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      Emily’s List Presses Kyrsten Sinema Over Filibuster Stance

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      The powerful political action committee said the Arizona senator could find herself “standing alone” in 2024 if she refuses to change Senate rules to force through voting rights legislation.WASHINGTON — One of the largest contributors to Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s political rise announced on Tuesday that it would cut off its financial support if the senator continues to refuse to change the Senate’s filibuster rules to allow for passage of far-reaching voting rights legislation.Emily’s List, the largest funder of female Democratic candidates who support abortion rights, made the extraordinary announcement as the Senate barreled toward votes this week on a bill to reverse restrictions on voting passed by a number of Republican-led state legislatures.If, as expected, Republicans block the bill with a filibuster, Democratic leaders plan to try to change the Senate’s rules to overcome the minority party’s opposition. To do that, Democratic leaders would need all 50 members of their caucus on board. But Ms. Sinema, Democrat of Arizona, has said she will not vote to change the rules, making her — along with another holdout from her party, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia — a target of liberal activists’ ire.“Understanding that access to the ballot box and confidence in election results are critical to our work and our country, we have joined with many others to impress upon Senator Sinema the importance of the pending voting rights legislation in the Senate,” Laphonza Butler, the president of Emily’s List, said in a statement. “So far those concerns have not been addressed.”She added, “Right now, Senator Sinema’s decision to reject the voices of allies, partners and constituents who believe the importance of voting rights outweighs that of an arcane process means she will find herself standing alone in the next election.”In a statement on Tuesday night, Ms. Sinema noted that the filibuster “has been used repeatedly to protect against wild swings in federal policy, including in the area of protecting women’s health care.”“Different people of good faith can have honest disagreements about policy and strategy,” she said. “Such honest disagreements are normal, and I respect those who have reached different conclusions on how to achieve our shared goals of addressing voter suppression and election subversion, and making the Senate work better for everyday Americans.”Emily’s List faced growing pressure from liberal activists and its own donors to take a stand ahead of this week’s showdown. The group was by far Ms. Sinema’s biggest donor in her run for the Senate in 2018, and potential primary challengers for her next run in 2024, such as Representative Ruben Gallego of Arizona, have begun making some noise.Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, pointedly declined on Tuesday to rule out backing a primary challenge to Ms. Sinema.“We’ll address that when we get past this week,” Ms. Warren said on “CBS Mornings” when pressed on the matter.Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, also hinted that he could support a primary challenge to Ms. Sinema or Mr. Manchin.Understand the Battle Over U.S. Voting RightsCard 1 of 6Why are voting rights an issue now? More

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      Democrats Face a Dilemma on Voting: Compromise or Keep Pressing?

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      With their broad voting rights push nearing a dead end, Democrats must soon decide whether to embrace a far narrower bipartisan effort to protect vote counting and administration.WASHINGTON — With their drive to secure far-reaching voting rights legislation nearing a dead end, Senate Democrats face a decision they had hoped to avoid: Should they embrace a much narrower, bipartisan effort to safeguard the vote-counting process, or continue what increasingly looks like a doomed push to protect access to the ballot box?A growing group of Senate Republicans and centrist Democrats is working on legislation to overhaul the Electoral Count Act, the 19th-century law that former President Donald J. Trump sought to exploit to overturn the 2020 presidential election. That effort is expanding to include other measures aimed at preventing interference in election administration, such as barring the removal of nonpartisan election officials without cause and creating federal penalties for the harassment or intimidation of election officials.Democratic leaders say they regard the effort as a trap — or at least a diversion from the central issue of voter suppression that their legislation aims to address. They argue that the narrower measures are woefully inadequate given that Republicans have enacted a wave of voting restrictions in states around the country that are geared toward disenfranchising Democratic voters, particularly people of color.Still, even if there is no consensus to be found on a bill addressing how votes are cast, proponents say there is a growing sentiment in favor of ensuring that those that are cast are fairly counted.“There is a lot of interest, a lot of interest,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who is leading one effort with Senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, both centrist Democrats, and Senators Mitt Romney of Utah, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Joni Ernst of Iowa, all Republicans.Senators Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, are part of a group working on a narrower bill to ensure votes are fairly counted.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesSenator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, also listened in on a call on the matter this month but remains noncommittal.“I’m not saying this is going to be easy,” Ms. Collins added, “but I’m optimistic.”A separate group — including two Democratic senators, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Senator Angus King, a left-of-center independent from Maine — is looking at changing how Congress formalizes the election results to head off another attempt like the one Mr. Trump made to have allies on Capitol Hill try to toss out state electoral votes.But most Democrats are reluctant even to discuss the matter until after the far more comprehensive voting rights bill they call the Freedom to Vote Act is put to rest next week, a near certainty after Ms. Sinema and Mr. Manchin said this week that they would not vote to change Senate rules on the filibuster to enable their party to push it through unilaterally.“There are two issues going on right now in the country. One is voter suppression — these subtle laws that make it harder for people to vote,” Mr. King said. “The other piece is voting administration, where you get into substituting partisan people for nonpartisan administrators, purging voter election boards, allowing election boards to eliminate polling places and also the whole mechanics of counting.”He added, “There’s a reasonable opportunity here for a bipartisan bill, but my concern is that it will be viewed as a substitute for the Freedom to Vote Act, and that’s just not the case.”Members of both parties are concerned about the counting and certification of ballots after they have been cast. President Biden was emphatic on the point when he emerged Thursday from a fruitless lunch with Senate Democrats, pleading with them to change the filibuster rules around voting.“The state legislative bodies continue to change the law not as to who can vote, but who gets to count the vote, count the vote, count the vote,” he said, his voice rising in anger. “It’s about election subversion.”And some academic experts say protecting election administration and vote counting, at this moment, is actually more critical than battling restrictions on early and absentee voting and ballot drop boxes.“I’ve been saying this for the last year: The No. 1 priority should be ensuring we have a fair vote count,” said Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, who has drafted his own prescriptions for safeguarding elections after Election Day. “We are in a new level of crisis. I never expected in the contemporary United States that we would have to have legislation around a fair vote count, but we have to have it now.”Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has opened the door a crack to changing the Electoral Count Act, which Mr. Trump and his legal advisers speciously claimed gave the vice president the power to unilaterally reject the electors from states deemed contested.“It obviously has some flaws. And I think it should be discussed,” Mr. McConnell told reporters on Tuesday. “That is a totally separate issue from what they’re peddling on the Democratic side.”Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, has opened the door to a narrower effort by saying the Electoral Count Act has flaws.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesDemocrats are leery. They fear Republicans want to reassure Mr. Manchin and Ms. Sinema that if, as promised, they reject their party’s efforts to do away with the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation, they will have the bipartisan alternative they crave.Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, has said not only would that alternative be wholly insufficient, but it also would probably not materialize.In 2019, as Democrats were pushing for gun safety legislation after a pair of mass shootings, Republican leaders who opposed the bill raised the prospect of narrower legislation to help law enforcement take guns from those who pose an imminent danger. Once the Democratic bills failed, the more modest one did, too.Understand the Battle Over U.S. Voting RightsCard 1 of 6Why are voting rights an issue now? More

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      Before Elections, Georgia Republicans Again Consider Voting Restrictions

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      A sweeping 2021 law drew a legal complaint from the Justice Department. Legislators in the state are considering several new measures focused on ballot access and fraud investigations.ATLANTA — Butch Miller, a Republican leader of the Georgia State Senate, is running for lieutenant governor and faces a tough fight this spring against a primary opponent backed by former President Donald J. Trump.So perhaps it is no surprise that Mr. Miller, a co-sponsor of a sweeping and restrictive state voting law last year, has once again jumped into the fray, promoting a new measure to prohibit the use of drop boxes for absentee ballots, which he says would increase security — though no problems with their use by voters have been verified.“Drop boxes are the weakest link in our election security,” Mr. Miller said in a statement. “This change removes that weakest link without doing anything to prevent access. It’s actually easier to vote early in person — and we provide far more days than most states for that.”Georgia was a key to President Biden’s victory as well as the Democratic takeover of the Senate, and this is the second year that the state’s Republicans are focused on voting restrictions. Mr. Miller’s proposal is among a raft of new bills that underscore how much Republicans have embraced Mr. Trump’s false narrative that voter fraud cost him the 2020 election.One measure under consideration would allow Georgians to use paper ballots if they have concerns about the recently purchased touch-screen voting machines that were the subject of fantastical fraud claims promulgated by some of Mr. Trump’s supporters.Another proposal would allow the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to open inquiries into allegations of voter fraud. Yet another would create a constitutional amendment to prevent noncitizens from voting — even though they are already barred from voting under existing state law.An absentee ballot box in Atlanta before the 2020 general election. Republicans have zeroed in on the Democratic stronghold with an investigation into the Fulton County election board. Lynsey Weatherspoon for The New York TimesAt the same time, the elections board in Fulton County, the most populous in the state and a Democratic stronghold, is the subject of a state investigation of its management practices. In theory, this investigation could lead to a Republican-directed takeover of the local election board — one that was made possible by the 2021 election law.The investigation, and the new proposals before the Republican-controlled legislature, has triggered fresh anger among Democrats who believe that the measures could contribute to an already unfair playing field in a state where numerous Trump-backed candidates are running for statewide offices.“The most disturbing thing is that the people who have an iron grip on power in the General Assembly believe that they have to continue to suppress voting in order to maintain that iron grip,” said David Worley, a Democrat and former member of the state elections board. “And they’re willing to try any method at hand to do that.”Though Republicans dominate the state legislature, some of the proposals may prove to be, at most, performative gestures by lawmakers eager to show the party’s base that they are responsive to Trump-fueled concerns about voter fraud. The measure that would expand the role of the state investigations bureau, backed by the powerful House speaker, David Ralston, may have the greatest chance of success.Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, sounded a less than enthusiastic note this week about going much further than the 2021 voting law, which he called “the No. 1-ranked elections integrity act in the country.”More than any other state, Georgia was the linchpin of Democrats’ fortunes in 2020, said Larry Sabato, a veteran political analyst and the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. The Republican stronghold not only flipped for Mr. Biden but delivered the Senate to him.“That’s why the new voting rules in Georgia and elsewhere matter so much,” he said. “Will they shave just enough votes from the Democratic column to put Republicans firmly back in the driver’s seat? If the G.O.P. sees that no penalty is paid for voter suppression, surely that will encourage Republicans to do it wherever they can get away with it.”He added: “In both 2022 and 2024, Georgia is going to be the canary in the coal mine. And it’s a pretty damn big canary.”State Senator Mike Dugan of Georgia shook hands last year with a fellow Republican state senator, Jeff Mullis, after the passage of a bill that would enact new voting restrictions. Ben Gray/Associated PressIn a year that saw Republican-led legislatures nationwide pile new restrictions on voting, the elections law that Georgia lawmakers passed last spring was less notable for its severity than for its specificity. The measure took dead aim at the record 1.3 million absentee votes cast the previous November, disproportionately by Democrats. It did so by sharply reining in the use of drop boxes that were favored by mail-in voters, imposing ID requirements on absentee ballots and raising stiff barriers to the distribution of mail-in ballot applications by both local officials and voting drives.Atop that, the law allowed for state takeovers of county election boards, banned mobile voting sites in heavily Democratic Atlanta and even barred residents from providing food and water to voters waiting in line at the polls.The 2021 statute drew a number of legal challenges, including by the U.S. Department of Justice, which argues that the law violates the federal Voting Rights Act by making it harder to vote and that it was racially motivated. Major League Baseball moved its All-Star Game out of the state in protest.The state law, as well as federal voting rights legislation praised by Mr. Biden in a visit to Atlanta this week, is expected to be front and center in upcoming statewide campaigns. The governor’s race is likely to pit the country’s best-known voting rights advocate, Stacey Abrams, a Democrat, against either Mr. Kemp, whom Ms. Abrams has openly accused of voter suppression in her 2018 race against him, or former Senator David Perdue, Mr. Kemp’s Republican primary challenger, who has echoed Mr. Trump’s baseless fraud claims.In Atlanta on Tuesday, President Biden urged passage of federal legislation to protect the right to vote and the integrity of elections.Doug Mills/The New York TimesOn Tuesday, Mr. Kemp, in a news conference preceding Mr. Biden’s speech, defended the 2021 election law, saying that the Biden administration had “lied” about it — a reference to Mr. Biden’s untrue assertion that the law “ends voting hours early.”He blamed Mr. Biden, Ms. Abrams and Vice President Kamala Harris for the backlash to the law, including the loss of the All-Star Game, which he said had cost the state $100 million. He warned that the federal voting rights laws Mr. Biden was pushing for amounted to a political grab by Democrats.“Make no mistake,” he said, “Georgia is ground zero for the Biden-Harris assault on election integrity, as well as an attempt to federalize everything from how hard-working Georgians run their businesses, to what our kids are taught in school, to how we run elections.”Mr. Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, have both earned places atop Mr. Trump’s list of enemies for defying the former president’s demands that they help overturn his narrow electoral loss in Georgia.The Trump InvestigationsCard 1 of 6Numerous inquiries. More

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      How the Voting Rights Bills Miss the Target on Election Subversion

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      The proposed legislation and the push to reform the Electoral Count Act leave open a variety of pathways to subvert a presidential election. More than a year after the attack on the Capitol, President Biden and congressional Democrats still seem nowhere close to enacting robust safeguards against another attempt to overturn a presidential election. One reason is obvious: There’s not enough support in the Senate for Democrats to enact the two voting rights proposals that Mr. Biden pushed in his speech in Atlanta on Tuesday. But there’s another less obvious reason: Neither of the voting rights bills, nor the emerging bipartisan effort to reform the Electoral Count Act, is sure to close off some of the most probable avenues for election subversion. While the various legislative paths might protect access to voting or hold the promise of clarifying how Congress counts electoral votes, the proposals are largely silent on a crucial time frame — the period between the polls closing in November to January, when Congress gathers to count electoral votes. This is when election administrators go about the once routine business of counting and certifying election results. Many analysts believe the electoral process may be at its most vulnerable during this period, when the actions of even a handful of officials could precipitate a constitutional crisis. The risks were evident after the last election, when former President Donald J. Trump and his allies relentlessly sought to persuade election officials to refuse to certify results or invalidate ballots. Virtually no election administrators joined Mr. Trump’s effort. A friendlier voice might answer the phone the next time a president calls a secretary of state in search of another 11,000 votes.Yet the arcane workings of tabulating and certifying the vote have received less attention, whether in legislative proposals or in the news media, than the spectacle of violence at the Capitol or the wave of new Republican laws to restrict voting access. The two legislative paths — the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act — that the president promoted on Tuesday do offer at least some protection against election subversion.The Freedom to Vote Act has evolved considerably since the summer, when its predecessor contained almost no provisions to address the issue. Now it attempts to respond to the numerous Republican election laws that target election workers and nonpartisan election officials, while including other provisions that indirectly protect the process of counting votes — including paper ballot and chain of custody requirements, and safeguards against discarding mail ballots because of a missing security envelope or inexact signature match. But the proposed laws do not regulate the process of certifying the vote — the focal point for Mr. Trump and his allies as they tried to overturn the last election. While their attempt ended in failure, some of their efforts came close enough to represent a credible path for future election subversion. The certification of elections by local election administrators is one example. In Wayne County, Mich., which includes the overwhelmingly Democratic and majority Black city of Detroit, two Republicans initially blocked certification in 2020 before quickly reversing themselves. And one of the two Republican members of a statewide Michigan board refused to certify the results. If the other Republican on the board had done the same, Michigan would have failed to certify — and it is not clear what would have happened as a result.Next time, the outcome might be different. Today, Republicans who believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen are poised to assume greater power across the country, from sitting on local election boards to winning or running for secretary of state positions. With Republican voters remaining loyal to Mr. Trump, many G.O.P. officials might have a very different understanding of what is expected of them by the voters than they did heading into the last election. Similarly, the Democratic voting rights bills would do little to guard against the other paths that Mr. Trump pursued to invalidate the 2020 election, such as pressuring the vice president and congressional Republicans to ignore or overturn Electoral College delegates, or pressuring state legislatures to ignore the certified election result and appoint Trump electors.The Freedom to Vote Act’s anti-gerrymandering provisions have been construed as offering indirect protection against a congressional effort to overturn a presidential election, on the assumption that it would reduce the likelihood of Republican control of Congress. But even that provision seems to be of waning utility, as Democrats appear poised to gerrymander enough Democratic-leaning seats in New York, Illinois and other states so as to ensure a relatively fair national fight for control of Congress. And the proposal does not include a ban on state legislative gerrymandering, a tactic Republicans have sometimes used in states like Wisconsin, Georgia or Texas to create such lopsided majorities that it’s plausible to imagine how there might be enough support to overturn a closely contested election. Former Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi presided over the counting of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021.Erin Schaff/ The New York TimesIn contrast to the Democratic voting rights bills, an attempt to reform the Electoral Count Act — the 1887 law that established the procedures for counting electoral votes — might be more likely to more directly address the risk of an intentional campaign to reverse the result of a certified election in Congress. Over the last few weeks, a variety of lawmakers from both parties in the House and Senate have been mulling possible fixes to the law. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, signaled openness to revising the act, though many progressives see the push as part of an attempt to derail their own voting rights initiatives.Understand the Battle Over U.S. Voting RightsCard 1 of 6Why are voting rights an issue now? More

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      Conflict Quickly Emerges Between Top Prosecutor and Police Commissioner

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      A memo by New York City’s new police leader sharply questioned Manhattan’s new district attorney over his strategy for prosecuting crime.New York City’s new police commissioner has expressed severe dissatisfaction with the policies of the new Manhattan district attorney, sending an email to all officers late on Friday that suggests a potential rupture between City Hall and the prosecutor over their approaches to public safety.The email from Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said she was deeply troubled by policies outlined by Alvin Bragg, the district attorney, in a 10-page memo that Mr. Bragg sent to his staff on Monday. The memo instructed prosecutors to avoid seeking jail or prison time for all but the most serious crimes, and to cease charging a number of lower-level crimes.Commissioner Sewell, who, like Mr. Bragg, was just a week into her job, said in her email to about 36,000 members of the department that she had studied the policies and come away “very concerned about the implications to your safety as police officers, the safety of the public and justice for the victims.”The email, which was first reported by WNBC-TV, suggests a looming conflict not just between them, but also between the new district attorney and the commissioner’s boss, Mayor Eric Adams.The collision course between the mayor and the district attorney was sketched out during the Democratic primary in the spring of 2021. Mr. Adams made a crackdown on crime one of the main themes of his campaign; Mr. Bragg, following in the path carved by a handful of prosecutors in cities around the country, pledged to help reshape the legal system, to avoid disproportionate punishment for first-time offenders or those struggling with mental health issues or poverty.In a statement on Saturday, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office said: “We share Commissioner Sewell’s call for frank and productive discussions to reach common ground on our shared mission to deliver safety and justice for all and look forward to the opportunity to clear up some misunderstandings.”“For our office, safety is paramount,” the statement said. It added that contrary to the way that Commissioner Sewell and others had interpreted parts of the memo, the office intended to charge anyone who used guns to rob stores or who assaulted police officers with felonies. “All must be held accountable for their actions,” it said.To some degree, the emerging tensions between the commissioner and Mr. Bragg reflect a broader political argument between centrist Democrats across the nation looking to soothe voters worried about crime and a movement of progressive prosecutors that has pushed for more lenient policies to make the justice system more fair and less biased.Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell has expressed serious concerns about Mr. Bragg’s policies.Hiram Durán for The New York TimesSome of those tensions are likely to play out in Albany this year in a debate over whether to scale back changes in a state bail law that went into effect two years ago, and that provoked strong reactions almost immediately.There is always an ingrained tension between the police and prosecutors that often centers on what charges to bring and, at times, whether there is sufficient evidence to make an arrest. For the police, in some measure, the job ends with handcuffs, while prosecutors are left with proving a case beyond a reasonable doubt or finding some other resolution. But such arguments do not often became public at all, let alone so early in a new administration.Mr. Adams has been complimentary about Mr. Bragg when asked about him in recent interviews, calling him a “great prosecutor” and declining to criticize the memo. Asked about the commissioner’s email, the mayor’s office responded with a statement from Stefan Ringel, a senior adviser: “The mayor has deep respect for the district attorney and looks forward to working with him and the police commissioner to make sure the streets are safe, and to discussing any concerns directly.”A police spokesman said the email “speaks for itself.”Mr. Bragg and Mr. Adams, both Democrats, have significant histories in law enforcement, and both have pledged some measure of reform. Mr. Bragg, a former federal prosecutor, stood out in a competitive primary vowing to balance safety with justice. Mr. Adams, a former police captain, has spoken out against police brutality and, while serving, pushed for changes within the department.Mr. Bragg is the first Black person to lead the district attorney’s office, Mr. Adams is the second Black mayor in the city’s history, and Commissioner Sewell is the first woman and third Black person to lead the Police Department.In his memo, Mr. Bragg instructed his prosecutors that unless they were required by law to do otherwise, they should ask judges for jail or prison time only for those who had committed serious offenses, including murder, sexual assault and major economic crimes. Others, he has said, would be directed to programs better equipped to deal with the issues that had led them to commit the crimes.The new district attorney also instructed his prosecutors not to charge a number of misdemeanors. Many of the crimes on his list already were not being prosecuted by his predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr. But Mr. Bragg directed his staff to avoid charging several misdemeanors which previously had been charged, including resisting arrest.“These policy changes not only will, in and of themselves, make us safer; they also will free up prosecutorial resources to focus on violent crime,” Mr. Bragg said in his memo.The directive on resisting arrest was among those that Commissioner Sewell expressed most concern about. She said that it would send a message to police officers and others that there was “an unwillingness to protect those who are carrying out their duties.”“I strongly believe that this policy injects debate into decisions that would otherwise be uncontroversial, will invite violence against police officers and will have deleterious effects on our relationship with the communities we protect,” she wrote.Incoming N.Y.C. Mayor Eric Adams’s New AdministrationCard 1 of 7Schools Chancellor: David Banks. More

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      Kathy Hochul Gives Her First State of the State Speech

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul pledged $10 billion to boost the state’s decimated health care work force, proposed a new transit line, and directed funds to combat gun violence.In her first State of the State address, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a $10 billion pledge to fortify New York’s health care work force and outlined her economic recovery plan.Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesALBANY, N.Y. — In her first State of the State address, Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday outlined her vision for shepherding New York State through its recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, while vowing to open a new chapter of ethical, more transparent government.In her most ambitious proposal, Ms. Hochul, the state’s first female governor, called for spending $10 billion to bolster the state’s health care work force, which has been devastated by the pandemic. She also pushed initiatives to support small businesses and to lure new investments, vowing to position New York as the most “business-friendly and worker-friendly state in the nation.”The annual address, typically as much a declaration of politics as policy, provided Ms. Hochul her most expansive opportunity yet to define her agenda. She faces a contested Democratic primary in June, her first election since she unexpectedly ascended to the state’s highest job after former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo abruptly resigned in August amid allegations of sexual misconduct.In the speech, Ms. Hochul, a moderate from outside Buffalo, sought to balance competing political challenges: She wants to court more liberal urban voters in the party’s primary, but not so much that she becomes vulnerable to Republicans hoping to make electoral gains in November’s general election.She offered some left-leaning measures like a “jails-to-jobs” program, and others aimed at the political center, including tax cuts for middle-class New Yorkers and several initiatives meant to curb a spike in gun violence, which is likely to be a contentious election-year issue.“My fellow New Yorkers, this agenda is for you,” Ms. Hochul said at the State Capitol. “Every single initiative is filtered through the lens of how it’ll help you and your families, because I know you’re exhausted. I know you want this pandemic to be over. I know you’re worried about the economy, inflation, your kids, their education and what the future holds.”The state faces immense challenges: The unemployment rate in New York City is 9.4 percent, more than double the national average. In the past year, New York’s population declined by more than 300,000 people — more than any other state in the country. The economic struggles underscore the state’s gravest loss: 60,000 lives since the pandemic began.Ms. Hochul outlined a lengthy list of proposals intended to appeal to a constellation of constituencies, including business leaders, homeowners and influential unions representing teachers and construction workers, all of whom could play a crucial role in her campaign.Wearing suffragist white, Ms. Hochul stressed that she would be different from Mr. Cuomo, declaring that she would pursue a more collaborative relationship with Democrats who control the Legislature and with Eric Adams, New York City’s new mayor. She positioned herself as a champion of good government, proposing to overhaul the state ethics commission and to institute term limits on governors. The latter measure, which would curb her own power, was seen as a not-so-subtle rebuke of the outsize influence Mr. Cuomo amassed over more than a decade in office.“For government to work, those of us in power cannot continue to cling to it,” Ms. Hochul said, speaking before a sparse crowd of about 50 people.The package of ethics and government reforms were meant to hold accountable elected officials in a State Capitol with a long history of graft and corruption.One of her boldest proposals called for abolishing the embattled ethics commission, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, whose members are appointed by the governor and state lawmakers. Instead, under Ms. Hochul’s plan, a rotating, five-member panel of law school deans or their designees would oversee ethics enforcement.The address, typically a lively affair that attracts crowds of activists and lobbyists to the Capitol, was tinged with decidedly 2022 touches: masks, testing requirements and attendance limits that meant many lawmakers watched remotely. The Assembly speaker, Carl E. Heastie, was absent, because of Covid-19 concerns. Outside the Capitol, a throng of protesters waving American flags crowded the lawn and railed against vaccine mandates.Keenly aware of potential attacks from Republicans, Ms. Hochul focused part of her remarks on new efforts to combat a surge in gun violence, including financing for more police officers and prosecutors, investments in neighborhoods where violent crime is common and money earmarked for tracing the origin of illegal guns.“Time and time again, New Yorkers tell me that they don’t feel safe,” Ms. Hochul said during the half-hour speech. “They don’t like what they see on streets and things feel different now, and not always for the better.”Members of her party’s ascendant left wing were pleased to hear the governor express support for the Clean Slate Act, which is meant to seal certain crimes on the records of formerly incarcerated people to help them find jobs and housing.But some of her proposals were not as far-reaching as some left-leaning Democrats had hoped. Ms. Hochul’s plan to expand child care would increase access for 100,000 families, well short of the more expansive Universal Childcare Act recently introduced in the Legislature. She made no reference to longstanding efforts to advance universal health care, or to institute a carbon tax.Ms. Hochul offered a five-year plan to build 100,000 units of affordable housing and, with the state’s moratorium on evictions set to expire this month, she proposed a program that would provide free legal assistance to poor renters facing eviction. But she was silent on demands to enshrine in state law a requirement limiting the ability of landlords to evict tenants and raise rents. The housing plan was applauded by the state’s influential real estate lobby, but criticized by a group of democratic socialist legislators for not doing enough to address the affordability crisis. A leading coalition of tenant activists, Housing Justice for All, called Ms. Hochul “Cuomo 2.0” in a statement.Most notably, Ms. Hochul sidestepped an explosive ideological wedge issue that is bound to come up this year: potentially amending the bail reform legislation passed in 2019. Embracing such a move could put her at odds with many lawmakers in her party. The legislation, which was meant to address inequities in the criminal justice system by abolishing cash bail for most crimes, has since been attacked by Republicans, who argue that the changes released violent criminals and cited the reforms in successful campaigns against Democrats last November.Republicans criticized Ms. Hochul’s plans, saying they would do little to address rising inflation or to lower taxes.“Our state’s oppressive tax burden drives businesses and families away in record numbers because, year after year, New Yorkers have been forced to pick up the tab for the out-of-control spending habits of liberal politicians,” said Will Barclay, the Assembly’s Republican leader.A Guide to the New York Governor’s RaceCard 1 of 6A crowded field. More

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      Prosecutors Move Quickly on Jan. 6 Cases, but Big Questions Remain

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      In the year since the assault on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, more than 700 people have been arrested, with little public indication from the Justice Department of how high the investigation might reach.By almost any measure, the criminal investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is a prosecutorial effort of unparalleled complexity and scope.For an entire year, federal agents in almost every state have been poring over mounting stacks of tipster reports, interviews with witnesses, public social media posts and private messages obtained by warrants. They have also collected nearly 14,000 hours of video — from media outlets, surveillance cameras and police-worn body cameras — enough raw footage that it would take a year and a half of around-the-clock viewing to get through it.While the Justice Department has called the inquiry one of the largest in its history, traditional law enforcement officials have not been acting alone. Working with information from online sleuths who style themselves as “Sedition Hunters,” the authorities have made more than 700 arrests — with little sign of slowing down.The government estimates that as many as 2,500 people who took part in the events of Jan. 6 could be charged with federal crimes. That includes more than 1,000 incidents that prosecutors believe could be assaults.As of this week, more than 225 people have been accused of attacking or interfering with the police that day. About 275 have been charged with what the government describes as the chief political crime on Jan. 6: obstructing Congress’s duty to certify the 2020 presidential vote count. A little over 300 people have been charged with petty crimes alone, mostly trespassing and disorderly conduct.But a big question hangs over the prosecutions: Will the Justice Department move beyond charging the rioters themselves?So far, the department has provided no public indication of the degree to which it might be pursuing a case against former President Donald J. Trump and the circle of his allies who helped inspire the chaos with their baseless claims of election fraud. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland is scheduled to give a speech on Wednesday, one day before the anniversary of the attack on the Capitol, but is not expected to provide any signals about the direction of the department’s investigation. A spokeswoman said he would not address any specific cases or individuals.On Capitol Hill, the House select committee on Jan. 6 is interviewing witnesses and has issued subpoenas to a number of high-profile figures allied with Mr. Trump. And with Mr. Garland and the Justice Department remaining mum about their intentions, members of the committee have signaled a willingness to exert pressure on the department, saying they would consider making criminal referrals if their investigation turns up evidence that could support a prosecution against Mr. Trump or others.Even the prosecutions of those who rioted at the Capitol have presented an array of moral and legal challenges that have bedeviled judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers.Overworked courts have tried to balance the laborious exchange of discovery materials with speedy trial protections and to manage the bleak conditions at Washington’s local jails where some defendants are being held without bail. They have also faced a fundamental, underlying tension: how to mete out justice on an individual level to hundreds of defendants who together helped form a violent mob.Jacob Chansley, the so-called QAnon Shaman, was sentenced to 41 months.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesPleas and SentencesWith rare speed for a large-scale prosecution, more than 160 people — or slightly more than 20 percent of all who have been charged — have pleaded guilty at this point. Of those, not quite half have already been sentenced.A few weeks ago, Robert Palmer, a Florida man who hurled a fire extinguisher at police officers, was sentenced to more than five years in prison, the longest term handed down so far. In November, one of the most familiar figures in the attack — Jacob Chansley, the so-called QAnon Shaman, who breached the Senate floor in a horned helmet with a fur draped over his shoulders — was sentenced to 41 months, a term he is appealing.Beneath the headlines, however, there has been a steady stream of penalties for lower-profile defendants: bricklayers, grandmothers, college students, artists, church leaders and long-haul truckers who, by and large, have admitted to little more than illegally entering the Capitol.Many, if not most, have avoided incarceration, sentenced to probation or stints of home confinement. Others have received only modest sentences, ranging from a few weeks to a few months.In court, those accused of minor crimes have almost always expressed remorse, saying their behavior was foolish, embarrassing or out of character. Some have broken into tears or, in one case, physically collapsed. Others have vowed never to attend a political rally again.Federal judges have taken slightly different positions on how to punish the defendants. Judge Trevor N. McFadden, appointed by Mr. Trump, often prefaces his sentences by calling the events that day “a national embarrassment” — though he has frequently declined to jail petty offenders. Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, an Obama appointee, has often given sentences higher than those requested by the government. Her go-to phrase: “There must be consequences.”Judge Amit P. Mehta told John Lolos, a defendant clearly steeped in election fraud conspiracies, that not only had he been lied to, but those who had done the lying were not “paying the consequences.”“Those who orchestrated Jan. 6 have in no meaningful sense been held accountable,” said Judge Mehta, another Obama appointee. “In a sense, Mr. Lolos, I think you are a pawn.”Prosecutors are using an unusual law to charge many of the rioters: the obstruction of an official proceeding before Congress.Pool photo by Erin SchaffLegal ChallengesFrom the start, prosecutors faced a unique legal problem: Never before had members of Congress been forced from the House and Senate floors while finalizing the transition of presidential power. What law should be used to charge this crime?The government settled on an unusual obstruction law — the obstruction of an official proceeding before Congress. It brought the charge against scores of people believed to have disrupted the democratic process, often alongside more traditional counts of trespassing, vandalism and assault.The obstruction law, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, had a few advantages. First, it allowed the authorities to avoid deploying more politically fraught — and harder-to-prove — counts like sedition or insurrection.It also permitted prosecutors to home in on the specific behavior of defendants and judge how much their actions contributed to the chaos that day. If someone went deep into the Capitol, say, or took some other action that helped to chase officials from their duties, chances are they have been charged with an obstruction count.But many defense lawyers have claimed the law was wrongly used.Passed in 2002 as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which sought to clamp down on corporate malfeasance, the measure was initially intended to prohibit things like shredding documents or tampering with witnesses in congressional inquiries. Defense lawyers have argued that prosecutors have stretched the law beyond its scope and used it to criminalize behavior that too closely resembles ordinary protest protected by the First Amendment.In the past few weeks, however, five federal judges have ruled that the law is valid, and it now seems certain it will be permitted in scores of Jan. 6 prosecutions, including some that will soon go to trial.More than 160 people have pleaded guilty so far to charges stemming from the riot. The first trials are scheduled to begin in February.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesTrials to Begin SoonThe earliest Capitol riot trials are scheduled to begin next month. When the proceedings start, jurors will most likely get a glimpse of how the government believes members of the mob worked together.The first trial, set to begin on Feb. 24, will focus on Robert Gieswein of Colorado, a self-proclaimed militiaman charged with assaulting officers with a chemical spray.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 10The House investigation. More

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      Voting Rights Tracker: What to Know About the U.S. Elections Fight

      by

      Since the 2020 election, Republicans have pursued a host of new voting restrictions across the country. Here’s where things stand.The current battle over voting rights — who gets to vote, how votes are cast and counted, who oversees the process — has turned what was once the humdrum machine room of United States democracy into a central partisan battlefield with enormous stakes for the future of American democracy.Since the 2020 election, and spurred in large part by former President Donald J. Trump’s oft-repeated lie that a second term was stolen from him, the Republican Party has made a concerted new effort to restrict voting and give itself more power over the mechanics of casting and counting ballots.In 2021, Republican-led legislatures in dozens of states enacted wide-ranging laws overhauling their election systems, and G.O.P. lawmakers are planning a new wave of such laws in 2022.Here is a quick rundown of those efforts, Democratic pushback and why it all matters.Why are voting rights an issue now?The 2020 election saw a sea change in voting habits. Driven largely by the pandemic, millions of Americans embraced voting early in person and voting by mail.Forty-three percent of voters cast ballots by mail in 2020, making it the most popular method, and 26 percent voted early in person, according to the Census Bureau. Just 21 percent voted on Election Day.Democrats in particular flocked to the two forms of early voting, far outpacing Republicans in some states — a trend that raised alarms among Republicans.Mr. Trump denounced voting by mail for months during the campaign. Once defeated, he attacked mailed-in ballots in hopes of overturning the election’s result.Since then, Republican-led legislatures have justified new restrictions on voting by citing a lack of public confidence in elections.What are Republicans trying to do?Broadly, the party is taking a two-pronged approach: Imposing additional restrictions on voting (especially mail voting), and giving Republican-controlled state legislatures greater control over the administration of elections.Republicans have often sought to limit absentee-ballot drop boxes by claiming without evidence that they are susceptible to fraud. Other new laws tighten identification requirements for voting by mail, bar election officials from proactively sending out ballot applications or shorten the time frame during which absentee ballots can be requested.Some legislatures have also taken aim at how elections are overseen, stripping election officials like secretaries of state of some of their powers, exerting more authority over county and local election officials or pursuing partisan reviews of election results.In the 2020 presidential election, Georgia was decided by fewer than 13,000 votes.Elijah Nouvelage/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWhy are these legislative efforts important?They have fueled widespread doubts about the integrity of American elections and brought intense partisan gamesmanship to parts of the democratic process that once relied largely on orderly routine and good faith.Some are also likely to affect voters of color disproportionately, echoing the country’s long history of racial discrimination at the polls, where Black citizens once faced barriers to voting including poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation and impossible hurdles, like guessing the number of butter beans in a jar.The newest restrictions are not so draconian, but could have outsize effects in racially diverse, densely populated areas. In Georgia, the four big counties at the core of metropolitan Atlanta — Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb and Gwinnett — will have no more than 23 drop boxes in future elections, down from the 94 available in 2020.The stakes are enormous: In battleground states like Georgia and Arizona, where the 2020 presidential margins were less than 13,000 votes, even a slight curtailment of turnout could tilt the outcome.Are there more extreme efforts?Yes. In Arkansas, Republicans enacted new legislation that allows a state board of election commissioners — composed of six Republicans and one Democrat — to investigate and “institute corrective action” when issues arise at any stage of the voting process, from registration to the casting and counting of ballots to the certification of elections.In Texas, Republicans tried to make it easier for the Legislature to overturn an election, but were held up when Democratic lawmakers staged a last-second walkout, and later dropped the effort.Many of the most extreme bills have not made it past state legislatures, with Republicans often choosing to dial back their farthest-reaching proposals.How are Democrats pushing back?Through Congress and the courts, but with limited success.In Congress, Democrats have focused their efforts on two sweeping bills, the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. But Republicans in the 50-50 Senate have blocked both. That leaves many Democrats pressing for a change to the Senate’s filibuster rules, but some moderates, including Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, are opposed.The Justice Department has filed lawsuits challenging Republican voting laws in Georgia and Texas, and has also doubled the size of its civil rights division, which oversees voting litigation.Still, any major judicial ruling on a recently enacted voting law is unlikely to arrive before the 2022 elections.Can the courts do anything about voting laws?Yes — but far less than they once could.The Supreme Court has greatly weakened the Voting Rights Act over the last decade, deeply cutting into the Justice Department’s authority over voting and giving states new latitude to impose restrictions. Voting-rights advocates can still challenge voting laws in federal court on other grounds, including under the 14th and 15th Amendments. They can also cite state constitutional protections in state courts.Democrats, civil-rights groups and voting-rights organizations have filed more than 30 lawsuits opposing new voting laws. But the legal process can sometimes take years.Democrats in Congress have proposed the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to defend voting rights.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesWait, back up. What is the Voting Rights Act?Passed in 1965, it was one of the most important legacies of the civil rights movement. It contained several provisions protecting the right to vote; required states with a history of discrimination at the polls to obtain clearance from the Justice Department before changing their voting laws, and banned racial gerrymandering and any voting measures that would target minority groups.The Voting Rights Act set off a wave of enfranchisement of Black citizens, with more than 250,000 registering to vote before the end of 1965.But the law was hollowed out by a 2013 Supreme Court decision that lifted the requirement for preclearance, paving the way for many of the restrictions enacted in 2021.Where does President Biden stand?He did not mince words, warning in July that “there is an unfolding assault taking place in America today — an attempt to suppress and subvert the right to vote in fair and free elections.” He called it “the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War.”But in his first year, he did not make voting rights a top priority. As his administration battled to pass infrastructure and economic-relief programs, voting rights groups have grown frustrated, calling for a more aggressive White House push on federal voting legislation.Which states have changed their voting laws?Nineteen states passed 34 laws restricting voting in 2021, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Some of the most significant legislation was enacted in battleground states.Texas forbade balloting methods introduced in 2020 to make voting easier during the pandemic, including drive-through polling places and 24-hour voting. It also barred election officials from sending voters unsolicited absentee-ballot applications and from promoting the use of vote by mail; greatly empowered partisan poll watchers; created new criminal and civil penalties for poll workers, and erected new barriers for those looking to help voters who need assistance.Georgia limited drop boxes, stripped the secretary of state of some of his authority, imposed new oversight of county election boards, restricted who can vote with provisional ballots and made it a crime to offer food or water to voters waiting in lines. It also required runoff elections to be held four weeks after the original vote, down from nine weeks.Florida limited the use of drop boxes; added to the identification requirements for people requesting absentee ballots; required voters to request an absentee ballot for each election, rather than receive them automatically through an absentee-voter list; limited who can collect and drop off ballots; and bolstered the powers of partisan observers in the ballot-counting process.Some states, however, have expanded voting access. New Jersey and Kentucky added more early-voting days and an online registration portal. Virginia created a state-level preclearance requirement and made Election Day a holiday, and New York restored voting rights for some felons.So, will these new voting laws swing elections?Maybe. Maybe not. Some laws will make voting more difficult for certain groups, cause confusion or create longer wait times at polling places, any of which could deter voters from casting ballots.In some places, the new restrictions could backfire: Many Republicans, especially in far-flung rural areas, once preferred to vote by mail, and making it more difficult to do so could inconvenience them more than people in cities and suburbs.The laws have met an impassioned response from voting rights groups, which are working to inform voters about the new restrictions while also hiring lawyers to challenge them.Democrats hope that their voters will be impassioned enough in response to the new restrictions that they turn out in large numbers to defeat Republicans in November. More