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      How Chicago’s Mayoral Runoff Could Play Out on a National Stage

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      The two mayoral candidates, both Democrats, are on opposite sides of the debate over crime and policing. Republicans, with an eye toward 2024, are watching closely.CHICAGO — For nearly three years, since the ebbing of the George Floyd protests of 2020, almost nothing has divided the Democratic Party like the issues of crime, public safety and policing, much to the delight of Republicans eager to center urban violence in the nation’s political debate.Now, an unanticipated mayoral runoff in the country’s third largest city between Paul Vallas, the white former Chicago public schools chief running as the tough-on-crime candidate, and Brandon Johnson, a Black, progressive Cook County commissioner questioning traditional methods of policing, will elevate public safety on the national stage and test how ugly the Democratic divide might get in a city known for bare-knuckled politics and racial division.Mr. Vallas, as Chicago’s schools chief, expanded charter schools, then virtually eliminated neighborhood public schools in the New Orleans school system.Taylor Glascock for The New York Times“Oh, it’s going to be good,” Christopher Z. Mooney, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said of the runoff contest, which will culminate on April 4. “It’s going to get pretty rancorous, and underlying all of it will be the racial subtext.”The mayoral runoff pits two Democrats against each other, divided not only by ideology but also by race in a city where racial politics have been prominent since it elected its first Black mayor, Harold Washington, 40 years ago.A Republican hasn’t controlled City Hall since William H. “Big Bill” Thompson left office in 1931, with an open alliance with Al Capone and three safe deposit boxes containing almost $1.6 million.But this year’s Chicago election will be watched by Republicans intently. Crime has already emerged as a potent weapon for a G.O.P. eager to win back the suburbs and chip away at Democratic gains among urban professionals.It has also highlighted the Democrats’ divide between a liberal left that coined the phrase “defund the police” and a resurgent center insisting the party does “back the blue.”In New York City, a moderate Democrat, Eric Adams, harnessed the surge of violence that hit cities across the country, exacerbated by the pandemic, to win the mayoral race in 2021. A Republican-turned-Democrat, Rick Caruso, leaned on the issue of crime last year to force a runoff in the nation’s second largest city, Los Angeles, though he ultimately lost the mayoralty to the more liberal candidate, Karen Bass.In San Francisco, Chesa Boudin, the liberal district attorney of a city once synonymous with liberalism, was recalled last year by voters infuriated by rising disorder, and similarly progressive prosecutors from Philadelphia to Chicago have become lightning rods in conservative campaigns against supposedly “woke” law enforcement. Michelle Wu, the newly elected mayor of Boston, was forced just this week to respond to criticism of her handling of violence, after Black leaders accused her of ignoring their safety.And while the G.O.P. was disappointed with its showing in November’s congressional elections, one bright spot for Republicans came in victories in New York and California that were fueled by advertisements portraying Democratic cities as lawless. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said her Democratic Party may well have held onto control of the House in November if candidates had a better answer to Republican attacks on crime, especially in New York.Add to that the issue of education, another sharp divide between Mr. Johnson and Mr. Vallas, and the mayor’s race in the city of broad shoulders may play out exactly as Republican presidential candidates would want. Ever since Glenn Youngkin recaptured Virginia’s governorship for his party in 2021 with an education-focused campaign, Republicans have made problems in the nation’s schools a centerpiece of their attempted national comeback, especially in the suburbs.And that has included a pitch for more school choice, whether through charter schools or vouchers to help public school students attend private schools. Again, Mr. Vallas and Mr. Johnson represent polar opposite positions on the issue: Mr. Vallas, as Chicago’s schools chief, expanded charter schools, then virtually eliminated neighborhood public schools when he took over the New Orleans school system after Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Johnson, a former schoolteacher and teachers union leader, stands firmly against that movement.Mr. Johnson, a former schoolteacher and teachers union leader, has fought against charter schools.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times“This is a microcosm of a larger battle for the soul of the nation,” said Delmarie Cobb, a progressive political consultant in Chicago, “and being the third largest city, it’s going to get all the national coverage. This is going to be an intense five weeks.”For the national parties, those five weeks will be tricky. The runoff between Ms. Bass and Mr. Caruso in Los Angeles forced the Democratic establishment to get behind Ms. Bass, a known quantity with a long career in the House of Representatives. If the Democratic establishment rallies around Mr. Johnson, the outcome of the Chicago mayor’s race could mirror Los Angeles, come Election Day.But Mr. Johnson’s ardent progressivism, including his outspoken skepticism of policing as the answer to rising crime, could make him toxic to Democrats with national ambitions, including Illinois’ billionaire governor, J.B. Pritzker.Likewise, Mr. Vallas’s pledge to beef up Chicago’s police force and unshackle officers from the controls put on them after high-profile police shootings like the killing of Laquan McDonald could make him a hero of Republicans eying a run at the White House next year. But their endorsements would run counter to Mr. Vallas’s efforts in the nonpartisan mayoral race to persuade Chicagoans that he really is a Democrat.Rodney Davis, a former Republican House member from central Illinois, said that he had no doubt Mr. Vallas was a Democrat, but that the ideological divide in the mayoral contest was no less important because the contestants are from the same party.“Are voters going to think about whether Brandon Johnson calls Paul Vallas a Republican, or are they going to think, ‘Do I feel safe when I leave my kid in the car to go back inside and grab something? Do I feel like the public school system is getting better or worse?’” he said, adding, “This has set up a fight that really is less about politics and more about issues.”National Republicans, eager to make the crime debate central as they joust with each other for their party’s presidential nomination in 2024, are not likely to stay quiet.“They may want to exploit the situation,” said Marc H. Morial, a former New Orleans mayor who now heads the National Urban League.Last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida swung through New York City, the Philadelphia suburbs and a bedroom community outside Chicago to speak to police unions about crime, and to lambaste what he called “woke” urban officials who he contends have eased up on policing and criminal prosecutions.“They just get put right back on the streets and they commit more crimes and it’s like a carousel,” Mr. DeSantis, an as-of-yet undeclared candidate for president, said Tuesday night during a speech in The Villages, a heavily Republican retirement community in Central Florida.Next, Mr. DeSantis is taking his critique of big cities on a national tour, including stops in states with the first three Republican primary contests, and will promote his new book, “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival.”Though Donald J. Trump erected a gleaming skyscraper on the Chicago River, he has made the city his No. 1 example of what is wrong with urban America.“It’s embarrassing to us as a nation,” Mr. Trump said on a visit in 2019. “All over the world, they’re talking about Chicago.”Criminal justice could be a centerpiece in the coming fight between Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis for the 2024 nomination. As president, Mr. Trump signed the “First Step Act,” a bipartisan criminal justice law that has freed thousands of inmates from federal prison. As a House lawmaker from Florida, Mr. DeSantis supported Mr. Trump’s bill in Congress in 2018, but as governor in 2019, when the state passed its own version of that federal legislation, he opposed a measure that would have allowed certain prisoners convicted of nonviolent felonies to be released after serving at least 65 percent of their sentences.The Trump measure was opposed by some Republicans, including Mr. Trump’s own attorney general at the time, Jeff Sessions, and the former president has since appeared eager to distance himself from the law.The race in Chicago will pit a candidate with the police union’s support against one who has the teachers’ union on his side.Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesDuring the past two years, Mr. Trump has spoken more about the need for tougher criminal justice laws, renewing his widely criticized proposal to execute drug dealers, and less about the benefits or outcomes of the First Step Act. Speaking to New Hampshire Republicans in late January, in the first public event of his latest presidential campaign, Mr. Trump said he would have a tougher response to civil rights protests if elected to a second term.“Next time, it’s one thing I would do different,” Mr. Trump said.A Republican intervention in the mayoral runoff here would not be helpful to Mr. Vallas. He was forced to denounce Mr. DeSantis’s appearance in Elmhurst, Ill., last week lest he be tied to the polarizing Florida governor ahead of Tuesday’s voting.But Mr. Johnson almost certainly represents too perfect a target for Republicans to sit this one out. He may have walked back earlier comments on “defunding” the police, but last month, he was the only mayoral candidate who refused to say he would fill the growing number of vacancies in the Chicago Police Department.“Spending more on policing per capita has been a failure,” Mr. Johnson said at a news conference outside City Hall last month.“Look, I get it,” he continued. “People are talking about policing as a strategy. But, keep in mind, that is the strategy that has led to the failures we are experiencing right now.”A substantive debate on the best approach to public safety could be good for Chicago and the country — if it stays substantive, Mr. Morial said. Policing is not only about the number of officers, he said, but about the accountability of the force and the trust of the citizens.Mr. Morial expressed doubt that Mr. Trump or Mr. DeSantis would keep the debate focused that way. But the nation will be watching, starting with the Chicago mayoral runoff, he said.“I’m watching this race closely,” he said. “I think it’s going to become a national conversation, which I think is going to be good.”Jonathan Weisman reported from Chicago, and Michael C. Bender from Washington. More

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      Más de 100.000 personas marchan en México contra el Plan B

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      Se registraron manifestaciones en más de un centenar de ciudades del país contra una serie de medidas que van a limitar a la autoridad electoral y que, según sus funcionarios, dificultará garantizar elecciones libres y justas.Demonstrators gathered in Mexico City’s main square to protest new measures diminishing the nation’s electoral watchdog, changes they see as a threat to democracy.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesCIUDAD DE MÉXICO — Más de 100.000 personas salieron a las calles de México el domingo para protestar las leyes recién aprobadas que restringen al instituto electoral del país, en lo que los manifestantes dijeron era un repudio a los esfuerzos del presidente de debilitar a un pilar de la democracia.Vestidos en varios tonos de rosa, el color oficial del órgano de supervisión electoral que ayudó a terminar con el régimen de partido único hace dos décadas, los manifestantes llenaron el Zócalo de la capital y gritaron: “¡El voto no se toca!”.Los asistentes dijeron que buscaban enviar un mensaje al presidente de México, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, quien respaldó las medidas y reside en el Palacio Nacional, frente a la principal plaza de la capital.Pero también se dirigían directamente a la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación, que se espera que atienda las impugnaciones a las modificaciones al instituto electoral en los próximos meses. Muchos consideran que se trata de un momento que plantea un desafío crucial a la corte, que ha sido objeto de críticas por parte del presidente.La mañana del domingo, los manifestantes también gritaron: “¡Yo confío en la corte!”.Horas antes del inicio oficial de la protesta, los asistentes, algunos vistiendo camisas de botones bien planchadas y sombreros de paja, se reunían en cafeterías y tomaban desayuno en una terraza con vista a la sede de gobierno.Los manifestantes dijeron que los cambios ponen en riesgo a un pilar clave de la democracia del país.Luis Antonio Rojas para The New York TimesPero en la calle, el ambiente era de ansiedad.“Yo pagué mis propios gastos y mi estancia, pero no me pesa: haría eso y más por mi país”, dijo Marta Ofelia González, de 75 años, quien voló de Mazatlán, en el estado costero de Sinaloa, y llevaba una visera de paja para cubrirse de un sol intenso.Acudió, dijo, porque teme “perder la democracia y que nos convirtamos en una dictadura”.El presidente argumenta que los cambios van a ahorrar millones de dólares y mejorarán el sistema de votación. Pero los funcionarios electorales comentan que la modificación va a dificultar que se garanticen elecciones libres y justas, incluida la contienda presidencial del próximo año.“Es la última esperanza”, dijo Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, un exdiputado de izquierda y uno de los organizadores de la protesta. “Queremos generar un respaldo”, dijo, “para fortalecer la idea de que la Suprema Corte debe declarar inconstitucionales estas leyes”. De otro modo, agregó Acosta Naranjo, “tendríamos que ir a la elección con un árbitro parcial y un árbitro disminuido”.No se sabía con certeza de inmediato cuántas personas protestaron en todo el país —se organizaron manifestaciones en más de 100 ciudades— a pesar de que las cifras solo en Ciudad de México superaron los 100.000 asistentes, según organizadores y autoridades locales.Sobre las protestas se cernía la condena reciente en un tribunal de Brooklyn de Genaro García Luna, un exalto funcionario de seguridad mexicano, quien fue declarado culpable de recibir sobornos de los cárteles del narcotráfico: en México, el veredicto se percibe ampliamente como dañino a uno de los partidos de la oposición que ayudaron a organizar la protesta del domingo.José Ramón Cossío Díaz, un ministro retirado de la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación, habló el domingo frente al edificio del tribunal.Luis Antonio Rojas para The New York TimesGarcía Luna fungió como un funcionario de seguridad de alto rango durante más de una década con dos presidentes del Partido Acción Nacional —Vicente Fox y Felipe Calderón— que hicieron llamados públicos para que los ciudadanos se unieran a la protesta.En las calles que recorrieron los manifestantes el domingo había afiches con el rostro de García Luna y la palabra “culpable”.El presidente ha insinuado que a los manifestantes los motiva el deseo de devolver el país a manos de los líderes corruptos del pasado.“Van a venir porque hay un grupo de intereses creados, de corruptos, que quiere regresar al poder para seguir robando”, dijo López Obrador en una conferencia de prensa reciente refiriéndose a los manifestantes del domingo. “No vengan aquí a decir: ‘Es que nos importa la democracia, es que se afecta la democracia’”.Era la segunda vez en alrededor de cuatro meses que los mexicanos se habían manifestado en apoyo del instituto de vigilancia electoral, que el presidente y sus seguidores aseguran que se ha convertido en una burocracia inflada cooptada por intereses políticos.“Tiene un poder desmesurado y desviado”, dijo Pedro Miguel, un periodista de La Jornada, un diario de izquierda, quien se describió como “militante” del proyecto político del presidente. Miguel criticó al INE por pagarle demasiado a sus integrantes, incluido un bono al retirarse.“Esa marcha parece más bien en defensa de ese bono y de esos sueldos miserables”, dijo de la protesta del domingo.Fue la segunda vez en unos cuatro meses que los mexicanos mostraron apoyo público al Instituto Nacional Electoral, que el presidente y sus seguidores aseguran se ha convertido en un organismo con burocracia inflada.Luis Antonio Rojas para The New York TimesLas medidas, aprobadas la semana pasada por la legislatura, van a recortar el personal del instituto, socavar su autonomía y limitar su capacidad para sancionar a los políticos que quebranten la ley electoral. Los funcionarios electorales indican que la modificación también eliminará a la mayoría de trabajadores que supervisan directamente el voto e instalan las casillas de votación en todo el país.“Pone en riesgo incluso la validez de las propias elecciones”, dijo en una entrevista Lorenzo Córdova, el presidente saliente del INE.Las manifestaciones suceden cuando el país se prepara para el inicio de la campaña presidencial de 2024, en medio de serias dudas sobre si una oposición maltrecha e incipiente cuenta con los medios para ganarse a los votantes desencantados.“Es una prueba muy importante de qué tanto van a poder movilizar a su base social”, dijo Blanca Heredia, profesora en el Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, refiriéndose a los partidos que se oponen al presidente, conocido por sus iniciales, AMLO.La multitud del domingo, según algunos analistas, era suficientemente grande para señalar que muchos mexicanos están ansiosos de apoyar a sus instituciones y también de expresar su descontento con el presidente.González, la manifestante de Mazatlán, dijo que no había votado por López Obrador, “porque todavía me sube el agua al tinaco”.Está por verse si la oposición puede sacar provecho electoral de ese desencanto.“Nada más tienen el sentimiento anti-AMLO”, dijo Heredia de los partidos que se enfrentan a López Obrador. “Si quieren captar a más votantes, distintos a los que son anti-AMLO, necesitan un proyecto en positivo, algún plan que proponer al país”.Los manifestantes que marcharon contra las medidas impulsadas por el presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador, quien ha insinuado que los que protestan buscan volver a poner el país en manos de líderes corruptos.Luis Antonio Rojas para The New York TimesElda Cantú More

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      Large Crowds Across Mexico Protest Overhaul of Election Watchdog

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      Demonstrations took place in over 100 cities against the recent overhaul of the country’s electoral watchdog, which officials say could make fair and free elections difficult.More than 100,000 people took to the streets of Mexico on Sunday to protest new laws hobbling the nation’s election agency, in what demonstrators said was a repudiation of the president’s efforts to weaken a pillar of democracy.Wearing shades of pink, the official color of the electoral watchdog that helped end one-party rule two decades ago, protesters filled the central square of the capital, Mexico City, and chanted, “Don’t touch my vote.”The protesters said they were trying to send a message to the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who backed the measures and lives in the national palace on the square’s edge.They were also speaking directly to the nation’s Supreme Court, which is expected to hear a challenge to the overhaul in the coming months. Many see the moment as a critical test for the court, which has been a target of criticism by the president.Protesters also chanted on Sunday morning, “I trust in the court.”Hours before the demonstration officially began, attendants, many wearing crisp collared shirts and Panama hats, lined up outside upscale cafes and sat for breakfast on a terrace overlooking the seat of government.Protesters said the changes imperiled a key pillar of the nation’s democracy.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesBut on the streets, the mood was anxious.“I paid my own expenses and my stay, but it doesn’t bother me, I’d do that and more for my country,” said Marta Ofelia González, 75, who flew in from Mazatlán, on the coast of Sinaloa State, and wore a straw visor to block the punishing sun.She came, she said, because she fears “we will lose democracy and become a dictatorship.”The president argues the changes will save millions of dollars and improve the voting system. Electoral officials, though, say the overhaul will make it difficult to guarantee free and fair elections — including in a crucial presidential election next year.“This is our last hope,” said Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, a former leftist congressman and one of the demonstration’s organizers. “We want to defend the court’s autonomy so it can declare these laws unconstitutional.” Otherwise, Mr. Acosta Naranjo said, “we will have to hold an election with a partial and diminished arbiter.”It was not immediately clear how many people protested across the country — demonstrations had been organized in more than 100 cities — though the numbers in Mexico City alone were above 100,000, organizers and local officials said.Looming over the protests was the recent conviction in a Brooklyn courtroom of Genaro García Luna, a former top Mexican law enforcement official, who was found guilty of taking bribes from cartels — a verdict widely viewed in Mexico as damaging to one of the opposition parties associated with the demonstration on Sunday.José Ramón Cossío Díaz, a retired minister of the Supreme Court, spoke in front of the court building on Sunday.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesMr. García Luna served in high-profile security roles for more than a decade under two conservative National Action Party presidents — Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón — both of whom publicly called for citizens to attend the protest.The streets where protesters roamed on Sunday were lined with posters bearing Mr. García Luna’s face and the word “guilty.”The president has suggested that the protesters are motivated by the desire to put the country back in the hands of the corrupt leaders of the past.“They’re going to show up because there are vested, corrupt interests that want to return to power to continue stealing,” Mr. López Obrador said at a recent news conference. “So don’t try to say ‘it’s that we care about democracy, it’s that democracy is being damaged.”It was the second time in about four months that Mexicans had demonstrated in support of the election watchdog, which the president and his supporters say has become a bloated bureaucracy captured by political interests. “It has too much power, perverted power,” said Pedro Miguel, a journalist at La Jornada, a leftist newspaper, who describes himself as a “militant” of the president’s political project. Mr. Miguel criticized the agency for paying its governing members too much, including a bonus after stepping down.“This is a march in defense of that bonus and those miserable salaries,” he said of the demonstration on Sunday.It was the second time in about four months that Mexicans had rallied in support of the election watchdog, which the president and his supporters say has become a bloated bureaucracy.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesThe measures, passed by the legislature last week, will cut the agency’s staff, undermine its autonomy and limit its capacity to punish politicians who break electoral law. Electoral officials say the overhaul will also eliminate the majority of workers who directly oversee the vote and install polling stations across the country.“It threatens the validity of elections themselves,” said Lorenzo Córdova, the departing president of the agency, in an interview.The protest comes as the country gears up for the start of the 2024 presidential campaign, amid serious questions about whether a battered and inchoate opposition has the wherewithal to win over disenchanted voters.“It’s an important test of how much they’re able to mobilize their base,” said Blanca Heredia, a professor at Mexico’s Center for Research and Teaching in Economics, referring to the parties opposing Mr. López Obrador, known by his initials, AMLO.The crowd was big enough on Sunday, analysts said, to suggest that many Mexicans are eager to support their institutions — and vent their anger at the president.Ms. González, of Mazatlán, said she had not voted for Mr. López Obrador “because my brain still works.”It remains unclear whether the opposition can use that bitterness to its electoral advantage.“All they have is that anti-AMLO sentiment,” Professor Heredia said of the parties opposing Mr. López Obrador. “If they want to gain more voters that aren’t just anti-AMLO, they’re going to need a positive project — a plan for the country.”Demonstrators marching against the measures pushed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has suggested that protesters want to place the country back in the hands of corrupt leaders.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesElda Cantú More

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      Plans in Congress on China and TikTok Face Hurdles After Spy Balloon Furor

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      With budgets tight and political knives drawn, lawmakers seeking to capitalize on a bipartisan urgency to confront China are setting their sights on narrower measures.WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats are pressing for major legislation to counter rising threats from China, but mere weeks into the new Congress, a bipartisan consensus is at risk of dissipating amid disputes about what steps to take and a desire among many Republicans to wield the issue as a weapon against President Biden.In the House and Senate, leading lawmakers in both parties have managed in an otherwise bitterly divided Congress to stay unified about the need to confront the dangers posed by China’s militarization, its deepening ties with Russia and its ever-expanding economic footprint.But a rising chorus of Republican vitriol directed at Mr. Biden after a Chinese spy balloon flew over the United States this month upended that spirit — giving way to G.O.P. accusations that the president was “weak on China” — and suggested that the path ahead for any bipartisan action is exceedingly narrow.“When the balloon story popped, so to speak, it felt like certain people used that as an opportunity to bash President Biden,” said Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, the top Democrat on the select panel the House created to focus on competition with China.“And it felt like no matter what he did, they wanted to basically call him soft on the C.C.P., and unable to protect America,” he said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party. “That’s where I think we can go wayward politically,”For now, only a few, mostly narrow ventures have drawn enough bipartisan interest to have a chance at advancing amid the political tide. They include legislation to ban TikTok, the Beijing-based social media platform lawmakers have warned for years is an intelligence-gathering gold mine for the Chinese government; bills that would ban Chinese purchases of farmland and other agricultural real estate, especially in areas near sensitive military sites; and measures to limit U.S. exports and outbound investments to China.Such initiatives are limited in scope, predominantly defensive and relatively cheap — which lawmakers say are important factors in getting legislation over the hurdles posed by this split Congress. And, experts point out, none are issues that would be felt keenly by voters, or translate particularly well into political pitches on the 2024 campaign trail.A Divided CongressThe 118th Congress is underway, with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats holding the Senate.Jan. 6 Video: Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s decision to grant the Fox News host Tucker Carlson access to thousands of hours of Jan. 6 Capitol security footage has effectively outsourced a bid to reinvestigate the attack.John Fetterman: The Democratic senator from Pennsylvania is the latest public figure to disclose his mental health struggles, an indication of growing acceptance, though some stigma remains.Entitlement Cuts: Under bipartisan pressure, Senator Rick Scott of Florida, a Republican, exempted Social Security and Medicare from his proposal to regularly review all federal programs.G.O.P. Legislative Agenda: Weeks into their chaotic House majority, Republican leaders have found themselves paralyzed on some of the biggest issues they promised to address.“There would be nervousness among Republicans about giving the administration a clear win, but I’m just not sure that the kind of legislation they’ll be looking at would be doing that,” said Zack Cooper, who researches U.S.-China competition at the American Enterprise Institute. “It’s more things that would penalize China than be focused on investing in the U.S. in the next couple of years.”At the start of the year, the momentum behind bipartisan efforts to confront China seemed strong, with Republicans and Democrats banding together to pass the bill setting up the select panel and legislation to deny China crude oil exports from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. A resolution condemning Beijing for sending the spy balloon over the United States passed unanimously after Republican leaders decided not to take the opportunity to rebuke Mr. Biden, as many on the right had clamored for.But with partisan divisions beginning to intensify and a presidential election looming, it appears exceedingly unlikely that Congress will be able to muster an agreement as large or significant as the major legislation last year to subsidize microchip manufacturing and scientific research — a measure that members of both parties described as only one of many policy changes that would be needed to counter China. Only a few, mostly narrow ventures have drawn enough bipartisan interest to have a chance at advancing amid the political tide.Kenny Holston/The New York Times“The biggest challenge is just the overall politicized environment that we’re in right now and the lack of trust between the parties,” said Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, the chairman of the new select panel, who has committed to make his committee an “incubator and accelerator” on China legislation. “Everyone has their guard up.”Still, there are some areas of potential compromise. Many lawmakers are eyeing 2023 as the year Congress can close any peepholes China may have into the smartphones of more than 100 million TikTok American users, but they have yet to agree on how to try to do so.Some Republicans have proposed imposing sanctions to ice TikTok out of the United States, while Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, wants to allow the president to block the platform by lifting statutory prohibitions on banning foreign information sources.Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Senator Angus King, independent of Maine and a member of the panel, want to prevent social media companies under Chinese or Russian influence from operating in the United States unless they divest from foreign ownership.But none have yet earned a seal of approval from Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the Democrat who is chairman of the committee and whose support is considered critical to any bill’s success. He was the chief architect of last year’s sweeping China competition bill, known as the CHIPS and Science Act, and he wants to tackle foreign data collection more broadly.“We’ve had a whack-a-mole approach on foreign technology that poses a national security risk,” Mr. Warner said in an interview, bemoaning that TikTok was only the latest in a long line of foreign data firms, like the Chinese telecom giant Huawei and the Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, to be targeted by Congress. “We need an approach that is constitutionally defensible.”There is a similar flurry of activity among Republican and Democratic lawmakers proposing bans on Chinese purchases of farmland  in sensitive areas. But lawmakers remain split over how broad such a ban should be, whether agents of other adversary nations ought also to be subject to the prohibition, and whether Congress ought to update the whole process of reviewing foreign investment transactions, by including the Agriculture Department in the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interagency group.“It’s actually kind of a more fraught issue than you would imagine,” Mr. Gallagher said.Lawmakers in both parties who want to put forth legislation to limit U.S. goods and capital from reaching Chinese markets are also facing challenges. The Biden administration has already started to take unilateral action on the issue, and further steps could box lawmakers out. Even if Congress can stake out a role for itself, it is not entirely clear which committee would take the lead on a matter that straddles a number of areas of jurisdiction.  Even before the balloon incident, existential policy differences between Republicans and Democrats, particularly around spending, made for slim odds that Congress could achieve sweeping legislative breakthroughs regarding China. Architects of last year’s law were dour about the prospect of the current Congress attempting anything on a similar scale.“The chances of us passing another major, comprehensive bill are not high,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the lead Republican on the CHIPS effort, who noted that with the slim G.O.P. majority in the House, it would be difficult to pass a costly investment bill.G.O.P. lawmakers have been demanding cuts to the federal budget, and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, has indicated that even military spending might be on the chopping block. Though no one has specifically advocated cutting programs related to countering China, that has some lawmakers nervous, particularly since certain recent ventures Congress created to beef up security assistance to Taiwan have already failed to secure funding at their intended levels.That backdrop could complicate even bipartisan ventures seeking to authorize new programs to counter China diplomatically and militarily, such as a proposal in the works from Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator James Risch of Idaho, the top Republican, to step up foreign aid and military assistance to American allies in Beijing’s sphere of influence.That likely means that action on any comprehensive China bill would need to be attached to another must-pass bill, such as the annual defense authorization bill, to break through the political logjams of this Congress, said Richard Fontaine, the CEO of the Center for a New American Security. “China has risen as a political matter and things are possible that weren’t before, but it has not risen so high as to make the hardest things politically possible,” Mr. Fontaine said. 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      Marjorie Taylor Greene Has a Dream

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene, now one of the most influential Republicans in the House of Representatives, says it is time for Americans to consider a national divorce.“Tragically, I think we, the left and right, have reached irreconcilable differences,” Greene wrote a few days ago on Twitter. “I’ll speak for the right and say, we are absolutely disgusted and fed up with the left cramming and forcing their ways on us and our children with no respect for our religion/faith, traditional values, and economic&government policy beliefs.”And how will this national divorce work in practice? Greene says that “red” states and “blue” states will simply go their separate ways.On education, for example, “Red states would likely ban all gender lies and confusing theories, Drag Queen story times, and L.G.B.T.Q. indoctrinating teachers, and China’s money and influence in our education while blue states could have government-controlled gender transition schools.”On gun policy, in red states, “law abiding gun owners wouldn’t go to jail for shooting an attacker” while in blue states, “the left could achieve their dreams of total and complete lawlessness.”The federal government would still exist, Greene explains, but it would be a minimal state, devoted to border security and defense — an update, of sorts, of America under the Articles of Confederation. Everything else would be up to the discretion of the states, including voting and elections.“In red states,” Greene wrote, “they would likely pursue one day elections with paper ballots and require voter ID with only the red state citizens or even red state tax payers voting. And blue states would be free to allow illegal aliens from all over the world to vote freely and frequently in their elections like the D.C. City Council wants. Dead people could still vote. Criminals in jail could vote that is if blue states even have jails or prisons anymore.”You can probably tell, from the substance of Greene’s comments, that this “national divorce” is more paranoid fantasy than serious proposal. Even so, it rests on a set of ideas and tropes that are in wide circulation in the public at large.Let’s start with the idea that individual states constitute singular political communities, meaning that there is a real distinction between Americans who live in “big states” versus “small states,” between the residents of Montana and those of Massachusetts. There’s also the idea that partisan divides between states represent fundamental differences of culture and interest. And then there’s the idea, underneath all this, that states are, or ought to be, the fundamental unit of representation in the American political system.Taken together, those ideas make a “national divorce” seem, if not likely, then at least plausible. But there’s a problem. States are not actually singular political communities. There are partisan divides between states, even large ones, but they do not represent fundamental differences of culture and interest. And although states play an important role in the American political system, they are not the autonomous, nearly independent units of either Representative Greene’s imagination or the folk civics that shapes political understanding for tens of millions of Americans.It is true that in debates over representation during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia, small-state delegates insisted on equal representation of states in at least one chamber of Congress, so that they might preserve their interests against those of the larger states. William Paterson of New Jersey worried that his state would be “swallowed up” by Virginia, Massachusetts and others if the Senate were apportioned by population, like the House. Likewise, Luther Martin of Maryland called apportion by population “a system of slavery for ten states.” For these delegates, the states were sovereign units with distinct interests that deserved representation in Congress.For James Madison, a fierce proponent of proportional representation in the House and Senate, this was nonsense. Far from unitary, each state was, in his view, a collection of diverse and divergent factions — of a “greater variety of interests, of pursuits, of passions” — that could only speak with a single voice on issues of broad agreement and consensus.On this question of representation and apportionment, the upshot of Madison’s theory of faction was that states, as states, did not have interests to represent in Congress.“States possessed interests,” the historian Jack Rakove explains in “Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution,” “but these were rooted in the attributes of individuals: in property, occupation, religion, opinion, and the uneven distribution of human faculties. Moreover, since congeries of interests could be found within any state, however small — witness Rhode Island — the principle of unitary corporate representation was further undercut.”Madison lost the battle for proportional representation in the Senate — small-state delegates threatened to torpedo the convention rather than accept an outcome that might undermine their influence in the national legislature. But he would return, years later, to this argument about the nature of the states, and the divergent interests within them, in a letter written just before his death.Addressed, in substance, to critics of majority rule like John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, Madison again challenged the idea that states represent distinct and singular political communities.In Virginia, he notes, there is “a diversity of interests, real or supposed” and “much disagreement” on questions of infrastructure and “public patronage.” If majority rule threatens abuse of power in national government — because one interest may grow in size over another — then it would have to do the same within each individual state, rendering “a majority government as unavoidable an evil in the States individually as it is represented to be in the States collectively.”But let’s say you could split each state into its constituent interests, so that majorities would not form against it. Well, then, Madison says, you would find yourself in the same situation as before: “In the smallest of the fragments, there would soon be added to previous sources of discord a manufacturing and an agricultural class, with the difficulty experienced in adjusting their relative interests, in the regulation of foreign commerce if any, or if none in equalizing the burden of internal improvement and of taxation within them.”No matter how small you go, in other words, you run into the simple fact that there’s no such thing as a truly homogeneous political community. There will always be differences of belief and interest, and the only way to deal with them in a representative, republican government is through deliberation and majority rule.What was true in the 18th and 19th centuries is true now. A “national divorce” is possible only if the states represent singular political communities. But they don’t. A conservative, deep “red” state like Oklahoma still has liberal, “blue” cities and suburbs with conflicting interests. If you tried to separate conservative rural areas from liberal urban ones, you’d quickly find that within those subdivisions lie profound political differences among both individual people and groups of people.We are not actually 50 separate communities tied together by a single document. We are a single, national community of diverse and divergent interests in every corner of the union. The states aren’t hard borders of culture and politics, and there’s no way to divide the country so that all Americans live in their own camp, with their own side. Perhaps if conservatives and Republicans win enough elections, we’ll have a much smaller and less expansive federal government than we do now. But that will not solve the problem of political conflict and majority rule; it will simply push the problem down to the next level of government.What advocates of a “national divorce” or some other separation want is a resolution of the struggle of democratic life, a point at which they must no longer contend with alternative and conflicting ways of living. But that is just another fantasy.The great virtue (or perhaps curse) of democracy is that it doesn’t settle — it keeps moving. There are no final victories, but there are no final defeats either. There is only the struggle for a more humane world or, for some among us, a more hierarchical one.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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      Joe Biden’s Greatest Strength Is Also His Greatest Vulnerability

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      In February 2020, just before the world shut down, I was waiting for Joe Biden to speak on a Friday night in Henderson, Nev. The next morning I watched Bernie Sanders rally a fairly young, largely Latino crowd in a packed Las Vegas high school cafeteria. The Biden event, held when it looked as if he would not win the nomination, was smaller and more subdued. On the other side of a rope separating media from attendees, a group of Biden supporters were talking about how stressful it would be to be president at their and Mr. Biden’s age. As I remember it, one of them said, “But he feels he has to do it.”Not much has changed about the substance of their conversation since then, other than three long years: Mr. Biden, at 80, is the oldest U.S. president ever. If and when he announces a re-election campaign, he will put into play the idea of an even older president, eventually 86 years old. “Is age a positive thing for him? No,” Nancy Pelosi recently told Maureen Dowd, before adding that age is “a relative thing.” For reasons ultimately only Mr. Biden can know, it seems he feels he has to do it.There’s a straightforward dimension to the problem: The effects of age can get beyond your control, and it’d be a safer bet to leave office before the risk probability elevates to a danger zone. Barney Frank decided well in advance that he would retire from Congress at 75, then did so in his early 70s. You could feel that would be the right choice for Mr. Biden or any other leader over a certain age threshold, and be done with this topic. But age and health knot together different contradictions in America. Everything’s so weird now. Tech types, athletes and people of means are spending millions to keep their bodies youthful, and to defeat decline, if not death. We live in this society where people frequently talk about their resentment of older leadership — and elect and re-elect older leaders.Donald Trump would also, were he to win and serve out a second term, turn 82, and you could view the final days of the first Trump White House through this prism. Nearly a quarter of the Congress was over 70 last year, Insider found, up from 8 percent in 2002. Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican and Iowa’s senior senator, won re-election at age 89 last fall. Two of the most powerful and defining congressional leaders of most of our lives — Mitch McConnell and Ms. Pelosi — are in their 80s, and until the recent hockey line change in House leadership, much of the Democratic congressional leadership was over 70. The Treasury secretary is 76. Two Supreme Court justices are in their 70s; in the last decade, death changed the ideological balance of the court.If he runs for this second term, squarely in this space of all these contradictions, Mr. Biden is making the same ask as he did during the 2020 election — to trust him, to trust that he will be proven right about himself. Qualitatively, Mr. Biden represents familiarity and stability, which both derive from his age and sit in uneasy tension with it.Mr. Biden premised his 2020 campaign on his singular ability to win the presidency, when a good number of people in politics and media didn’t think he could win even the nomination. He predicted a level of congressional function that many people found nostalgic to the point of exotic. This skepticism was, on a deep level, about his age and whether his time had passed and whether he was too distant from the political realities of the 2020s. The thing is: Mr. Biden was right before. He did win the nomination. He did win against Donald Trump. The first two years of the Biden presidency did involve a productive and occasionally bipartisan U.S. Congress. On some level, people like me were wrong. This whole presidency originated with Mr. Biden being right about himself, and therefore his age.And maybe he will be right again! That’s a real possibility, under-discussed in these conversations. Age is relative, as Ms. Pelosi said. Medical science keeps improving, and people keep living longer, healthier lives. Presidents can focus on the big picture and delegate the rest. Mr. Biden’s own parents lived to 86 and 92. Having purpose, professional or otherwise, can rejuvenate all our lives. He looked pretty lively during that State of the Union earlier this month, and certainly in Ukraine and Poland.A generation of old men, from Clement Attlee to Konrad Adenauer, rebuilt Europe after the catastrophic 1930s and 1940s, back when people lived much shorter lives. Mr. Adenauer, the first leader of West Germany, actually served until age 87. We haven’t lived through anything like World War II, but as we convulse through two decades of staggering technological change, that might explain the resurgence of some older and familiar leaders over the last decade. Maybe rather than resenting this generational hold on power that Mr. Biden represents, some segment of people is relieved by the continuity that he offers, and by his distance from our daily lives.It’s complicated to leave office when you have real power. If you were Mr. Sanders (81) or Mitt Romney (75), why would you walk away? Mr. Sanders and Mr. Romney retain their essential selves as public figures — they don’t seem especially changed by age. Neither has said whether he’s going to run again. But if they still feel vital and able, and they are in a position of actual agency and responsibility, then it’s hard to see why they should leave public life.The risk, though, registers at a different pitch with the presidency. Even if we’re not expecting the president to catch a bullet in his teeth or something, we have 100 senators and one president. Hundreds of federal judges, and nine Supreme Court justices. Some stuff matters more than others.This was a problem even at the very beginning of the country’s history. During the Constitutional Convention, a proposal arose about how to proceed if the president were unable to serve. According to James Madison’s notes, the delegate John Dickinson asked “What is the extent of the term ‘disability’ & who is to be the judge of it?” Nobody’s ever precisely resolved this dilemma, even with the 25th Amendment.Mr. Biden could be wrong. He could lose the election because of the way voters perceive his age, or he could make it to a second term only to suffer a serious illness in office. Would the country default to a discomfort with visible age and slant one way on Mr. Biden, or take a more nuanced view?In the fall, while thinking over some of these concerns, I saw Senator John Fetterman speak to a large Saturday afternoon crowd in an indoor sports complex in Scranton, Pa. Mr. Fetterman isn’t old — he’s 53 — but he did suffer a stroke and begin recovery while campaigning for office.That day in Scranton, though he moved fluidly and alertly, he struggled some with the cadence of his speech, which was mostly one-liners about Dr. Mehmet Oz. But the event opened up into a gentler moment when he asked, “How many one [sic] of you in your own life have had a serious health challenge? Hands. Personally. Any of you?” Tons of hands went silently up from the synthetic grass. “How many of your parents?” Nearly all the remaining hands went up and stayed up while he ticked off a few other close relations. Though this eventually segued into another joke about Mr. Oz, the silent, serious quality of this call-response was not how the campaign often played online and in the media, where Mr. Fetterman’s condition became a weapon to be bashed over him. The politics of health and age can be brutal.Last week, Mr. Fetterman entered Walter Reed medical center to treat depression. Annie Karni reported that Mr. Fetterman’s recovery has continued to be challenging as he adjusts to new accommodations and limitations. Though he initially faced criticism for not disclosing enough about his condition, over the last several months he has been public about the changes he has gone through and the accommodations he requires, and about depression, something millions of people face but politicians have rarely disclosed.Aging is different than depression or stroke recovery; but like those experiences, there is no shame in aging, and there’s also no suggesting that everything’s easy about it. The choice for Mr. Biden is only an elevated version of the one many people deal with: When will you know it’s time to retire or step back, and when to keep going? All of us are aging, gaining and losing capacities in ways we may not even be aware of.There’s no automatic test that will prove someone is “too old,” and even if there were, nobody would want to take it.You can drive yourself crazy with war games about the ways an election could go. What if Mr. Biden were to run and face a much younger candidate, instead of Mr. Trump? What if he stepped aside in favor of a younger potential successor who then lost to Mr. Trump, invalidating the entire premise of Mr. Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign?All that there is, in the end, is Mr. Biden’s request — to trust that he is right about himself. He’s been right before, and may well be right again. But the reason this question lingers is the unstable ground of the answer: The source of what makes people worry about the president is also the source of his power and appeal.Ms. Miller is a staff writer and editor in Opinion.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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      Mexico Hobbles Election Agency That Helped End One-Party Rule

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      The changes come ahead of a presidential election next year and are part of a pattern of challenges to democratic institutions across the Western Hemisphere.Mexican lawmakers passed sweeping measures overhauling the nation’s electoral agency on Wednesday, dealing a blow to the institution that oversees voting and that helped push the country away from one-party rule two decades ago.The changes, which will cut the electoral agency’s staff, diminish its autonomy and limit its ability to punish politicians for breaking electoral laws, are the most significant in a series of moves by the Mexican president to undermine the country’s fragile institutions — part of a pattern of challenges to democratic norms across the Western Hemisphere.President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose party and its allies control Congress, argues that the measures will save millions of dollars and make voting more efficient. The new rules also seek to make it easier for Mexicans who live abroad to cast online ballots.But critics — including some who have worked alongside the president — say the overhaul is an attempt to weaken a key pillar of Mexico’s democracy. The leader of the president’s party in the Senate has called it unconstitutional.Now, another test looms: The Supreme Court, which has increasingly become a target of the president’s ire, is expected to hear a challenge to the measures in the coming months.If the changes stand, electoral officials say it will become difficult to carry out free and fair elections — including in a crucial presidential contest next year.“What’s at play is whether we’re going to have a country with democratic institutions and the rule of law,” said Jorge Alcocer Villanueva, who served in the interior ministry under Mr. López Obrador. “What’s at risk is whether the vote will be respected.”The watchdog, called the National Electoral Institute, earned international acclaim for facilitating clean elections in Mexico, paving the way for the opposition to win the presidency in 2000 after decades of rule by a single party.Demonstrators marching against the electoral changes proposed by Mr. López Obrador in November.Luis Cortes/ReutersYet since losing a presidential election in 2006 by less than 1 percent of the vote, Mr. López Obrador has repeatedly argued, without evidence, that the watchdog actually perpetrated electoral fraud — a claim that resembles voter-fraud conspiracy theories in the United States and Brazil.The Mexican leader’s skepticism about the 2006 election was even echoed last year by the American ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, who told The New York Times that he, too, had questions about the results’ legitimacy.President Biden’s top Latin America adviser later clarified that the administration recognized the outcome of that contest. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico has been sending reports to Washington assessing potential threats to democracy in the country, according to three U.S. officials who were not authorized to speak publicly.But while some lawmakers have expressed concern about the electoral changes, the Biden administration has said little about the issue in public.The American government sees little advantage in provoking Mr. López Obrador, and has faith that Mexican institutions are capable of defending themselves, several U.S. officials said.The Mexican president remains extremely popular, and his Morena party is ahead in 2024 presidential election polls. One of Mr. López Obrador’s political protégés is likely to be the party’s candidate.That dynamic has many in Mexico wondering: Why push for changes that could raise doubts about the legitimacy of an election his party is favored to win?“We were looking to save money, without affecting the work of the I.N.E.,” Jesús Ramírez Cuevas, the president’s spokesman, said in an interview, using an acronym for the watchdog. The president has a “zero deficit” policy of austerity, he said, and would prefer to spend public money on “social investments, in health, education, and infrastructure.”Indigenous vendors selling handicrafts during Mr. López Obrador’s rally in Mexico City last year.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesMr. López Obrador has said he wants to make a bloated bureaucracy leaner.“The electoral system will be improved,” Mr. López Obrador said in December. “They are going to shrink some areas so that more can be done with less.”Many agree that spending could be trimmed, but say the changes adopted on Wednesday strike at the heart of the watchdog’s most fundamental role: overseeing the vote.Electoral officials say the overhaul will force them to eliminate thousands of jobs — including the vast majority of workers who organize elections at the local level and install polling stations across the country. The changes also limit the agency’s control over its own spending and prevent it from disqualifying candidates for campaign spending violations.Uuc Kib Espadas, a member of the watchdog’s governing council, said the changes could result in “the failure to install a significant number of polling stations, depriving thousands or hundreds of thousands of people of the right to vote.”Mr. Ramírez Cuevas called those concerns “an exaggeration” and said “there won’t be massive layoffs” at the watchdog.But the Mexican president has not hidden his disdain for the institution his party is now targeting.After electoral officials confirmed his defeat in 2006, Mr. López Obrador led thousands of supporters in protests that paralyzed the capital for weeks. He eventually led his followers off the streets, but never stopped talking about what he calls “the fraud” of 2006.Mr. López Obrador surrounded by supporters during his rally last year.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York Times“He’s resentful of the electoral authority,” said Mr. Alcocer Villanueva, the former interior ministry official. “That resentment makes him act irrationally on this issue.”Mr. López Obrador did not always seem determined to pare down the electoral body.Mr. Alcocer Villanueva said that when he was chief of staff to the interior minister, from 2018 to 2021, he and his team proposed studying possible electoral changes, but the president said it was not one of his priorities.Then the electoral watchdog started to get in the way of the president’s agenda.In 2021, the agency disqualified two candidates from his party from running for office for failing to declare relatively small campaign contributions — decisions that some within the institution questioned.“It was a disproportionate sanction,” said Mr. Espadas Ancona.Soon, the president began spending a lot more time talking about the watchdog — usually negatively. In 2022, he mentioned it in daily news conferences more than twice as often as he did in 2019, according to the agency.He has denounced the agency as “rotten” and “undemocratic” and made a punching bag out of its leader — a lawyer named Lorenzo Córdova — calling him “a fraud without principles.”Mr. López Obrador has railed against Mexican electoral authorities since his failed presidential bid in 2006, when he lost by less than 1 percent of the vote.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesMr. Córdova, who was appointed by Mexico’s Congress, has taken center stage in his own defense, responding directly to the president in a torrent of media interviews and news conferences. “It is a very clear political strategy, to sell the I.N.E. as a biased, partial authority,” Mr. Córdova said in an interview, referring to the agency by its initials. “What is our dilemma as an authority? How do we handle it? If we say nothing, publicly, we are validating the president’s statements.”The president’s critics have cheered Mr. Córdova’s willingness to take him on. But some in Mexico question whether Mr. Córdova has struck the right balance.“He shouldn’t respond to the president so viscerally and with so much anger,” said Luis Carlos Ugalde, who led the agency from 2003 to 2007, adding: “It generates a stronger desire from the other side, from Morena, to attack and destroy the institute.”Mr. Córdova stood by his approach.“It’s very easy to judge from the outside,” Mr. Córdova said. “It’s been me who’s had to lead this institution in the worst moment.”Mr. Córdova’s term will expire in April. Congress, controlled by the president’s party, will elect four new members of the watchdog’s governing body.Oscar Lopez More

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      México restringe a su instituto electoral

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      Los cambios suceden en la antesala de los comicios presidenciales de 2024 y son parte de un patrón de desafíos a las instituciones democráticas en el hemisferio occidental.Los legisladores mexicanos modificaron el miércoles el sistema electoral del país, dando un golpe a la institución que supervisa las votaciones y que hace dos décadas ayudó a sacar al país de un régimen unipartidista.Los cambios, que reducirán el personal del organismo electoral, disminuirán su autonomía y limitarán su capacidad de descalificar a los candidatos que quebranten leyes electorales,son los más significativos de una serie de medidas adoptadas por el presidente de México que socavan las frágiles instituciones independientes, y forman parte de un patrón de desafíos a las normas democráticas en todo el hemisferio occidental.El presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador, cuyo partido controla el Congreso junto con sus aliados, argumenta que las medidas ahorrarán millones de dólares y harán que las votaciones sean más eficientes. Las nuevas reglas también buscan facilitar que los mexicanos que viven en el extranjero emitan su voto en línea.Pero los críticos —entre ellos algunas personas que han trabajado con el presidente— dicen que los cambios son un intento de debilitar un pilar clave de la democracia de México. El líder del partido del presidente en el Senado ha calificado de inconstitucional la medida.Ahora se avecina otra prueba: se espera que en los próximos meses la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación, que se ha convertido en el blanco frecuente de la ira del presidente, evalúe una impugnación a las medidas.Si los cambios se mantienen, las autoridades electorales mexicanas afirman que podría dificultarse la realización de elecciones libres y justas, incluida la contienda presidencial clave del próximo año.“Lo que está en juego es si vamos a tener un Estado de derecho y una división de poderes”, dijo Jorge Alcocer Villanueva, quien trabajó anteriormente en la Secretaría de Gobernación durante el gobierno de López Obrador. “Eso es lo que quedaría en riesgo, la certeza de que el voto va a ser respetado”.El organismo de supervisión, llamado Instituto Nacional Electoral (INE), ganó reconocimiento internacional por facilitar elecciones limpias en México, allanando el camino para que la oposición ganara la presidencia en el año 2000 tras décadas de un gobierno dominado por un solo partido.Manifestantes marcharon en distintas ciudades del país contra los cambios electorales propuestos por López Obrador.Luis Cortes/ReutersSin embargo, desde que perdió unas elecciones presidenciales en 2006 por menos del 1 por ciento de los votos, López Obrador ha sostenido en repetidas ocasiones, sin aportar pruebas, que el instituto ha perpetrado en realidad fraude electoral, una afirmación que se asemeja a las teorías de conspiración de fraude electoral propagadas en Estados Unidos y Brasil.El escepticismo del líder mexicano sobre las elecciones de 2006 fue incluso retomado el año pasado por el embajador estadounidense en México, Ken Salazar, quien declaró a The New York Times que él también dudaba de la legitimidad de los resultados.El principal asesor para América Latina del presidente Joe Biden aclaró posteriormente que el gobierno reconocía el resultado de aquella contienda. La embajada de Estados Unidos en México ha estado enviando informes a Washington en los que se evalúan las posibles amenazas a la democracia en el país, según tres funcionarios estadounidenses que no estaban autorizados a hablar públicamente.Pero si bien algunos legisladores han expresado su preocupación por los cambios en materia electoral, el gobierno de Biden ha dicho poco sobre el tema en público.El gobierno estadounidense considera poco ventajoso provocar a López Obrador y confía en que las instituciones mexicanas sean capaces de defenderse, dijeron varios funcionarios estadounidenses.El presidente mexicano sigue siendo extremadamente popular, y Morena, su partido, va a la cabeza en las encuestas de las elecciones presidenciales de 2024. Es muy probable que uno de los protegidos políticos de López Obrador quede al frente de la candidatura presidencial del partido.Esa dinámica ha ocasionado que muchos en México se pregunten: ¿por qué impulsar cambios que podrían suscitar dudas sobre la legitimidad de las elecciones que se espera que favorezcan a su partido?“Lo que se buscaba era ahorros”, dijo el vocero del gobierno, Jesús Ramírez Cuevas, en una entrevista, “sin afectar el funcionamiento del INE” . El presidente tiene una política de austeridad de “cero déficit”, comentó, y preferiría gastar los fondos públicos en “inversión social, la salud, educación, infraestructura”.Venta de artesanías en la marcha a favor de López Obrador en Ciudad de México en noviembreLuis Antonio Rojas para The New York TimesLópez Obrador ha dicho que quiere agilizar una burocracia inflada.“Se va a mejorar el sistema de elecciones”, dijo López Obrador en diciembre. “Se logran compactar algunas áreas para que se haga más con menos”.Muchos coinciden en que el gasto podría recortarse, pero argumentan que los cambios adoptados el miércoles afectan la base de la función más elemental del organismo electoral: supervisar el voto.Los funcionarios electorales argumentan que las modificaciones los obligarán a eliminar miles de puestos de trabajo, incluida buena parte de las personas que organizan las elecciones y gestionan la instalación de casillas electorales a nivel local en todo el país. Los cambios también limitan el control de la agencia sobre sus propios gastos y la capacidad del instituto para inhabilitar a candidatos por infracciones de gastos de campaña.Uuc Kib Espadas, consejo del INE, dijo que las modificaciones podrían tener como resultado “que no se instale un número significativo de casillas privando de su derecho al voto a miles o cientos de miles de personas”.Ramírez Cuevas calificó dichas inquietudes como “una exageración” y dijo que “no va haber despido masivo” en el INE.Pero el presidente mexicano no ha disimulado su desdén hacia la institución que su partido ahora tiene en la mira.Luego de que las autoridades electorales confirmaron su derrota en 2006, López Obrador impulsó a miles de sus seguidores a manifestarse en protestas que paralizaron la capital durante semanas.Al final pidió a sus seguidores salir de las calles, pero nunca dejó de hablar de lo que él llama “el fraude” de 2006.López Obrador rodeado de seguidores en un mitin en noviembre.Luis Antonio Rojas para The New York Times“El presidente de México tiene una especie de resentimiento contra la autoridad electoral”, dijo Alcocer Villanueva, el exfuncionario de la Secretaría de Gobernación. “Ese resentimiento lo hace actuar de una manera irracional en este terreno”.López Obrador no siempre pareció decidido a reducir al órgano electoral.Alcocer Villanueva contó que cuando fue coordinador de asesores del secretario de Gobernación, de 2018 a 2021, él y su equipo propusieron analizar posibles cambios electorales, pero el presidente decía que no estaba entre sus prioridades.Luego, el organismo de control electoral empezó a ser un obstáculo para la agenda del presidente.En 2021, el INE inhabilitó a dos candidatos del partido gobernante por no declarar aportes de campaña relativamente pequeños, decisiones que algunas personas al interior de la institución cuestionaron.“Era una sanción desproporcionada”, dijo Espadas Ancona.Pronto, el presidente empezó a dedicar mucho más tiempo a hablar del organismo electoral, por lo general de forma negativa. Para 2022 mencionaba a la institución en sus conferencias matutinas más del doble de veces que en 2019, según el instituto.Ha señalado al organismo como “podrido” y “antidemocrático” y convirtió en blanco de sus ataques al líder del instituto —un abogado llamado Lorenzo Córdova— a quien el presidente ha calificado como alguien “sin principios, sin ideales, un farsante”.Desde que no logró llegar a la presidencia en 2006, por una diferencia de menos del 1 por ciento de los votos, López Obrador ha atacado a las autoridades electorales.Luis Antonio Rojas para The New York TimesCórdova, quien fue nombrado por el Congreso de México, ha tomado protagonismo en su propia defensa, al responder directamente al presidente en un torrente de entrevistas en medios de comunicación y conferencias de prensa. “Es una estrategia política muy clara y evidente: vender al INE como una autoridad parcial, sesgada”, dijo Córdova en una entrevista, utilizando las siglas de la institución. “¿Cuál es nuestro dilema como autoridad?, ¿cómo manejamos esto? Si no decimos nada, públicamente, estamos convalidando el dicho del presidente”.Los críticos del presidente han aplaudido la disposición de Córdova a enfrentarlo. Pero algunos en México se preguntan si Córdova ha encontrado el equilibrio adecuado.“El tono del presidente del INE debe ser con más discreción y de no responder con tanta víscera y con tanto coraje”, dijo Luis Carlos Ugalde, quien dirigió la agencia de 2003 a 2007 , y añadió: “Genera que del otro lado, del lado de Morena, haya más ganas, más ganas de atacar, de destruir al instituto”.Córdova se mantuvo firme en su enfoque.“Es muy fácil juzgar desde fuera”, dijo Córdova. “Al que le ha tocado conducir esta institución en el peor momento he sido yo”.El mandato de Córdova termina en abril. El Congreso, controlado por el partido del presidente, elegirá a cuatro nuevos consejeros para el organismo electoral.Oscar Lopez More