tatum, found that 68 polling places reported running out of paper on Election Day, and 61 said they later received additional paper.County officials have resisted releasing documents and other information about the handling of voting issues on Election Day in response to public information requests, citing the ongoing litigation. Among Senator Bettencourt’s election bills is one that would remove the “litigation exception” for requests for certain election records.With that backdrop, the State Senate has advanced more than a dozen election bills, explicitly or implicitly aimed at Harris County, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island that includes not only the reliably Democratic city of Houston but also some of its more moderate suburbs.The county since 2016 has shifted ever more firmly into the Democratic column in presidential races and local ones as well, as formerly conservative neighborhoods and growing Houston suburbs have grown more diverse and trended blue. The political make-up of the five-member commissioners court, which administers the county, has gone from a three-two Republican majority in 2014 to a four-one Democratic majority now.Republicans are hoping, if not to reverse that trend, then at least to keep the contests close and, sometimes, winnable.“The Texas Legislature will ensure that there are consequences for Harris County’s failure to run elections,” said Senator Mayes Middleton, a Houston-area Republican and the sponsor of the bill to allow the secretary of state to order new elections in certain cases of ballot paper problems. “Disenfranchising voters is unacceptable,” Mr. Middletown said, in a statement.Also of concern to Democrats and advocates of expanding access to the polls is another bill, which passed the State Senate last month, that would limit voters to their assigned polling place. Some counties, including Harris County, currently allow voters to cast a ballot anywhere in the county.“It’s definitely one of the most damaging,” said Katya Ehresman, the voting rights program manager at the advocacy group Common Cause Texas, because by limiting voters’ options it could decrease turnout. The bill, like others that have made it through the Senate, must still pass the more moderate, Republican-controlled State House.In the last election, voters whose polling places ran out of paper were able to go to another location in the county, though some gave up without voting.Twenty-one Republican candidates have filed election challenges, including Alexandra del Moral Mealer, who lost the Harris County judge race by 18,000 votes.Annie Mulligan for The New York TimesMany of the legal challenges to the November election in Harris County involve voters who were unable to cast ballots.Leila Perrin said she had gone to vote in a more conservative section of West Houston shortly before the polls closed on Election Day and encountered a chaotic scene. “I went to get out of my car, and these people were leaving and they said, ‘Don’t bother,’” she recalled. “I said ‘Why?’ And they said, ‘They don’t have any paper ballots.’”Ms. Perrin, 72, had planned to vote against the top county official, the Democratic county judge Lina Hidalgo. So she drove to another polling site nearby and found the same situation. By then it was 10 minutes before the polls closed. “So I just went home. I was furious,” she said.Twenty-one Republican candidates have filed election challenges including Ms. Perrin’s favored candidate, Alexandra del Moral Mealer, who lost to Ms. Hidalgo by 18,000 votes. The first trial is set to begin in June.Some voters also found themselves unable to vote in predominantly Democratic precincts temporarily on Election Day, though no Democratic candidates have filed challenges. For example, voters were turned away from one such location that did not open for hours. All polls in the county were ordered to stay open an extra hour under an emergency court order, but then voting was halted by the Texas Supreme Court after an appeal from the Republican attorney general.“Issues don’t mean conspiracies,” said Representative John Bucy, a Democratic member of the Texas House elections committee. “Our elections are run effectively in the state of Texas. Nothing is perfect, but they’re effective.”At a hearing of the elections committee last month, an election judge in Harris County said he had run out of paper by 6 p.m. on Election Day despite flagging the issue several times during the day.“We had about 40 people in line, most of whom left to find another polling place,” said the judge, Christopher Russo. Those who stayed would be able to vote, he said he told them, but he could not guarantee how long it would take to get the paper.“I finally received ballot paper at 9:05 p.m.,” he said. By that time, only four people remained in line. More

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      Vivek Ramaswamy, the Wealthy Republican Who Thinks Trump Didn’t Go Far Enough

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      Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican wunderkind running for his party’s presidential nomination, would like potential supporters to know he believes in the rule of law and the Constitution’s separation of powers — though his applications of such principles can seem selective.After intense study of the Constitution, Mr. Ramaswamy says he believes that the awesome powers of the presidency would allow him to abolish the Education Department “on Day 1,” part of an assault on the “administrative state” that his 2024 rival, Donald J. Trump, fell short on during Days 1 through 1,461 of his presidency. Never mind that the Constitution confers the power of the purse on Congress, and a subsequent law makes it illegal for the president not to spend that money.Mr. Ramaswamy also wants to eradicate teachers’ unions, though he concedes that they are governed by contracts with state and local governments.And he says he would unleash the military to stamp out the scourge of fentanyl coming across the Southern border, unworried by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the use of the military for civil law enforcement.In short, Mr. Ramaswamy, a lavishly wealthy 37-year-old entrepreneur and author pitching himself as a new face of intellectual conservatism, is promising to go farther down the road of ruling by fiat than Mr. Trump would or could.Mr. Ramaswamy has already lent his well-appointed campaign more than $10 million, and he has said he will spend over $100 million if necessary. John Tully for The New York Times“I respect what Donald Trump did, I do, with the America First agenda, but I think he went as far as he was going to go,” Mr. Ramaswamy told a crowd of about 100 on Tuesday night at Murphy’s Tap Room in Bedford, N.H. “I’m in this race to take the America First agenda far further than Donald Trump ever did.”Mr. Ramaswamy, a Cincinnati-born son of Indian immigrants, would seem to be the longest of long shots: He has never held elective office and has vanishingly low name recognition. But he is playing to sizable crowds and exudes a confidence that can be infectious. He has already lent his well-appointed campaign more than $10 million and has said he will spend over $100 million if necessary. Recent polling, both nationally and in New Hampshire, shows him on the rise in the Republican field, though at no more than 5 percent.His overt shots at Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, whom he labels a visionless “implementer” without the courage to venture into the hostile territories of college campuses or NBC News, are intended to clear what he sees as an eventual showdown with Mr. Trump. His brashest criticism of the former president is over Mr. Trump’s suggestion that he might skip primary debates, depriving Mr. Ramaswamy of the stage he says he needs to catch his rival.Mr. Ramaswamy sees a simple path to the White House: score respectably in the Iowa caucuses, win New Hampshire, vault to the nomination — and then triumph in a landslide that would exceed Ronald Reagan’s victory over Jimmy Carter in 1980.“Even as a freshman, he had a similar voice, confident, articulate, very sure of himself,” said Anson Frericks, a high school friend of Mr. Ramaswamy’s and a business partner at the asset management firm they founded to give investors financial options untethered to socially conscious corporations. “Confidence builds with success. It’s a virtuous cycle.”And though his promises may be legally problematic, they sound correct to many Republicans — or at least authoritative. Mr. Ramaswamy at Linda’s Breakfast Place in Seabrook, N.H., on Thursday. Recent polling, both nationally and in New Hampshire, shows him on the rise in the Republican field, though at no more than 5 percent.John Tully for The New York Times“He seems like he knows what he’s talking about,” said Bob Willis, a self-described “Ultra-MAGA Trump person” who was waiting for Mr. Ramaswamy to arrive on Wednesday in Keene, N.H.Confidence is Mr. Ramaswamy’s gift. His father, an engineer and a patent lawyer at General Electric, is, the candidate says, far more liberal than his son. His mother is a physician. He attributes his strict vegetarianism to his Indian roots. A piano teacher began Mr. Ramaswamy’s political journey with long asides on the evils of government and the wrongs of Hillary Clinton. At Harvard, he majored in biology and developed a brash libertarianism complete with a political rapper alter ego, “Da Vek.”Between graduation and Yale Law School, he worked in finance, investing in pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Before getting his law degree, he was already worth around $15 million, he said in an interview, during which he worried about wealth inequality.“I think it fuels a social hierarchy in our country that rejects the premise that we’re all coequal citizens,” he said.Mr. Ramaswamy, a Cincinnati-born son of Indian immigrants, has never held elective office and has low name recognition.John Tully for The New York TimesIndeed, Mr. Ramaswamy’s promises have an overarching theme that the nation — especially his generation and younger — has lost its spiritual center, creating what the mathematician Blaise Pascal called “a God-shaped vacuum in the heart.” That hole is being filled, Mr. Ramaswamy says, by “secular cults” — racial “wokeism,” sexual and gender fluidity, and the “climate cult” — which can be “diluted to oblivion” only with the rediscovery of the American ideals of patriotism, meritocracy and sacrifice. Mr. Ramaswamy can say things that stretch credulity or undermine his seriousness. He boasts on the campaign trail of his recent star turn jousting with Don Lemon just before Mr. Lemon was fired by CNN. But his statement in that exchange that Black Americans did not secure their civil rights until they secured their right to bear arms made little historical sense, since the civil rights movement was predicated on nonviolence. Indeed, the arming of the Black Panthers led to a deadly government crackdown.Mr. Ramaswamy accepts the established science that the burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet, but his answer is to “drill, frack, burn coal” and use more fossil fuels. That will supposedly unleash economic growth that will pay for mitigation efforts to shield everyone from climate change.He also says he is the first presidential candidate to promise to end race-based affirmative action, ignoring that this was the centerpiece of Ben Carson’s presidential run in 2016. Mr. Ramaswamy would end affirmative action by executive order, he says.He would not spend another dollar on aid to Ukraine but would use military force to “annihilate” Mexican drug cartels.Gregg Dumont, wearing a T-shirt picturing Mr. Trump in jail as a political prisoner, said Mr. Ramaswamy had his vote over the man on his shirt. John Tully for The New York TimesOn Wednesday night in Windham, N.H., Mr. Ramaswamy suggested he would name Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Democratic vaccine skeptic challenging President Biden, as his running mate. On Tuesday in Bedford, he was asked by a woman with a Black son-in-law and a mixed-race grandson to clarify the meaning of “anti-woke.”Mr. Ramaswamy — the author of “Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam” — answered, “I’ve never used that word to actually describe myself,” as aides handed out stickers reading: “Stop Wokeism. Vote Vivek.”All of this can be somewhat mystifying to prominent people who worked with him. Mr. Ramaswamy’s real fortune comes from the pharmaceutical investment and drug development firm Roivant Sciences, founded after the entrepreneur had a “brilliant” idea, said Donald M. Berwick, a former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Barack Obama.Pharmaceutical giants often abandon research efforts after concluding that even if they are successful, the medicinal product might not be profitable. Roivant would then pick up such ventures and bring them to market. Roivant’s advisory board eventually included Tom Daschle, the former Democratic senator and Senate majority leader; Dr. Berwick; and Kathleen Sebelius, a health and human services secretary in the Obama administration.Part of the appeal, Mr. Daschle said, was Mr. Ramaswamy’s commitment to bringing prescription drugs to market at affordable prices.“I just assumed that because he was so interested in doing as much as he was to lower costs, social responsibility and corporate responsibility was part of his thinking,” Mr. Daschle said.Then, after George Floyd’s murder in 2020, Mr. Ramaswamy began publicly castigating corporations for speaking out on social issues like Black Lives Matter, voting rights and “E.S.G.” — environmental, social and governance investing. Opinion columns in The Wall Street Journal were followed by appearances on Tucker Carlson’s now-canceled Fox News show.“I was rather shocked,” said Dr. Berwick, who resigned from Roivant on Jan. 12, 2021. Within days, Mr. Daschle and Ms. Sebelius quit. Mr. Ramaswamy soon followed, to write three books, help start the asset management company with Mr. Frericks and run for president.Mr. Ramaswamy says he would not spend another dollar on aid to Ukraine but would use military force to “annihilate” Mexican drug cartels.John Tully for The New York TimesAt this very early stage of the campaign, Mr. Ramaswamy is open about the limits of his appeal. Evangelical Christians who dominate the Republican caucuses in Iowa will need to be brought along to his Hindu faith. His “war with Mexico” may go over well in South Carolina, but faces resistance among more libertarian voters in New Hampshire, he said.And New Hampshire cynics don’t quite know how seriously to take him. Victoria Gulla, 50, of Spofford, N.H., questioned whether he was part of a back-room deal with Mr. Trump to help take out Mr. DeSantis in exchange for a position in the next Trump administration, in the way she thinks Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, helped take down Senator Marco Rubio in New Hampshire in 2016.In a statement on Friday afternoon, Mr. Trump fueled that kind of speculation, saying he was “pleased to see that Vivek Ramaswamy is doing so well” in a recent poll and “seems to be on his way to catching Ron DeSanctimonious.”A hundred million dollars in self-funding could keep Mr. Ramaswamy in the race for a long time, and some voters were clearly persuaded by Mr. Ramaswamy’s nearly messianic appeal for a spiritual and social renewal.Gregg Dumont, 45, of Manchester, broke into tears in Windham as he praised the candidate for daring to save his children from moral decay and what he called the “racism” of identity politics.Mr. Dumont, wearing a T-shirt picturing Mr. Trump in jail as a political prisoner, said Mr. Ramaswamy had his vote over the man on his shirt: “All the policies with an upgrade, and none of the personality,” he said. “I’m sick of the narcissism.” More

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      Florida Legislature Moves to Shield DeSantis’s Travel Records

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      The NewsThe Florida Legislature passed a bill on Tuesday that would shield the travel records of Gov. Ron DeSantis and other top elected officials from public view, a significant change to the state’s vaunted sunshine laws as Mr. DeSantis explores a potential presidential campaign.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has faced increasing scrutiny for his use of private chartered flights.Justin Ide/ReutersWhy It Matters: Who’s paying, and who else is flying?Though the law purports to shield Mr. DeSantis’s and other top officials’ travel records under the umbrella of increasing threats and operational security, it also includes a sweeping retroactive clause that would block the release of many records of trips already taken by Mr. DeSantis and other officials, as well as those taken by their families and staff members.Mr. DeSantis has been facing increasing scrutiny for his use of private chartered flights — including questions about who paid for the travel and who flew with him — especially as his presidential ambitions come into clearer focus and he travels the country more extensively.In years past, Florida’s expansive transparency laws have exposed officials’ abuses of state resources: In 2003, for example, Jim King, the president of the State Senate, was found to have used a state plane to fly home on the weekends.What’s Next: A target for other potential Republican contenders.The bill now heads to Mr. DeSantis’s desk. The governor has avoided directly commenting on the bill and has stated that he did not draft the initiative, but many Florida Republicans expect that he will sign it into law.“It’s not necessarily something that I came up with,” Mr. DeSantis said on Monday at an event in Titusville. He added that the legislation was “motivated by a security concern” and that he had been receiving a lot of threats.The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which is led by a DeSantis appointee, has also expressed support for the bill, stating in April that releasing travel details “represents a risk not only to those we protect, but also F.D.L.E. agents and citizens attending events.”Critics of the bill, however, note that adding the retroactive clause does not fit with a security justification. “How is there a security issue for travel that’s already occurred?” said Barbara Petersen, the executive director of the Florida Center for Government Accountability, after the bill first advanced out of committee in April.The proposed changes have drawn the attention of some of Mr. DeSantis’s potential Republican rivals for president.“In recent months, Governor DeSantis has used taxpayer dollars to travel around the country for his 2024 presidential campaign, including to the early voting states of Iowa and Nevada,” the campaign of Donald J. Trump said in a statement last month. “DeSantis’s gubernatorial office, however, refuses to tell reporters — and the public — how much taxpayer money has been spent to fund these travels, or how much DeSantis’s April globe-trotting will cost.” More

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      House G.O.P., Divided Over Immigration, Advances Border Crackdown Plan

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      Republicans are eyeing a vote next month on legislation that would reinstate Trump-era policies, after feuding that led leaders to drop some of the plan’s most extreme provisions.WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Thursday pushed ahead with a sweeping immigration crackdown that would codify several stringent border policies imposed by the Trump administration, after months of internal feuding that led G.O.P. leaders to drop some of the plan’s most extreme provisions.The House Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees in recent days approved their pieces of the plan, which has little chance of being considered in the Democratic-led Senate but sets up a pivotal test of whether Republican leaders can deliver on their campaign promise to clamp down on record migrant inflows.For Republicans, who have repeatedly attacked President Biden on his immigration policies and embarked on an effort to impeach his homeland security secretary, the measure is a chance to lay out an alternative vision on an issue that galvanizes its right-wing base.The legislation, now expected on the floor next month, would direct the Biden administration to resume constructing the border wall that was former President Donald J. Trump’s signature project. It would also mandate that employers check workers’ legal status through an electronic system known as E-Verify and reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy, forcing asylum applicants to wait in detention facilities or outside the United States before their claims are heard.The plan “will force the administration to enforce the law, secure the border, and reduce illegal immigration once again,” Representative Mark E. Green, Republican of Tennessee and the Homeland Security Committee’s chairman, said during the panel’s debate on Wednesday.Democrats have derided the package as misguided and draconian, accusing Republicans of seeking to invigorate their core supporters in advance of the 2024 election by reviving some of Mr. Trump’s most severe border policies. They made vocal objections to provisions that would ban the use of the phone-based app known as “C.B.P. One” to streamline processing migrants at ports of entry, expedite the deportation of unaccompanied minors, and criminalize visa overstays of more than 10 days.Republicans “want to appeal to their extreme MAGA friends more than they want progress,” Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, said Wednesday, calling the Republican legislation a “profoundly immoral” piece of legislation that would “sow chaos at the border.”Still, the package represents a compromise of sorts between hard-right Republicans and more mainstream G.O.P. lawmakers, including a mostly Latino group from border states that balked at proposals that threatened to gut the nation’s asylum system.The party’s immigration plan — which top Republicans had hoped to pass as one of their first bills of their new House majority — has been stalled for months. A faction led by Representative Tony Gonzales, Republican of Texas, has raised concerns about the asylum changes, threatening to withhold votes that Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, cannot afford to lose given his slim majority.Over the last week, G.O.P. leaders have quietly made a series of concessions to win over the skeptics. Republicans on the Judiciary Committee agreed to drop a provision that would have effectively stopped the intake of asylum seekers if the government failed to detain or deport all migrants seeking to enter the country without permission. But the measure still contains a number of new asylum restrictions.“It’s in a good spot,” Mr. Gonzales said of the legislation on Thursday, saying that the changes made to the asylum provision had satisfied his concerns. “As long as nobody does any funny business — you’ve got to watch it till the very end.”G.O.P. leaders predicted on Thursday that they would be able to draw a majority for the legislation when it comes to the House in mid-May, a timeline selected to coincide with the expected expiration of a Covid-era policy allowing officials to swiftly expel migrants at the border. The termination of the program, known as Title 42, is expected to inspire a new surge of attempted border crossings and supercharge the already bitter partisan debate over immigration policy.But it was unclear whether Republicans who had objected to the E-Verify requirement would be on board.Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky withheld his support for the Judiciary Committee’s bill because of the work authorization mandate, arguing that people “shouldn’t have to go through an E-Verify database to exercise your basic human right to trade labor for sustenance.”Such databases “always get turned against us, and they’re never used for the purpose they were intended for,” added Mr. Massie, a conservative libertarian.Representative Dan Newhouse, a Republican farmer in Washington State, has expressed concern that the E-Verify mandate could create labor shocks in the agricultural sector, which relies heavily on undocumented immigrant labor. Though the legislation delays the requirement for farmers for three years, Mr. Newhouse has argued that any such change should be paired with legislation creating more legal pathways for people to work in the United States.With the expected floor vote just weeks away, G.O.P. leaders have been treading carefully, even making last-minute concessions to Democrats in hopes of bolstering support for the legislation.During the wee hours on Thursday morning, as the Homeland Security Committee debated its bill, Republicans pared back language barring nongovernmental organizations that assist undocumented migrants from receiving funding from the Department of Homeland Security. They did so after Democrats pointed out the broadly phrased prohibition could deprive legal migrants and U.S. citizens of critical services as well.Their changes did not go far enough to satisfy Democrats, who unanimously opposed the package on the Judiciary and the Homeland Security panels — and are expected to oppose the combined border security package en masse on the House floor.They have also argued that any measure to enhance border security or enforcement must be paired with expanded legal pathways for immigrants to enter the United States. More

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      A Fake Craigslist Ad Costs a New Hampshire Man His Right to Vote

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      By violating the state’s election laws, a man who included a candidate’s phone number in a false Election Day ad has lost his right to vote.On the day of a special election in New Hampshire in April 2021, Michael Drouin posted a fake advertisement on Craigslist offering a free trailer and listed the phone number of Bill Boyd, a candidate for a state House seat.Mr. Drouin thought he was playing a harmless practical joke, but it was no laughing matter to Mr. Boyd, a Republican, who told the police that he received dozens of texts and phone calls in under an hour on the morning of April 13, 2021, before he shut off his phone.Mr. Drouin was indicted in November 2022 on a felony charge of interference with election communications. On Monday, Mr. Drouin, 30, of Merrimack, N.H., pleaded guilty to the reduced charge of creating a false document, an election law offense, admitting that he knowingly interfered with Mr. Boyd’s ability to use his cellphone on Election Day.The charge is a misdemeanor, not a felony, but it still cost him his right to vote in the state. People who are convicted of a willful violation of the state’s election laws lose their right to vote under the New Hampshire Constitution.Mr. Drouin told investigators in October 2021 that the false advertisement “was a joke” and that he “meant no harm,” according to a police affidavit in support of an arrest warrant. He also denied that it had anything to do with the special election, calling it “bad timing” and claiming to be a Republican like Mr. Boyd.Mr. Drouin was a registered Democrat when he spoke to the police, but investigators noted that he switched his party affiliation to Republican in February 2022.The state attorney general’s office said the stunt could have interfered with Mr. Boyd’s success in the election, which he went on to win, and which was held to fill the seat of the Republican House speaker, Richard Hinch, who died in December 2020 of complications related to Covid-19.Mr. Drouin would have faced a maximum penalty of seven years in prison and a fine of up to $2,000 if he had been convicted of the felony charge. After he pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor, he was ordered to pay a $250 fine and complete 250 hours of community service, the New Hampshire Department of Justice said in a news release. He was also given a 90-day jail sentence that was suspended for two years, allowing him to walk free on the condition of his good behavior.Matthew Conley, an assistant state attorney general, said in an email that Mr. Drouin has the right to petition the state to request that his voting rights be restored.Mr. Drouin initially denied that he created the ad. He later acknowledged having posted it, but told investigators that it was meant as a joke and that he did not think it was a “big deal at the time,” according to the affidavit. He told the police that he ultimately realized he had made a mistake and that he would invite Mr. Boyd out to dinner and did not want to “get hooked in the court system.”Mr. Boyd, who was elected to a full term in November, said he “experienced distress with my phone going on and off” on the day of the 2021 special election, WMUR-TV reported. He said he needed access to his phone to help get voters get rides to the polls, and to be in touch with his father in an assisted living facility and his sister, who he said had health problems.“I have not received a verbal apology at any point during this particular process,” Mr. Boyd said in court, according to WMUR, nor had he heard anything from Mr. Drouin that “would indicate any level of remorse.”Mr. Boyd told investigators that he received a message from Mr. Drouin on Facebook in October 2021. In it, Mr. Drouin wrote that “it was terrible timing with the election, and it’s been bothering me ever since.”“I should have had more consideration,” he added.In court on Monday, WMUR reported, Mr. Drouin said his lawyers had advised him against further contact with Mr. Boyd. More

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      Is a 6-Week Abortion Ban a Disaster for DeSantis? Two Theories.

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      There were plenty of midterm elections where Republicans didn’t seem to pay a price over new abortion restrictions.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. Will the abortion issue define him?Eze Amos for The New York TimesAfter the liberal triumph in this month’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race, you probably don’t need much convincing that abortion rights can be a big political winner for Democrats.But after Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed a law last week banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, it is worth considering another set of races: the elections where Republicans didn’t seem to pay a stiff political price for new abortion restrictions.Surprisingly, Republicans tended to fare just as well in the midterms in the states where abortion was recently banned as they did in the states where abortion remained legal.This is a little perplexing. There isn’t a definitive explanation, but I’ll offer two basic theories. Depending on your preferred answer, Mr. DeSantis’s anti-abortion stance may be an electoral death wish — or abortion simply may not be quite as helpful to Democrats as it seems based on the highest-profile elections, like the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court race.Oddly enough, Wisconsin offers a stark example of how abortion may not always help Democrats. Abortion was banned there after the Dobbs decision, but in the midterms Republican candidates for U.S. House still won more votes than Democrats in a state Joe Biden carried in 2020. The Republican senator Ron Johnson won re-election as well. The Democratic governor, Tony Evers, won re-election by three percentage points — a fine performance, but not a Democratic romp.It’s worth noting the unusual circumstances of Wisconsin’s abortion ban. The law banning abortion was originally enacted in 1849 — not by today’s Republicans — and went info effect after Roe v. Wade was overturned, giving the G.O.P. some maneuvering room. The Republican state Legislature argued for adding exceptions; Mr. Johnson pushed for an abortion referendum. Perhaps Republicans in the state just weren’t seen as responsible for the ban.But Wisconsin isn’t alone. A similar story played out in Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri and Georgia. In some of these states, Republican governors enacted bans or other major restrictions that went into effect after the Dobbs decision. In others, Republican bans were blocked by the courts. But in all of them, Republicans nonetheless posted average to above-average midterm results.In fact, there was only one state — West Virginia — where abortion was banned and where Democrats posted well above-average results in House races. Overall, Republican House candidates outran Donald J. Trump by a typical or above average amount (six points or more) in 10 of the 13 states where abortion was banned after Roe.What makes sense of this pattern? Of the two basic possibilities, one would augur well for Democrats; the other would bode better for Mr. DeSantis.Theory No. 1: It’s about demographics.Abortion is relatively unpopular in states where today’s Republicans successfully banned abortion, like Texas or Georgia. These states tend to be relatively religious states in the South. There aren’t many of the secular, white, college-educated liberal Democrats who could bring about a “Roevember” backlash.There seems to be a lot to this theory. Not only does it explain many of the cases in question, but it also fits a broader pattern from last November: Democratic strength in the House vote was somewhat correlated with support for abortion (though big Democratic failures in New York and California stand out as obvious exceptions).But this theory doesn’t quite explain everything. In particular, it doesn’t work outside the South, including in places like Ohio or Wisconsin, where we know the right to abortion is popular. That’s where it’s important to notice my qualifier: where today’s Republicans successfully banned abortion. If demographics are the predominant explanation, then the Republican resilience in the North must be because voters simply didn’t hold them responsible for banning abortion. Democrats could hope Republicans will pay a greater political cost when they unequivocally restrict abortion, like what Mr. DeSantis is doing now in Florida.Theory No. 2: When abortion is the most important issue.This is what I’ll call the salience theory: It takes a special set of circumstances for Democrats to make abortion the most important issue to voters, like a Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate who promises to represent the decisive vote to legalize abortion when an abortion case is pending before the court, or a Michigan referendum that explicitly decides the future of abortion in a state.As with the demographics theory, the salience theory is also consistent with polling and the general story of the 2022 midterms. Only a sliver of voters said abortion was the most important issue, not because abortion rights wasn’t important to them but because there were lots of other genuinely important issues at stake — the economy and inflation, crime, guns, democracy, immigration, and so on. With so many other issues, it makes sense that abortion plays only a marginal role in vote choice unless a distinct set of circumstances focuses the electorate on abortion alone.The salience theory also fits one of the patterns of the election: the highly localized results. There were states where Democrats excelled, like Michigan or Pennsylvania, even as they struggled in California or New York. Where Democrats did well, they had the fodder to focus voters on one of their best issues, like attacking stop-the-steal candidates. Where they struggled, Republicans managed to focus the electorate on an issue like crime (democracy or abortion seemed less important).It’s worth emphasizing that the salience theory doesn’t mean that abortion as an issue didn’t help Democrats in 2022. If Roe hadn’t been overturned, abortion would have been less salient everywhere and perhaps Democrats would have fared a bit worse across the board. But it would mean that Republican support for an abortion ban is not, on its own, sufficient to make abortion the predominant issue and bring stiff political costs to conservatives.While this theory offers better news for Mr. DeSantis, it would nonetheless contain a lesson for Democrats: It seems they would be wise to find creative ways to keep the electorate focused on abortion. State referendums might be one option, much as Republicans put same-sex marriage on the ballot in 2004. A campaign to pass federal abortion legislation might be another path as well. More

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      How a Campaign Against Transgender Rights Mobilized Conservatives

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      When the Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to same-sex marriage nearly eight years ago, social conservatives were set adrift.The ruling stripped them of an issue they had used to galvanize rank-and-file supporters and big donors. And it left them searching for a cause that — like opposing gay marriage — would rally the base and raise the movement’s profile on the national stage.“We knew we needed to find an issue that the candidates were comfortable talking about,” said Terry Schilling, the president of American Principles Project, a social conservative advocacy group. “And we threw everything at the wall.”What has stuck, somewhat unexpectedly, is the issue of transgender identity, particularly among young people. Today, the effort to restrict transgender rights has supplanted same-sex marriage as an animating issue for social conservatives at a pace that has stunned political leaders across the spectrum. It has reinvigorated a network of conservative groups, increased fund-raising and set the agenda in school boards and state legislatures.The campaign has been both organic and deliberate, and has even gained speed since Donald J. Trump, an ideological ally, left the White House. Since then, at least 20 states, all controlled by Republicans, have enacted laws that reach well beyond the initial debates over access to bathrooms and into medical treatments, participation in sports and policies on discussing gender in schools.“We knew we needed to find an issue that the candidates were comfortable talking about,” said Terry Schilling, the president of American Principles Project, a social conservative advocacy group. “And we threw everything at the wall.”Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesAbout 1.3 million adults and 300,000 children in the United States identify as transgender. These efforts have thrust them, at a moment of increased visibility and vulnerability, into the center of the nation’s latest battle over cultural issues.“It’s a strange world to live in,” said Ari Drennen, the L.G.B.T.Q. program director for Media Matters, a liberal media monitoring group that tracks the legislation. As a transgender woman, she said, she feels unwelcome in whole swaths of the country where states have attacked her right “just to exist in public.”The effort started with a smattering of Republican lawmakers advancing legislation focused on transgender girls’ participation in school sports. And it was accelerated by a few influential Republican governors who seized on the issue early.But it was also the result of careful planning by national conservative organizations to harness the emotion around gender politics. With gender norms shifting and a sharp rise in the number of young people identifying as transgender, conservative groups spotted an opening in a debate that was gaining attention.“It’s a sense of urgency,” said Matt Sharp, the senior counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization that has provided strategic and legal counsel to state lawmakers as they push through legislation on transgender rights. The issue, he argued, is “what can we do to protect the children?”Mr. Schilling said the issue had driven in thousands of new donors to the American Principles Project, most of them making small contributions.The appeal played on the same resentments and cultural schisms that have animated Mr. Trump’s political movement: invocations against so-called “wokeness,” skepticism about science, parental discontent with public schools after the Covid-19 pandemic shutdowns and anti-elitism.Nadine Smith, the executive director of Equality Florida, a group that fights discrimination against L.G.B.T.Q. people, said there was a direct line from the right’s focus on transgender children to other issues it has seized on in the name of “parents’ rights” — such as banning books and curriculums that teach about racism.“In many ways, the trans sports ban was the test balloon in terms of how they can frame these things,” she said. “Once they opened that parents’ rights frame, they began to use it everywhere.”For now, the legislation has advanced almost exclusively in Republican-controlled states: Those same policies have drawn strong opposition from Democrats who have applauded the increased visibility of transgender people — in government, corporations and Hollywood — and policies protecting transgender youths.The 2024 presidential election appears poised to provide a national test of the reach of this issue. The two leading Republican presidential contenders, Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has not officially declared a bid, have aggressively supported measures curtailing transgender rights.“The trans sports ban was the test balloon in terms of how they can frame these things,” Nadine Smith, the executive director of Equality Florida, said. “Once they opened that parents’ rights frame, they began to use it everywhere.” Octavio Jones for The New York TimesIt may prove easier for Republicans like Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis to talk about transgender issues than about abortion, an issue that has been a mainstay of the conservative movement. The Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion created a backlash among Democrats and independents that has left many Republicans unsure of how — or whether — to address the issue.Polling suggests that the public is less likely to support transgender rights than same-sex marriage and abortion rights. In a poll conducted in 2022, the Public Policy Research Institute, a nonpartisan research group, found that 68 percent of respondents favored allowing same-sex couples to marry, including 49 percent of Republicans.By contrast, a poll by the Pew Research Center found that 58 percent of Americans supported requiring that transgender athletes compete on teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth; 85 percent of Republicans held that view.“For many religious and political conservatives, the same-sex marriage issue has been largely decided — and for the American public, absolutely,” said Kelsy Burke, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln. “That’s not true when it comes to these transgender issues. Americans are much more divided, and this is an issue that can gain a lot more traction.”The singer Anita Bryant championed the “Save Our Children” campaign in 1977 to repeal a local ordinance in Dade-Miami County that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation, a historic setback for the modern gay rights movements.Bettmann/Getty ImagesThe focus on perceived threats to impressionable children has a long history in American sexual politics. It has its roots in the “Save Our Children” campaign championed in 1977 by Anita Bryant, the singer known for her orange juice commercials, to repeal a local ordinance in Dade-Miami County that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation, a historic setback for the modern gay rights movements.The initial efforts by the conservative movement to deploy transgender issues did not go well. In 2016, North Carolina legislators voted to bar transgender people from using the bathroom of their preference. It created a backlash so harsh — from corporations, sports teams and even Bruce Springsteen — that lawmakers eventually rescinded the bill.As a result, conservatives went looking for a new approach to the issue. Mr. Schilling’s organization, for instance, conducted polling to determine whether curbing transgender rights had resonance with voters — and, if they did, the best way for candidates to talk about it. In 2019, the group’s research found that voters were significantly more likely to support a Republican candidate who favored a ban on transgender girls participating in school sports — particularly when framed as a question of whether “to allow men and boys to compete against women and girls” — than a candidate pushing for a ban on transgender people using a bathroom of their choosing.With that evidence in hand, and transgender athletes gaining attention, particularly in right-wing media, conservatives decided to focus on two main fronts: legislation that addressed participation in sports and laws curtailing the access of minors to medical transition treatments.In March 2020, Idaho became the first state to bar transgender girls from participating in girls’ and women’s sports, with a bill supporters in the Republican-controlled legislature called the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.”A burst of state legislation began the next year after Democrats took control of Congress and the White House, ending four years in which social conservatives successfully pushed the Trump administration to enact restrictions through executive orders.In the spring of 2021, the Republican-controlled legislature in Arkansas overrode a veto by Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, to enact legislation that made it illegal for minors to receive transition medication or surgery.It was the first such ban in the country — and it was quickly embraced by national groups and circulated to lawmakers in other statehouses as a road map for their own legislation. The effort capitalized on an existing disagreement in the medical profession over when to offer medical transition care to minors. Despite that debate, leading medical groups in the United States, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, say the care should be available to minors and oppose legislative bans.Later that spring, Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, traveled to a private Christian school in Jacksonville to sign a bill barring transgender girls from playing K-12 sports. With his approval, Florida became the largest state to date to enact such restrictions, and Mr. DeSantis signaled how important this issue was to his political aspirations.“In Florida, girls are going to play girls’ sports and boys are going to play boys’ sports,” he said, winning applause from conservatives he would need to defeat Mr. Trump.To some extent, this surge of legislation was spontaneous. Ms. Drennen, of Media Matters, said state lawmakers appeared to be acting out of a “general animus” toward transgender people, as well as a fear of political reprisals. “They are worried about this coming up in a primary,” she said.But for several years, conservative Christian legal groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Liberty Counsel have been shifting their resources.For now, the legislation has advanced almost exclusively in Republican-controlled states: Those same policies have drawn strong opposition from Democrats.Joseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe 2024 presidential election appears poised to provide a national test of Americans’ support for transgender rights.Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn 2018, Kristen Waggoner, then the general counsel of the Alliance Defending Freedom, was the lead counsel in the Supreme Court defending a Colorado baker who, citing religious beliefs, refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The court ruled narrowly in favor of the baker.The next year, the Alliance took on a case involving a group of high school girls in Connecticut who challenged the state and five school boards for permitting transgender students to participate in women’s sports. Their lawsuit was rejected by a federal appeals court.Mathew D. Staver, the founder and chairman of the Liberty Counsel, which was a major force behind a 2008 voter initiative in California that banned same-sex marriage, said the group is now fighting gender policies in the courts. It has challenged laws, often enacted in states controlled by Democrats, that restrict counseling services designed to change a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation, often referred to as conversion therapy.“Those counseling bans violate first-amendment speech, because they only allow one point of view on the subject of sexuality,” he said.In March 2021, Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota declined to sign a bill that would have banned transgender girls from sports teams. She later reversed course. Cooper Neill for The New York TimesThough some on the left are still uncertain about how to best navigate the fraught politics of transgender issues, there’s an emerging consensus on the right. The case of what happened to Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, a rising star in the Republican Party, is instructive.In March 2021, Ms. Noem declined to sign a bill passed by her state’s Republican-controlled legislature that would have banned transgender girls from sports teams from kindergarten through college. Conservative groups accused her of bowing to “socially left-wing factions.” Tucker Carlson of Fox News, in a tense interview with Ms. Noem, implied she was bowing to “big business” in refusing to sign the bill.“There’s a real political effort now that will extract a punishment from you if you betray the social conservatives,” said Frank Cannon, a founder of the American Principles Project. He said the episode with Ms. Noem “sent a signal to every other governor in the country.”Eleven months later, the governor appeared to have received the message, signing a similar version of the bill in the interest, she said that day, of “fairness.” More