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      Cherokees Ask U.S. to Make Good on a 187-Year-Old Promise, for a Start

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      The demand that Congress honor a treaty and seat a nonvoting delegate comes amid growing clashes over sovereignty and a tight race for Oklahoma’s governor, a Cherokee citizen.TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — In 1835, U.S. officials traveled to the Cherokee Nation’s capital in Georgia to sign a treaty forcing the Cherokees off their lands in the American South, opening them to white settlers. The Treaty of New Echota sent thousands on a death march to new lands in Oklahoma.The Cherokees were forced at gunpoint to honor the treaty. But though it stipulated that the Nation would be entitled to a nonvoting seat in the House of Representatives, Congress reneged on that part of the deal. Now, amid a growing movement across Indian Country for greater representation and sovereignty, the Cherokees are pushing to seat their delegate, 187 years later.“For nearly two centuries, Congress has failed to honor that promise,” Chuck Hoskin Jr., principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, said in a recent interview in the Cherokee capital of Tahlequah, in eastern Oklahoma. “It’s time to insist the United States keep its word.”The Cherokees and other tribal nations have made significant gains in recent decades, plowing income from sources like casino gambling into hospitals, meat-processing plants and lobbyists in Washington. At the same time, though, those tribes are seeing new threats to their efforts to govern themselves.A U.S. Supreme Court tilting hard to the right seems ready to undermine or reverse sovereignty rulings that were considered settled, while new state laws may affect how schools teach Native American history. And tribes are embroiled in a caustic feud with Oklahoma’s Republican governor — despite his distinction as the first Cherokee citizen to lead the state — that has helped to make his re-election bid next week a tossup.Amid such challenges, the Nation is trying to cobble together bipartisan support for its delegate, who, if seated, would resemble the nonvoting House members representing several territories and the District of Columbia. Such delegates cannot take part in final votes, but can introduce legislation and serve on committees.A new hospital for the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah. Many tribal nations are pouring income from sources like casino gambling into health care and other needs.Joseph Rushmore for The New York TimesKimberly Teehee, the Cherokee Nation’s nominated delegate for a nonvoting seat in Congress. She is a Democrat and former adviser to President Barack Obama.Joseph Rushmore for The New York TimesKimberly Teehee, nominated in 2019 for the delegate position, said the role would open a new space for Indigenous representation. “We have priorities that are similar to other tribes when it comes to deployment of dollars, accessing health care, public safety, preserving our culture,” Ms. Teehee said. “This treaty right allows us to have a seat at the table.”The Cherokee Nation has about 430,000 citizens, Ms. Teehee said, which is more than the combined population of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, all of which have their own delegates in Congress.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Governor’s Races: Democrats and Republicans are heading into the final stretch of more than a dozen competitive contests for governor. Some battleground races could also determine who controls the Senate.Democrats’ Mounting Anxiety: Top Democratic officials are openly second-guessing their party’s pitch and tactics, saying Democrats have failed to unite around one central message.Social Security and Medicare: Republicans, eyeing a midterms victory, are floating changes to the safety net programs. Democrats have seized on the proposals to galvanize voters.Debunking Misinformation: Falsehoods and rumors are flourishing ahead of Election Day, especially in Pennsylvania. We debunked five of the most widespread voting-related claims.So far, the Nation has drawn backing from Native American leaders across the country, as well as measured support from members of Oklahoma’s congressional delegation, including Representative Tom Cole, a Republican and member of the Chickasaw Nation.The House Rules Committee, led by Mr. Cole and Representative Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, is expected to hold a hearing on the Cherokee delegate in mid-November. Even if control of Congress changes in next week’s midterm elections, that could open the way for a vote before the end of the year.Tribal nations across the United States are closely following the debate, eyeing the possibility that it could set a precedent. The Choctaw Nation may also have the right to a delegate under the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek of 1830, signed before its removal from what is now Mississippi. Similarly, the Delaware Nation’s treaty with the United States in 1778 could allow its members a delegate.“I think you’ll see a significant outcry from the rest of Indian Country saying, ‘We want one, too,’” said M. Alexander Pearl, a law professor at the University of Oklahoma and a citizen of Chickasaw Nation. “And I think that they’re right.”Still, the Cherokees could face headwinds in the deeply divided House. Ms. Teehee is a Democrat and former adviser to President Barack Obama. A spokesman for Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the Cherokees’ effort.Mr. Cole, the Oklahoma Republican, has said that he doesn’t object to seating the delegate, but he also noted that “there’s a lot of challenges to it,” including the question of dual representation in the House.“There’s a lot of people that will say, ‘Well, that delegate’s chosen by a council, not by a general election,’” Mr. Cole said this year. “And Cherokees then get two votes: your vote for a council member and their vote for the congressman of their own district, so they sort of get to two bites of the apple.”Downtown Tahlequah on the Cherokee Reservation. The Cherokees were forced to march to Oklahoma after their land in the American South was signed over for use by white settlers.Joseph Rushmore for The New York TimesSeveral Cherokee leaders and representatives of the federal government celebrated the opening of a meat-processing plant in Tahlequah last month.Joseph Rushmore for The New York TimesA report by the Congressional Research Service raised other potential legal issues, including the possibility that the delegate provision would not apply now that Oklahoma is a state, not Indian Territory.The debate is lifting the veil on one of the most contentious periods between the United States and Indigenous peoples, when about a quarter of the 16,000 Cherokees who walked what’s known as the Trail of Tears died on their way to Oklahoma. “This is a chance to finally reckon with ethnic cleansing, and massive and catastrophic loss of life,” said Julie Reed, a historian and Cherokee Nation citizen who teaches at Penn State University.The push for a delegate after nearly two centuries also reflects the wider effort by Native Americans to exercise self-governance in ways that would have been unrecognizable to previous generations in Indian Country, a federal designation for land under tribal jurisdiction.Native candidates have recently won congressional seats in states ranging from Alaska to Kansas. Some tribes are buying back ancestral lands. And Indigenous nations are expanding their own criminal justice systems across the country.“The 1950s was the lowest point of Indian sovereignty,” said Robert J. Miller, a citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and a law professor at Arizona State University, citing the failed attempt by the U.S. government to disband tribes and relocate their members to cities. “The comeback has been incredible.”Such breakthroughs, however, are taking place against the backdrop of other challenges, including those before the Supreme Court. In one ruling in June that upended longstanding precedents, the justices expanded the power of state governments over tribal nations.The 5-4 ruling, which allows states to charge non-Indians for crimes committed against Indians on tribal land, stunned experts on Native American law and weakened a major decision from just two years before that had established the authority of tribal or federal courts on Indian land. (Tribal courts would retain authority over Native Americans who commit crimes on the reservation.)Another case set to be heard by the court this year, challenging a 1978 law giving Native Americans preference in adopting Native children, could be just as unsettling. The law was intended to put an end to policies allowing Native children to be forcibly taken from their homes and placed by child welfare agencies in non-Native homes.Plaintiffs, including the State of Texas, argue that the law created a system illegally based on race. But many tribal nations, including the Cherokees, have lined up against the challenge.New measures at the state level are also flaring tempers, including an Oklahoma law banning schools from teaching material that could cause students discomfort or psychological stress because of their race.Fourth graders studying at the Cherokee Immersion School. A lawsuit by teachers and civil rights advocates says that an Oklahoma law could limit the teaching of Native American history.Joseph Rushmore for The New York TimesChuck Hoskin Jr., principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, center, said it was “time to insist the United States keep its word” and seat a Cherokee delegate to Congress.Joseph Rushmore for The New York TimesGov. Kevin Stitt signed the law as part of a wave of legislation against “critical race theory,” a phrase used by conservative leaders to describe what they see as efforts to infiltrate classrooms with lessons about structural racism.A lawsuit by teachers and civil rights advocates warned that the law could silence classroom discussion about subjects like the Trail of Tears. And a high school English teacher in the town of Dewey, Okla., recently said she would stop teaching “Killers of the Flower Moon,” the best-selling book by David Grann about the murders of wealthy Osage people in the 1920s.Because the Osage were targeted for their race, the teacher told The Oklahoman that she was afraid of losing her license under the new law.Whitney Red Corn, a director of an early learning center and member of the Osage Nation Congress, said the law felt like “pushback” at a time when tribal nations were exercising rights. “It’s heartbreaking for me that something from our history could be avoided because it’s hard to hear,” said Ms. Red Corn, who took part in an Osage vote calling for the repeal of the law.One of the most bitter disputes of the moment involves Oklahoma’s largest tribes and Governor Stitt, a mortgage banker. After taking office, the governor proposed sharp increases in the fees that the tribes pay to operate more than 100 casinos around the state, prompting backlash.Mr. Hoskin, the Cherokee chief, said he expected a different approach from Mr. Stitt as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. (The New York Times and High Country News previously reported on claims that his citizenship may have been fraudulently obtained by an ancestor, which Mr. Stitt has called “unsubstantiated slander.”)Mr. Stitt has clashed repeatedly with Oklahoma’s tribes. In June, he celebrated the Supreme Court ruling diluting the authority of tribal nations. Donelle Harder, a spokeswoman for Mr. Stitt, declined to say directly whether he supported or objected to the efforts to seat a Cherokee delegate.Regarding Mr. Stitt’s relations with tribal nations, Ms. Harder said, “Governor Stitt has worked to create more fair opportunities for all sovereign nations and all people who call Oklahoma home.”Five of Oklahoma’s largest tribes have publicly endorsed Mr. Stitt’s rival, Joy Hofmeister, a former Republican who switched parties last year. Recent polls in the heavily Republican state have shown the race in a dead heat.Mr. Hoskin called the clash with Mr. Stitt a crucial factor in the Cherokee efforts to bolster sovereignty: “I think he’s the most anti-Indian tribe governor in the history of this state.”Emily Cochrane More

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      We Are Very Far From Turning the Page on Trump

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      It’s often said that hindsight is 20/20. As far as politics goes, I’ve never believed it. Much punditry relies on what I’ve come to think of as the counterfactual fallacy. It goes like this: The party in power did X rather than Y. X didn’t work out as well as Democrats or Republicans hoped. They clearly should have done Y.We only get to run the tape once. We can never know if different decisions would have nudged us toward a better world or returned yet worse outcomes. But elections force an assessment of how the party in power has performed, despite the unknowability of other paths. And so, with Election Day nearing and voting underway all over America, I’ve been trying to work through my own answer to the question: How well did the Democrats do with the power they had, given the constraints they faced?I find it useful to think back to the three interlocking promises Democrats ran on. First and foremost, they ran on bringing competent, concerned governance to Covid. Second, they ran on a Franklin Roosevelt-size legislative agenda, believing this a Great Depression-like moment of rupture that demanded a new vision of what the state could and must do. And they ran vowing to restore the soul of America, to reestablish a civic promise and communal decency that Donald Trump and the Republican Party never understood and regularly betrayed.The Covid record is more mixed than I wish. Judged by what was promised in 2020, the Biden administration made remarkable strides. About 80 percent of Americans have had at least one vaccination, and anyone, anywhere in the country, can get shots and boosters with little effort and at no cost. Rapid tests rolled out slowly, but they are here now, and for a while the government would send them, free, to your door. The U.S. government bought up more Paxlovid than any other country in the world, and it is now widely available. Masks are cheap and plentiful.But judging by what was possible by 2022, even four of President Biden’s former Covid advisers wrote in The Times that they “are deeply dismayed by what has been left undone.” The shift from emergency response to a new architecture for preparedness never came. At-home testing was never integrated into any kind of collective policy or even data reporting system. The funding for the government to provide tests directly lapsed, with little protest from the White House. Wastewater monitoring “remains limited, uncoordinated and insufficiently standardized for a robust national surveillance system,” Biden’s former advisers wrote. So much more could have been done to improve indoor air quality and to make it clear which buildings meet the higher standards.After I criticized the Biden administration for failing to build on the successes of the Operation Warp Speed program, I heard from its Covid coordinator, Ashish Jha, that the White House was pushing Congress for $8 billion to create a Warp Speed-like program called Covid Shield for next-generation vaccines. But that push was quiet, and the administration committed itself to a bipartisan path that never opened. When Congress failed to provide the money, the administration never went public, much less turned to hardball measures. Biden could have refused to sign spending bills that didn’t include the Covid preparedness money he sought. Democrats should have made this a must-pass provision of the Inflation Reduction Act; as the past few years have proved, little is worse for inflation than a raging pandemic.The White House understands all of this. Jha is out there, even now, raising the alarm that current treatments are losing efficacy and future variants might evade them more easily. “Lack of congressional funding has made it difficult for us to replenish our medicine cabinet,” he said on Wednesday. “Because of a lack of congressional funding, the medicine cabinet has actually shrunk, and that does put vulnerable people at risk.” Republicans deserve scorn for refusing to fund pandemic preparedness. But Democrats deserve blame for letting it sink to one priority among many.To be fair, there’s been much else on the Democrats’ agenda. The central tension of Biden’s legislative strategy is that it paired ambitions of astonishing scale with congressional majorities that barely existed. The Senate, in a technical sense, saw no majority at all: It’s a 50-50 split, and Democrats carry votes only because Vice President Kamala Harris has the constitutional authority to break ties. It is remarkable how much Democrats have done, even so.There were two sides to Biden’s long-term agenda: construction and care. The construction side — decarbonizing the country, building and repairing infrastructure, and investing in semiconductor production and scientific research — largely passed. And much of what passed is thrilling.Trump was much mocked for infrastructure weeks that almost never resulted in new infrastructure. Biden and the Democrats have set the conditions for an infrastructure decade that could transform what America makes and how it’s made. And to my surprise, Biden has put invention at the center of his policymaking, and while we cannot yet know what fruits that will bear, it may prove his most lasting legacy.But the care side of Biden’s agenda — universal pre-K, the expanded child tax credit, subsidies for child and elder care, paid leave — collapsed almost entirely (the sole exception being an increase to the subsidies under Obamacare). Was that inevitable?This is murky territory, given the contradictory accounts that Biden and Senator Joe Manchin have given of their negotiations. Was there truly a $1.8 trillion Build Back Better package that Manchin would have voted for? The Biden team thought they had a deal. Manchin says they never did. And at the end of the day, no one forced Manchin to decide child care wasn’t worth doing and child poverty wasn’t worth reducing. That so many in the Senate care so much for bridges and so little for bodies is a scandal.Still, if you’d told me in 2020 that the next Democratic president would have a 50-50 Senate, with Manchin as the hinge vote, and a House margin of just a handful of members, I would not have predicted that the Democrats could pass more than $400 billion in climate investments or significant corporate tax increases or the most important infusion of cash and capital into scientific research in a generation.Three criticisms are worth airing. One is that Democrats could have gotten more of the care agenda passed by refusing to allow a separate vote on the infrastructure bill. The Biden administration believes now, and believed then, that it didn’t have the votes to tie the two together. That strategy ran an unacceptable risk of nothing passing. Given that Manchin proved perfectly willing to kill huge swaths of Biden’s agenda and let the administration twist in the wind for month after month, I suspect they’re right. But there’s no way to truly know.Another is that the American Rescue Plan was too large, and however well meaning the intentions behind it were, it was a handmaiden to inflation. I think the Biden administration erred on the right side of the ledger here. Unemployment is 3.5 percent. Workers got raises and stimulus checks. Poverty fell — sharply. The unemployed weren’t forced into indigency. All of this is easy to dismiss now, but none of it was guaranteed. And with inflation running at 10 percent in Germany and Britain and 7 percent in Canada, I’m skeptical of explanations that make one piece of legislation passed in one country too central to the story.I think the case is stronger that the Fed should’ve raised interest rates earlier and that Biden and the Democrats should’ve undershot economic support in the teeth of a pandemic that had frozen the global economy. Perhaps the rescue plan should’ve been built with more automatic stabilizers so aid rose as unemployment rose and vanished more quickly if it fell. But that’s true in every economic downturn, and for reasons I don’t fully understand, Congress refuses to learn that lesson.That leaves a criticism that I think is fairer: The Biden administration and congressional Democrats have had a the-more-the-merrier approach to every piece of legislation they’ve pushed. One reason the expanded child tax credit expired quickly was that the rescue plan was stuffed with so many policies, all of which needed funding. One reason Build Back Better was hard to defend was that so much was jammed into the package that the main thing anyone knew about it was its $3.5 trillion price tag. The push for a package of democracy reforms was similarly unfocused. It included virtually everything anyone who was worried about voting rights or campaign financing could think of and yet would have done little to block the kind of electoral subversion that Trump and his supporters attempted in 2020 and appear to be gathering forces to attempt again in 2024.Even when cornered, the Democrats kept trying to resist prioritization: Manchin said at the time that the White House lost his vote on Build Back Better by trying to keep the package intact and simply letting the policies expire earlier, in the hopes that they’d be extended en masse. He saw it as a gimmick that brought down the bill’s price tag without bringing down its long-term cost, and he abandoned the process.Whether that’s truly what motivated Manchin is debatable. What’s not debatable is that Democrats ran a very loose policy process. Compared with past administrations and Congresses I’ve covered, it felt as if Democratic leaders said yes to almost everything. Perhaps Democrats simply did not want to negotiate among themselves, knowing that Manchin or Senator Kyrsten Sinema or the Republicans would cull on their behalf. But the result was many policies that were poorly or opaquely constructed and packages that were hard to explain or defend.Biden always framed 2020 as a fight for America’s soul, not just its steering wheel. This is harder to assess. I’ve never believed he thought he could knit together a divided nation. He’s an optimist but not a fantasist. On a more literal level, he’s done what he promised — he has run a low-drama, low-scandal White House and comported himself with dignity and grace.But Biden has also run a relatively quiet administration. He gives comparatively few interviews, news conferences and speeches. He has filled the office Trump vacated but not the space Trump took up in the national conversation. I have argued that Biden’s laid-back approach is, in some ways, a strategy: By letting Trump and his successors fill the airwaves, Biden and the Democrats remind their voters what’s at stake. But this strategy runs deep risks. Biden’s low-drama approach to leadership leaves room for Trump’s high-drama antics.Politics has not moved on from Trump, in ways that it might have under a president who created new political cleavages and alignments. Biden has not been a strong enough communicator or presence to make Trump seem irrelevant. To make this more concrete: I wonder whether Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren could have won in 2020. But if one of them had, I suspect politics would have reorganized around their concerns and conflicts and Trump would seem a more passé figure. I worry that Biden thinks too much about America’s soul and not enough about its attention.What can be said, I think, is this: Biden and the Democrats got a lot done, despite very slim majorities. They rolled out vaccines and therapeutics nationwide but we remain far from finishing the job on pandemic preparedness. They have run the government in a dignified, decent way, but we remain far from turning the page on Trump.Next week, I’ll take a closer look at what Republicans are promising to do if they are given the power to do it. Because these elections are more than just a referendum. They are a choice.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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      Las encuestas electorales en Brasil se equivocaron, y ahora Bolsonaro quiere penalizar a las que fallen

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      El presidente Jair Bolsonaro y los legisladores conservadores de Brasil quieren ilegalizar la publicación de encuestas que no coinciden con los resultados de las elecciones.BRASILIA — Este mes se celebró la primera vuelta de las elecciones en Brasil, que han sido observadas con detenimiento, y las encuestas mostraron un pronóstico errado porque subestimaron el apoyo con el que cuenta el presidente en funciones, Jair Bolsonaro, un líder de extrema derecha, y otros candidatos conservadores de todo el país.Muchos integrantes de la derecha se pusieron furiosos y criticaron las encuestas por estar desconectadas del electorado brasileño.Esa reacción no fue ninguna sorpresa. Lo que pasó después, sí lo fue.A instancias de Bolsonaro, algunos líderes políticos brasileños ahora buscan tipificar como delito las predicciones incorrectas de una elección.La Cámara de Diputados de Brasil ha acelerado un proyecto de ley que penalizaría la publicación de una encuesta que luego se compruebe que estuvo fuera de su margen de error. Se prevé que la Cámara Baja, controlada por aliados de Bolsonaro, vote para aprobar la medida en los próximos días.El contenido y destino finales de la propuesta de ley aún no están claros. Los líderes legislativos han insinuado que podrían cambiar algunos aspectos de la legislación, y las posibilidades de que se apruebe en el Senado, donde los oponentes a Bolsonaro son mayoría, parecen mucho menos certeras.Sin embargo, independientemente del futuro de esa propuesta, tanto ese proyecto como otras iniciativas para investigar a las encuestadoras por sus recientes errores de cálculo forman parte de una narrativa más amplia, sin evidencias, promovida por Bolsonaro y sus aliados, según la cual la clase política y la izquierda de Brasil tratan de amañar las elecciones en su contra.Mientras Brasil se prepara para votar en la segunda vuelta de las elecciones presidenciales el 30 de octubre, las encuestas siguen mostrando que Bolsonaro está rezagado detrás de su rival de izquierda, el expresidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, aunque la contienda luce cada vez más cerrada.Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva celebrando los resultados de la primera vuelta de las elecciones en São Paulo, a principios de este mes.Victor Moriyama para The New York TimesPor su parte, Bolsonaro optó por tildar a las empresas encuestadoras de “mentirosas” y denunciar que sus errores cambiaron hasta tres millones de votos a favor de Da Silva en la primera ronda electoral, y ha abogado para que las firmas enfrenten consecuencias. “No es por haberse equivocado, ¿OK? Una cosa es cometer un error”, puntualizó. “Es por los delitos que cometieron”.Bolsonaro no ha aclarado qué delitos considera que se cometieron.La Asociación Brasileña de Empresas Encuestadoras declaró en un comunicado que estaba “ofendida” por los intentos de criminalizar las encuestas que arrojan pronósticos equivocados.“Iniciar este tipo de investigación durante el periodo de campaña para la segunda vuelta electoral, cuando las encuestadoras están realizando su trabajo, demuestra otro intento flagrante de obstruir la investigación científica”, aseveró el grupo.Las firmas encuestadoras agregaron que su trabajo no era predecir elecciones, sino brindar un panorama general de las intenciones de los electores en el momento en que se realiza una encuesta.El proyecto de ley en el Congreso no es el único recurso que se ha entablado contra las encuestadoras. A petición de la campaña de Bolsonaro, el ministro de Justicia y Seguridad Pública de Brasil le ordenó a la policía federal que abriera una investigación contra las encuestadoras por los sondeos que realizaron antes de la primera ronda electoral. Además, la agencia federal antimonopolio de Brasil inició sus propias pesquisas sobre las principales instituciones encuestadoras de la nación por posible colusión.Alexandre de Moraes, juez del Supremo Tribunal Federal y director del tribunal electoral del país, no tardó en ordenar la suspensión de ambas investigaciones, tras señalar que carecían de jurisdicción y parecían cumplir las órdenes políticas del presidente. A su vez, Moraes le ordenó al tribunal electoral de Brasil investigar si Bolsonaro trataba de usar de manera indebida el poder que tiene sobre las agencias federales.En este último año, Moraes se ha posicionado como el principal contrapeso al poder de Bolsonaro, lo cual le ha valido algunas críticas por medidas que, según expertos en derecho y gobernanza, representan un giro represivo para el máximo tribunal de Brasil.Entre otras decisiones, Moraes encarceló a cinco personas sin juicio previo por hacer publicaciones en redes sociales que él consideró que eran ataques contra las instituciones brasileñas. El 20 de octubre, los funcionarios electorales ampliaron aún más su poder al otorgarle la autoridad unilateral para suspender las plataformas de redes sociales en Brasil que no obedecieran de inmediato sus órdenes de eliminar la desinformación.Alexandre de Moraes en Brasilia antes de la primera vuelta de las elecciones, a principios de este mes.Dado Galdieri para The New York TimesMoraes y el Senado del país parecen estar listos para proteger a las encuestadoras de las medidas en contra de sus sondeos.Sin embargo, las acusaciones reiteradas de que las encuestadoras son corruptas podrían socavar aún más su capacidad para brindar la mejor estimación posible de la opinión pública. Algunos de los asesores principales de Bolsonaro han hecho un llamado para que sus partidarios ignoren a los encuestadores con el fin de sabotear los resultados.“¡¡¡No le respondan a ninguno de ellos hasta el final de la elección!!! Así será seguro desde el principio que cualesquiera de sus resultados son fraudulentos”, escribió Ciro Nogueira, el jefe de gabinete de Bolsonaro, en su cuenta de Twitter. “¿Fue un delito su absurdo error? Solo una investigación profunda lo determinará”.Las firmas encuestadoras más importantes habían pronosticado que Bolsonaro recibiría alrededor de un 36 por ciento del voto en la primera ronda electoral. Recibió un 43,2 por ciento, una brecha de siete puntos porcentuales fuera del margen de error de prácticamente todas las encuestadoras.Sus pronósticos fueron aún peores en muchas contiendas por cargos de menor relieve. En Río de Janeiro, los sondeos mostraron que el candidato conservador a gobernador llevaba una ventaja de unos nueve puntos porcentuales. En cambio, ganó por 31 puntos.En São Paulo, algunas encuestas mostraron que un candidato de izquierda que aspira a llegar al Senado llevaba una delantera de 14 puntos porcentuales frente a su oponente antes de la primera ronda de elecciones. En cambio, un candidato de derecha ganó por casi el mismo margen, una diferencia de 28 puntos porcentuales de lo que predijeron los sondeos previos a la elección.Las empresas encuestadoras han atribuido sus pronósticos fallidos a una variedad de factores, entre ellos los datos obsoletos del censo, los cuales minaron su capacidad de encuestar a una muestra estadísticamente representativa de electores. Esas firmas mencionaron que sus encuestas también fueron deficientes porque una ola de votantes más grande de lo esperado cambió su voto para apoyar a Bolsonaro en el último minuto.Algunas encuestadoras también comentaron que creían que muchos electores conservadores no estuvieron dispuestos a responder sus encuestas.La proporción de votantes de mayor edad excedió por mucho sus expectativas, tal vez debido a un anuncio que hizo el gobierno este año de que votar era una nueva manera de dar fe de vida y mantener activos sus beneficios de jubilación. Las encuestas en la víspera de las elecciones mostraron que los electores mayores apoyaban a Bolsonaro más que a Da Silva.Brasil está lejos de ser el único país donde las encuestas luchan por dar una imagen precisa del electorado, particularmente la fuerza del apoyo conservador.En 2016, las encuestas en Estados Unidos no pronosticaron con precisión el apoyo a Donald Trump, y las empresas dieron razones similares para el error, incluido que algunos votantes de derecha no estaban dispuestos a responder las encuestas.El presidente Jair Bolsonaro, en São Paulo, a principios de este mes.Victor Moriyama para The New York TimesLa credibilidad de las empresas de encuestas en Brasil se vio afectada después de la primera vuelta de las elecciones, y algunos periodistas se han mostrado reacios para compartir las encuestas antes de la segunda vuelta del domingo.Ricardo Barros, un congresista conservador que está ayudando a impulsar el proyecto de ley para criminalizar las encuestas defectuosas, dijo que la legislación obligaría a las empresas encuestadoras a ser más cuidadosas con sus resultados. Según la ley propuesta, solo las encuestas que se equivocan fuera de su margen de error enfrentarían responsabilidad.“Si no están seguros del resultado, usen un margen de error del 10 por ciento”, dijo. “Pierden credibilidad, pero no desinforman a los votantes. El problema es que hoy en día siempre se presentan como una verdad absoluta”.Los legisladores tanto de la Cámara como del Senado también han reunido suficientes firmas para abrir investigaciones en el Congreso sobre las firmas de encuestas, aunque se espera que el líder del Senado tome medidas para bloquear la investigación.Alexandre Cordeiro Macedo, director de la agencia federal antimonopolio de Brasil que fue designado por Bolsonaro, trató de ir más allá que Barros al señalar la supuesta responsabilidad de las firmas de encuestas.Antes de que Moraes interviniera y detuviera la investigación, Cordeiro Macedo acusó a las principales encuestadoras de colusión basándose en lo que calificó como la improbabilidad estadística de que todas hubieran subestimado el apoyo de Bolsonaro por un margen tan significativo. Afirmó que el escenario era tan probable como ganar la lotería varias veces.Pero Alexandre Patriota, profesor de estadística en la Universidad de São Paulo, lo cuestionó y dijo que probar la colusión basada únicamente en esa única medida sería casi imposible.“Incluso si todos los institutos se equivocaron de la misma manera, eso no es una prueba de colusión”, dijo. “Para tener un toque de malicia, necesitas algo más que números”.Jack Nicas es el jefe de la corresponsalía del Times en Brasil, que abarca Brasil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay y Uruguay. Antes cubría tecnología desde San Francisco. Antes de unirse al Times, en 2018, trabajó durante siete años en The Wall Street Journal. @jacknicas • Facebook More

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      The John Fetterman-Mehmet Oz Debate: The Midterms in Miniature

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      Let’s imagine that someone wanted to design a debate scenario that captured the high-stakes, uncertain, migraine-inducing essence of this freaky election cycle. (Don’t ask me why. Politics makes people do weird stuff some times.) The final result could easily wind up looking an awful lot like the Senate showdown in Pennsylvania on Tuesday night between John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz.Here we are, two weeks out from Election Day, with Pennsylvania among a smattering of states set to determine which party controls the Senate. For various reasons, Pennsylvanians have had limited opportunities to take an extended measure of the candidates. With the race now tighter than a bad face lift, this debate may be the candidates’ last big chance for a breakout performance — or a catastrophic belly flop. Rarely have so many expectations been heaped onto one measly debate.Consider the stark contrast between the candidates’ core brands. On the Republican side, there’s Dr. Oz: a rich, natty, carpetbagging TV celebrity with a smooth-as-goose-poop manner and Mephistophelean eyebrows. Mr. Fetterman, the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor, is 6-foot-8 and beefy, with tats, a goatee and the sartorial flair of a high school gym teacher — an anti-establishment, regular-Joe type better known for his trash-tweeting than for his oratorical prowess.Hovering over this hourlong prime-time matchup are questions about Mr. Fetterman’s health. He suffered a stroke in May that has left him with auditory processing issues, and he will rely on a closed captioning system in the debate. Voters can be unforgiving — and the opposition ruthless — about verbal stumbling. (Just ask President Biden.) And the closed captioning technology Mr. Fetterman uses can lead to lags between questions being asked and answered.Already there has been chatter about his performance on the stump. This month, an NBC reporter said that, in a pre-interview sit-down, Mr. Fetterman seemed to be having trouble understanding her. Republicans have accused him of lying about the severity of his condition and suggested he is not up to the job. A major blunder on the debate stage, or even the general sense that Mr. Fetterman is struggling, could prove devastating.On the other hand … Dr. Oz and his team have mocked Mr. Fetterman’s medical travails — which seems like a particularly jerky move for a medical professional. This may tickle the Republican base but risks alienating less partisan voters. In appealing to a general-election audience, Dr. Oz will need a better bedside manner to avoid coming across as a callous, supercilious jackass.And here’s where the dynamic gets really tense: After much back-and-forth between the campaigns, Mr. Fetterman agreed to only a single debate, pushed to this late date on the campaign calendar. There are no second chances on the agenda, and precious little time to recover if something goes sideways for either candidate.While the particulars of the Pennsylvania race are unusual, the minimalist approach to debating is ascendant. For the past decade, the number of debates in competitive races has been on a downward slide, and they appear headed the way of floppy disks and fax machines. This election season, barring unforeseen developments, the major Senate contenders in Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina and Florida, as in Pennsylvania, will face off only once — which is once more than those in Nevada, where debates seem to be off the table altogether. Likewise, the Republican and Democratic candidates in Missouri have yet to agree on conditions for appearing together.This trend is not limited to the Senate. Several candidates for governor have so far opted to shun debates. And starting with the 2024 presidential election, the Republican National Committee has voted to keep its candidates out of events hosted by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates unless it overhauls its rules for how the debates are conducted, including when they are held and who can be a moderator. Even if the committee eventually backtracks (which seems likely), its threat emphasizes just how far debates have fallen.This is a not-so-great development for a democracy already under strain.Once upon a time, candidates felt obligated to participate in debates. But as campaigning increasingly take place inside partisan bubbles, and the ways to directly communicate with voters proliferate, the contenders have become less inclined to brave this arena. Why endure intense, prolonged, unscripted scrutiny when it is so much less stressful to post on social media? Increasingly, campaigns are deciding these showdowns simply aren’t worth the work or the risk involved.But this misses the point. Debates aren’t supposed to be conducted for the electoral advantage of the candidates. They are meant to benefit the voting public. Debates require political opponents to engage face-to-face. They give voters an opportunity to watch the candidates define and defend their priorities and visions beyond the length of a tweet or an Instagram post. They are one of the few remaining political forums that focus on ideas. They contribute to an informed citizenry. Failure to achieve these aims suggests that the practice should be reformed, not abandoned.Admittedly, this seems like wishful thinking as members of both parties grow more comfortable with ducking debates. Republicans in particular are conditioning their supporters to believe that such matchups, and the journalists who typically run them, are biased against them.Those who view debates as some combination of boring, artificial and pointless will probably cheer their decline. (I feel your pain. I really do.) But the loss of this ritual is another troubling sign of our political times, and of a democracy at risk of sliding farther into crisis as its underpinnings are being steadily eroded.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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      Brazil’s Polls Were Wrong. Now the Right Wants to Criminalize Them.

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      President Jair Bolsonaro and conservative lawmakers in Brazil are trying to make it illegal to publish polls that later do not match the election results.BRASÍLIA — In the first round of Brazil’s closely watched elections this month, the polls were off the mark. They significantly underestimated the support for the far-right incumbent, President Jair Bolsonaro, and other conservative candidates across the country.Many on the right were furious, criticizing the pollsters as out of touch with the Brazilian electorate.That response was expected. What happened next was not.At the urging of Mr. Bolsonaro, some of Brazil’s leaders are now trying to make it a crime to incorrectly forecast an election.Brazil’s House of Representatives has fast-tracked a bill that would criminalize publishing a poll that is later shown to fall outside its margin of error. The House, which is controlled by Mr. Bolsonaro’s allies, is expected to vote and pass the measure in the coming days.The bill’s final shape and fate is unclear. House leaders have suggested they may soften the legislation, and its prospects in the Senate, where opponents of Mr. Bolsonaro are in the majority, appear far less certain.Still, whatever the measure’s fate, the proposal and other efforts to investigate pollsters for their recent miscalculations are part of a broader narrative pushed by Mr. Bolsonaro and his allies, without evidence, that Brazil’s political establishment and the left are trying to rig the election against him.As Brazil prepares to vote in a presidential runoff on Oct. 30, the surveys continue to show Mr. Bolsonaro trailing his left-wing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former president, though the race seems to be tightening.Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva celebrating the results of the first round of elections in São Paulo earlier this month.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesFor his part, Mr. Bolsonaro has taken to calling the polling firms “liars,” claimed that their mistakes swung up to three million votes to Mr. da Silva in the first round, and has advocated for the firms to face consequences. “Not for getting it wrong, OK? An error is one thing,” he said. “It’s for the crimes they committed.”He has not said what crimes he believes were committed.The Brazilian Association of Pollsters said in a statement that it was “outraged” at the attempts to criminalize surveys that turn out to be inaccurate.“Starting this type of investigation during the runoff campaign period, when the polling companies are carrying out their work, demonstrates another clear attempt to impede scientific research,” the group said.Polling firms added that their work was not to predict elections, but to provide a snapshot of voters’ intentions at the time a survey is conducted.The bill in Congress is not the only effort to target pollsters. Following a request from Mr. Bolsonaro’s campaign, Brazil’s justice minister ordered the federal police to open an investigation into polling firms over their surveys before the first election round. And Brazil’s federal antitrust agency opened its own inquiry into some of the nation’s top polling institutions for possible collusion.Alexandre de Moraes, a Supreme Court justice and Brazil’s elections chief, quickly ordered both of those investigations halted, saying that they lacked jurisdiction and that they appeared to be doing the president’s political bidding. In turn, Mr. Moraes ordered Brazil’s election agency to investigate whether Mr. Bolsonaro was trying to use his power over federal agencies inappropriately.Mr. Moraes has emerged as the top check on Mr. Bolsonaro’s power over the past year, drawing criticism at times for measures that, according to experts in law and government, represent a repressive turn for Brazil’s top court.Among other moves, he has jailed five people without a trial for posts on social media that he said attacked Brazil’s institutions. On Thursday, election officials further expanded his power by giving him unilateral authority to suspend social media platforms in Brazil that do not quickly comply with his orders to remove misinformation.Alexandre de Moraes in Brasília before the first round of elections earlier this month.Dado Galdieri for The New York TimesMr. Moraes and Brazil’s Senate appear poised to protect polling firms from measures that target their surveys.Yet repeated claims that pollsters are corrupt could further weaken their ability to provide the best possible gauge of public opinion. Some of Mr. Bolsonaro’s top advisers have urged his supporters to ignore survey takers in order to sabotage their results.“Do not respond to any of them until the end of the election!!! That way, it’ll be certain from the start that any of their results are fraudulent,” Ciro Nogueira, Mr. Bolsonaro’s chief of staff, wrote on Twitter. “Was their absurd screw-up criminal? Only a deep investigation will tell.”The top polling firms had forecast that Mr. Bolsonaro would receive roughly 36 percent of the vote in the first round. He received 43.2 percent, a seven-point gap that was outside virtually all polls’ margins of error.Their performance was even worse in many down-ballot races. In Rio de Janeiro, the polls showed that the conservative candidate for governor was ahead by about 9 percentage points. Instead, he won by 31 points.In São Paulo, some polls showed that a left-wing candidate for Senate was ahead of his opponent by 14 percentage points heading into the first election round. Instead, a right-wing candidate won by nearly that same margin — a swing of 28 percentage points from what the pre-election polls had found.The polling firms have blamed a variety of factors for their flawed forecasts, including outdated census data that hampered their ability to survey a statistically representative sample of voters. The firms said their polls were also undercut because a larger-than-expected wave of voters switched their ballots to Mr. Bolsonaro from third-party candidates at the last minute.Some polling firms also said they believed that many conservative voters were unwilling to answer their surveys.The share of older voters far exceeded expectations, potentially because of a government announcement this year that voting was a new way to establish proof of life and keep retirement benefits active. Polls on the eve of the election showed that older voters supported Mr. Bolsonaro over Mr. da Silva.Brazil is far from the only country where polls struggle to give an accurate picture of the electorate, particularly the strength of conservative support.In 2016, polls in the United States did not accurately forecast the support for Donald J. Trump, and the firms gave similar reasons for the miss, including that some right-wing voters were unwilling to answer surveys.President Jair Bolsonaro in São Paulo earlier this month.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesThe credibility of Brazil’s polling firms was damaged after the election’s first round, and some journalists have become more hesitant to share surveys ahead of Sunday’s runoff.Ricardo Barros, a conservative congressman who is helping to push the bill to criminalize faulty polls, said the legislation would force polling companies to be more careful with their findings. Under the proposed law, only polls that err outside their margin of error would face liability.“If you’re not sure of the outcome, then place a margin of error of 10 percent,” he said. “It loses credibility, but it doesn’t misinform voters. The problem is that today it’s always being presented as an absolute truth.”Lawmakers in both the House and Senate have also gathered enough signatures to open congressional investigations into the polling firms, although the leader of the Senate is expected to move to block that chamber’s investigation.Alexandre Cordeiro Macedo, the head of Brazil’s federal antitrust agency and an appointee of Mr. Bolsonaro, tried to go further than Mr. Barros in taking aim at polling firms.Before Mr. Moraes intervened and stopped the inquiry, Mr. Cordeiro Macedo had accused top polling companies of collusion based on what he said was the statistical improbability that they all had underestimated Mr. Bolsonaro’s support by such a significant margin. He claimed that the scenario was about as likely as winning the lottery several times.But Alexandre Patriota, a statistics professor at the University of São Paulo, disputed that, saying proving collusion based solely on that single measure would be nearly impossible.“Even if all the institutes got it wrong in the same way, this is not an indication of a cartel,” he said. “To have a hint of malice, you need something more than numbers.” More

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      Politician, Thy Name Is Hypocrite

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      What’s worse — politicians passing a bad law or politicians passing a bad law while attempting to make it look reasonable with meaningless window dressing?You wind up in the same place, but I’ve gotta go with the jerks who pretend.Let’s take, oh, I don’t know, abortion. Sure, lawmakers who vote to ban it know they’re imposing some voters’ religious beliefs on the whole nation. But maybe they can make it look kinda fair.For instance Mark Ronchetti, who’s running for governor in New Mexico, was “strongly pro-life” until the uproar following the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe. Now, his campaign website says he’s looking for a “middle ground” that would allow abortions “in cases involving rape, incest and when a mother’s life is at risk.”That’s a very popular spin. The public’s rejection of the court’s ruling, plus the stunning vote for abortion rights in a recent statewide referendum in Kansas, has left politicians looking for some way to dodge the anti-choice label. Without, um, actually changing. “I am pro-life, and make no apologies for that. But I also understand that this is a representative democracy,” said Tim Michels, a Republican candidate for Wisconsin governor, when he embraced the rape-and-incest dodge.Mehmet Oz, who’s running for Senate in Pennsylvania, used to support abortion access back when he wanted the world to call him “Dr. Oz.” But now that his day job is being a conservative Republican, he’s “100 percent pro-life.” Nevertheless, he still feels there should be an exception for cases of … rape and incest.We’ve come a long — OK, we’ve come at least a little way from the time, a decade ago, when Todd Akin, the Republican Senate candidate in Missouri, argued it was impossible for a woman to get pregnant from “legitimate rape.” And Akin did lose that race.The backtracking can get pretty creative — or desperate, depending on your perspective. In New Hampshire, Don Bolduc, who’s running for the Senate, was strongly anti-choice before he won the Republican primary. (“Killing babies is unbelievably irresponsible.”)Now, Bolduc the nominee feels a federal abortion ban “doesn’t make sense” and complains that he’s not getting the proper respect for his position. Which is that it’s a state issue. And that his opponent, Senator Maggie Hassan, should “get over it.”These days, it’s hard to sell an across-the-board rule that doesn’t take victims of forced sex into account. In Ohio recently, Senate candidate J.D. Vance tried to stick to his anti-abortion guns, but did back down a smidge when questioned about whether that 10-year-old Ohio rape victim who was taken out of state for an abortion should have been forced to have a baby.And then Vance quickly changed the subject, pointing out that the man accused of raping her was an “illegal alien.” This is an excellent reminder that in this election season there is virtually no problem that Republicans can’t find a way of connecting to the Mexican border.As sympathetic as all rape victims are, the exemption rule would not have much impact. No one knows exactly what proportion of pregnancies are caused by rape and incest, but the number “looks very, very small,” Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute told me.And what about, say, a young woman who’s already a teenage mother, working the night shift at a fast-food outlet, whose boyfriend’s condom failed? No suggestion for any special mercy there. You can’t help thinking the big difference is a desire to punish any woman who wanted to have sex.Another popular method of dodging the abortion issue is fiddling with timelines. Blake Masters, the ever-fascinating Arizona Senate candidate, originally opposed abortion from the moment of conception. (“I think it’s demonic.”) Now his revamped website just calls for a national ban once a woman is six months pregnant.And we will stop here very, very briefly to mention that the number of six-month abortions is infinitesimal.Whenever this issue comes up, I remember my school days, which involved Catholic education from kindergarten through college. Wonderful world in many ways, but there wasn’t much concern about keeping religion out of public policy. Especially when it came to abortion. Any attempt to stop the pregnancy from the moment of conception on was murder.That’s still Catholic dogma, you know. Politicians who think they can dodge the issue with their rape-and-incest exceptions appear to ignore the fact that as the church sees it, an embryo that’s the product of a rape still counts as worthy of protection.It took me quite a while to get my head around the abortion issue and I have sympathy for people who have strong religious opposition to ending a pregnancy.Some folks who hold to that dogma try to encourage pregnant women to have their babies by providing counseling, financial support and adoption services, all of which is great as long as the woman in question isn’t being forced to join the program.But anti-abortion laws are basically an attempt to impose one group’s religion on the country as a whole. It’s flat-out unconstitutional, no matter how Justice Samuel Alito feels.And the rape-or-incest exception isn’t humanitarian. It’s a meaningless rhetorical ploy intended to allow politicians to have it both ways.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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      Should Candidates Be Transparent About Their Health?

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      More from our inbox:Revised Drone RulesLiving in Political FearPreparing for Future PandemicsHow Fossil Fuel Donations Sway Climate PoliticsLt. Gov. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania greets supporters following a Senate campaign rally.Kriston Jae Bethel/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Candidates Must Disclose Medical Issues,” by Lawrence K. Altman (Opinion guest essay, Sept. 30):Dr. Altman correctly calls for the full disclosure of medical issues by major candidates, especially presidential. He has championed this cause for years, but his voice has gone unheeded.The most famous candidate health cover-up was J.F.K.’s adrenal insufficiency, Addison’s disease. But John McCain’s recurrent melanoma, Bill Bradley’s atrial fibrillation, Joe Biden’s cerebral aneurysm in his 1988 campaign and Bernie Sanders’s significant coronary disease requiring a stent were all either downplayed or denied.The most egregious example of health misrepresentation was in 1992, when Paul Tsongas and his physicians declared he was cured of his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma when he was not. If he had been elected president rather than Bill Clinton, he would have required ongoing cancer treatments while in office, which would have compromised his ability to fulfill his duties. He died on Jan. 18, 1997.With the likelihood of one or more candidates over 75 running for president in 2024, the case for full medical disclosure is more compelling than ever. The country would be well served to remember the advice given by William Safire in 1987, when he wrote, “The president’s body is not wholly his own; that is why we go to such lengths to protect it.”Kevin R. LoughlinBostonThe writer is a retired urologic surgeon and a professor emeritus at Harvard Medical School.To the Editor:I would like to respectfully disagree that candidates owe their voters full medical transparency. Confidentiality of medical records exists for good reason, and to throw it away — citing confusion over John Fetterman’s health in the Pennsylvania Senate campaign — is the wrong approach.For example: Does a female candidate owe it to voters to reveal whether she has ever had an abortion? Some would argue yes, she should. I would argue that it’s none of the voters’ business.What else should a candidate reveal? Therapist’s notes? Past substance use?A real-life example is Thomas Eagleton, who was tapped to be George McGovern’s running mate in 1972 until it was revealed that he had undergone electroshock therapy for depression 12 years earlier. Because of this, he was dropped from the ticket.In the U.S., we are extremely fortunate to have the rights we have, including a right to privacy. We should not be looking for ways to chip away at these rights.Gregory FedynyshynMalden, Mass.Revised Drone RulesAn Air Force Predator drone, right, returning from a mission in the Persian Gulf region in 2016. The new policy suggests that the United States intends to launch fewer drone strikes away from recognized war zones.John Moore/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Rules on Counterterrorism Drone Strikes, Eased by Trump, Are Tightened by Biden” (news article, Oct. 8):Are we supposed to be assured that the United States is now acting ethically, legally and judiciously with President Biden’s revised drone assassination policy?Our clandestine killing of terrorist leaders outside conventional war zones only provokes greater risk for American citizens and soul-searching trauma for drone operators thousands of miles way. It deeply stains our own sense of national righteousness.This is not a policy that needs to be reformed. It’s a policy that should be abandoned for ethical, tactical and practical reasons.Dave PasinskiFayetteville, N.Y.Living in Political FearHouse and Senate leaders have their own security details, including plainclothes officers and armored vehicles, but it can be more difficult for others to obtain such protection.Andrew Harnik/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Lawmakers Fearing the Worst as Intimidation Tactics Grow” (front page, Oct. 2):The appalling acrimony and threats directed against duly elected representatives have a chilling trickle-down effect to citizens as well. I recently received what I considered a banal lawn sign from the League of Women Voters. One side states, “Vote — Our Democracy Depends on It,” and the other, “Vote 411 — Election Information You Need.”In other election years, I would have placed it on my lawn without thinking twice. But after the Jan. 6 insurrection, I’m hesitant. Even though I live in a mostly progressive, blue-voting Westchester community, I know that many of my neighbors hold other political beliefs. There are a surprising number of “Blue Lives Matter” banners and “1776” flags in my neighborhood, which make me wonder how many of these neighbors doubt the legitimacy of the 2020 election.I worry that displaying a message that our democracy depends on voting would be more of a red flag than a civic reminder.And I am ashamed that in our current fractious, and dangerously degraded, political climate, my fear will keep me from exercising my political beliefs.Merri RosenbergArdsley, N.Y.Preparing for Future Pandemics Brynn Anderson/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Unprepared for Covid and Monkeypox. And the Next Outbreak, Too” (news analysis, Oct. 1):Apoorva Mandavilli highlights an important issue when she writes that the United States “remains wholly unprepared to combat new pathogens.”Governments do need to be ready for future pandemics when they hit, but their priority must be preventing them in the first place. We know that most infectious diseases can be traced to pathogen transmission between wildlife and people, particularly in our increasingly degraded and exploited natural world.Governments across the globe must prioritize efforts to reduce the risks of future pathogen spillovers, including via trade and at wildlife markets.A critical first step is recognizing the intrinsic links between the health of humans, animals and the ecosystem, and acknowledging the foundational importance of an intact and functioning environment to our well-being.A new international treaty or agreement can help bring governments together to catalyze needed change. With several hundred thousand yet undiscovered viruses in wildlife that can potentially infect humans, this is not the time to ignore the science and avoid action.The adage that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is now truer than ever.Susan LiebermanChris WalzerDr. Lieberman is the vice president for international policy at the Wildlife Conservation Society. Dr. Walzer is its executive director for health.How Fossil Fuel Donations Sway Climate PoliticsFrom left, Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, and two senators, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, in 2019.Kevin Lamarque/ReutersTo the Editor:Re “Republicans Talk About Rebuilding, but Not the Cause of Climate Change” (news article, Oct. 5):Large political contributions from fossil fuel interests are blocking federal action against climate change even in Florida, one of the areas most vulnerable to hurricanes. Its vulnerability is fueled by warmer oceans along with storm surges worsened by rising seas and downpours increased by a warmer atmosphere that holds more moisture.The United States could become the world leader in battling climate change, inspiring and helping other countries to do more while creating millions of jobs. Incredibly, Florida’s Republican governor and two senators have voted against action to mitigate climate change.Why? “If you’re from Florida, you should be leading on climate and environmental policy, and Republicans are still reticent to do that because they’re worried about primary politics,” Carlos Curbelo, a former Republican congressman from South Florida, is quoted as saying.That is, Republicans who stray from the fossil fuel line will face a primary opponent well funded by fossil fuel interests.Public funding of election campaigns must replace big contributions if we want our democracy to stop being distorted. Indeed, if we want to safeguard our planet.Richard BarsantiWestern Springs, Ill. More

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      This Is How to Put the Supreme Court in Its Place

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      I have written before about the ways that Congress could restrain an overbearing and ideological Supreme Court, using its powers under the Constitution.In short, Article III, Section 2 states that the Supreme Court shall have “original jurisdiction” in all cases affecting “Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party.” And in all other cases, the court shall have “appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”The “exceptions” and “regulations” are key. Most of the business of the Supreme Court is appellate work. It hears cases that have already gone through the federal judicial process. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, for example, began its life as a case before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi before going to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which holds appellate jurisdiction over Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana. If Congress can regulate the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, then it can determine which cases it can hear, the criteria for choosing those cases and even the basis on which the court can make a constitutional determination.Congress could say, for instance, that the court needs more than a bare majority to overturn a federal statute. Even if you agree that the court has the mostly exclusive right to interpret the Constitution, it doesn’t therefore follow that five justices can essentially nullify the constitutional views of the legislators who passed a law, the president who signed it and the four other justices who affirmed it. Constitutional meaning, in other words, flows as much from the elected branches (and the people themselves) as it does from courts and legal elites.In the same way that it takes a supermajority of Congress to propose a constitutional amendment, it should probably take a supermajority of the court to say what the Constitution means, especially when it relates to acts and actions of elected officials. If there is any place for mandatory consensus in our government, it should be in an area where any given decision can have broad and far-reaching consequences for the entire constitutional order.Typically when I write about these issues it is all hypothetical, under the assumption that Congress hasn’t ever used its power to shape the court in this manner. But recently, while reading up on legal disputes during Reconstruction, I learned that at one point Congress attempted to do exactly what I’ve described: limit the court’s use of judicial review to overturn congressional statutes by raising the bar for a decision from a simple majority to a supermajority.At issue was the Supreme Court’s decision in Ex parte Milligan. In 1864, Union Army officers arrested a group of Indiana Democrats who had been vocal critics of the Lincoln administration and its allies. A military commission authorized by President Abraham Lincoln under a previously issued executive order charged the men — including Lambdin P. Milligan, a leader in the “Order of American Knights,” a pro-slavery, secessionist group — with, among other things, inciting insurrection and conspiring against the U.S. government. Milligan and others were convicted and sentenced to death.The following year, in May, lawyers for Milligan filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the circuit court district of Indiana. Shortly thereafter, President Andrew Johnson — who took office the month before in the wake of Lincoln’s assassination — commuted Milligan’s sentence to life in prison. In the meantime, Justice David Davis — who rode circuit in Indiana, hearing cases along with a Federal District Court judge as they moved through the appeals process — reviewed Milligan’s petition. Davis did not think that a military commission was the appropriate way to try Milligan, a civilian in a state where there was no active rebellion. The other judge disagreed.Their disagreement sent the case to the Supreme Court, which held oral arguments the next year, in 1866. Writing for five of the nine justices, Davis declared it unconstitutional to try civilians in military courts when civilian courts were still available. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, along with the remaining three justices, agreed that the use of military courts was inappropriate but disagreed that it was unconstitutional. The overall judgment on Milligan’s treatment was unanimous, but on the constitutional issue, there was a 5-4 split.“For the chief justice,” Walter Stahr explains in “Salmon P. Chase: Lincoln’s Vital Rival,” “the Milligan case was only in part about events in Indiana in the recent past; it was also about the scope of federal authority in the violent present. Chase was well aware that, in many parts of the South, the state civilian courts provided no protections for blacks; only the federal military courts would punish whites for crimes against blacks.”Republicans in Congress, still struggling with Johnson for control of Reconstruction policy, were outraged. The Chicago Tribune spoke for many Republicans when it said that this decision — along with another that concerned the ability of Congress and the states to require a loyalty or “test” oath for former Confederates who wished to serve in public capacity — showed a “deliberate purpose of the Supreme Court to thus usurp the legislative powers of the government to defeat the will of the loyal men of this nation in the interests of a rebellion crushed by military power.”The remedy for this problem, The Tribune wrote, was simple: “We think the time has come for Congress to pass a law requiring the concurrence of three-fourths, or at least two-thirds of the whole bench, to pronounce authoritatively against the constitutionality of any act of Congress.”Republicans took heed of the argument. In 1868, as Congress awaited the court’s decision in another case, Ex parte McCardle, that could undermine its military Reconstruction policies, the House of Representatives debated a bill that would require, according to The New York Herald, “a concurrence of two-thirds of all the members necessary to a decision adverse to the validity of any law of the United States.”Democrats condemned the bill as one of the “very gravest” of “all the revolutionary measures brought before the last or present Congress tending to subvert and destroy the institutions of the country.” If Congress could override the “deliberate judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States,” declared Representative Samuel S. Marshall of Illinois, as recorded by The New York Times, “there would be established a despotism, not of one man, but an oligarchy or a mob, elected by the people, but usurping powers never given to it by the Constitution or the people.”Representative John Bingham of Ohio, author of the 14th Amendment and a Republican, disagreed. “It would be a sad day for American institutions and for the sacred cause of Republican Governments if any tribunal in this land, created by the will of the people, was above and superior to the people’s power.” The Supreme Court, he continued, in a reference to its decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, “had disgraced not only itself as a tribunal of justice, but it had disgraced humanity when it dared to mouth from its high seat of justice, the horrible blasphemy that there were human beings, either in this land, or in any land, whose rights white men were not bound to respect.”The bill passed the House and Senate but it was never signed into law. President Johnson simply refused. In February, the House voted overwhelmingly to impeach Johnson, who was eventually acquitted in the Senate by a single vote. After this, as far as I can tell, Republicans in Congress made no further effort to force the issue.In November, Republicans won the White House with Ulysses S. Grant at the top of the ticket. In 1869, a Republican Congress passed a law that set the size of the Supreme Court at nine justices (up from eight) and provided that any justice over 70 with sufficient experience could retire at full salary for the rest of his life. By mid-1870, Grant had appointed two associate justices of the Supreme Court, who would go on to affirm his policies. Republicans were content that the court was in their hands.The point of all this is to say that disputes over the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review are not new. The reforms to curb it, likewise, are not novel. And even if you stipulate that the Republicans of 1868 were motivated by partisan concerns, it is also true that these Republicans — the lawmakers who wrote the Reconstruction amendments and reshaped our entire constitutional order — grasped a serious problem with the Supreme Court’s role in our ostensibly democratic political system. Their experience of the previous decade — of Dred Scott and the secession crisis and the war — had put court reform at top of mind, even if they ultimately only took minor steps to reshape the institution.But this decision to spare the court the rod of discipline undermined the Republicans’ own political project, although they could not see this in the moment. Within 20 years, the Supreme Court would render much of the 13th and 14th Amendments a dead letter. And by the end of the century, the 15th would have almost no impact on life in the South.Despite some of the more interesting ideas that came out of President Biden’s court reform commission, there is no chance at this time for serious court reform. There is no consensus for it within the Democratic Party and there are certainly not the votes for it in Congress. But circumstances do change, often unexpectedly. Should progressives gain the opportunity to make structural changes to the Supreme Court, they should take it. Democrats in the 21st century should not make the same mistake Republicans in the 19th century did.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