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      States Push for New Voting Laws With an Eye Toward 2024

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      Republicans are focused on voter ID rules and making it harder to cast mail ballots, while Democrats are seeking to expand access through automatic voter registration.The tug of war over voting rights and rules is playing out with fresh urgency at the state level, as Republicans and Democrats fight to get new laws on the books before the 2024 presidential election.Republicans have pushed to tighten voting laws with renewed vigor since former President Donald J. Trump made baseless claims of fraud after losing the 2020 election, while Democrats coming off midterm successes are trying to channel their momentum to expand voting access and thwart efforts to undermine elections.States like Florida, Texas and Georgia, where Republicans control the levers of state government, have already passed sweeping voting restrictions that include criminal oversight initiatives, limits on drop boxes, new identification requirements and more.While President Biden and Democrats in Congress were unable to pass federal legislation last year that would protect voting access and restore elements of the landmark Voting Rights Act stripped away by the Supreme Court in 2013, not all reform efforts have floundered.In December, Congress updated the Electoral Count Act, closing a loophole that Mr. Trump’s supporters had sought to exploit to try to get Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election results on the day of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.Now the focus has returned to the state level. Here are some of the key voting measures in play this year:Ohio Republicans approve new restrictions.Ohioans must now present a driver’s license, passport or other official photo ID to vote in person under a G.O.P. measure that was signed into law on Jan. 6 by Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican.The law also set tighter deadlines for voters to return mail-in ballots and provide missing information on them. Absentee ballot requests must be received earlier as well.Republicans, who control the Legislature in Ohio, contend that the new rules will bolster election integrity, yet they have acknowledged that the issue has not presented a problem in the state. Overall, voter fraud is exceedingly rare.Several voting rights groups were quick to file a federal lawsuit challenging the changes, which they said would disenfranchise Black people, younger and older voters, as well as those serving in the military and living abroad.Texas G.O.P. targets election crimes and ballot initiatives.Despite enacting sweeping restrictions on voting in 2021 that were condemned by civil rights groups and the Justice Department in several lawsuits, Republican lawmakers in Texas are seeking to push the envelope further.Politics Across the United StatesFrom the halls of government to the campaign trail, here’s a look at the political landscape in America.2023 Races: Governors’ contests in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi and mayoral elections in Chicago and Philadelphia are among the races to watch this year.Democrats’ New Power: After winning trifectas in four state governments in the midterms, Democrats have a level of control in statehouses not seen since 2009.G.O.P. Debates: The Republican National Committee has asked several major TV networks to consider sponsoring debates, an intriguing show of détente toward the mainstream media and an early sign that the party is making plans for a contested 2024 presidential primary.An Important Election: The winner of a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in April will determine who holds a 4-to-3 majority in a critical presidential battleground state.Dozens of bills related to voting rules and election administration were filed for the legislative session that began this month. While many are from Democrats seeking to ease barriers to voting, Republicans control both chambers of the Texas Legislature and the governor’s office. It is not clear which bills will gain the necessary support to become laws.Some G.O.P. proposals focus on election crimes, including one that would authorize the secretary of state to designate an election marshal responsible for investigating potential election violations.“Similar bills have passed in Florida and in Georgia,” said Jasleen Singh, a counsel in the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “We should be concerned about whether this will happen in Texas as well.”Under another bill, a voter could request that the secretary of state review local election orders and language on ballot propositions and reject any that are found to be “misleading, inaccurate or prejudicial,” part of a push by Republicans in several states to make it harder to pass ballot measures after years of progressive victories.One proposal appears to target heavily populated, Democratic-controlled counties, giving the state attorney general the power to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate voter fraud allegations if local officials decline to do so. Another bill goes further, allowing the attorney general to seek an injunction against local prosecutors who don’t investigate claims of voter fraud and pursue civil penalties against them.A 19-year-old registering to vote in Minnesota, where Democrats introduced a bill that would allow applicants who are at least 16 years old to preregister to vote. Tim Gruber for The New York TimesDemocrats in Minnesota and Michigan go on offense.Democrats are seeking to harness their momentum from the midterm elections to expand voting access in Minnesota and Michigan, where they swept the governors’ races and legislative control.In Minnesota, the party introduced legislation in early January that would create an automatic voter registration system and allow applicants who are at least 16 years old to preregister to vote. The measure would also automatically restore the voting rights of convicted felons upon their release from prison and for those who do not receive prison time as part of a sentence.In Michigan, voters approved a constitutional amendment in November that creates a nine-day early voting period and requires the state to fund absentee ballot drop boxes. Top Democrats in the state are also weighing automatic voter registration and have discussed criminalizing election misinformation.Pennsylvania Republicans want to expand a voter ID law.Because of the veto power of the governor, an office the Democrats held in the November election, Republicans in Pennsylvania have resorted to trying to amend the state constitution in order to pass a voter ID bill.The complex amendment process, which ultimately requires putting the question to voters, is the subject of pending litigation.Both chambers of the Legislature need to pass the bill this session in order to place it on the ballot, but Democrats narrowly flipped control of the House in the midterms — and they will seek to bolster their majority with three special elections next month.“If the chips fall in a certain way, it is unlikely that this will move forward and it might quite possibly be dead,” said Susan Gobreski, a board member of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania. “But it ain’t dead yet.”Gov. Josh Shapiro has indicated an openness to compromise with Republicans on some voting rules.“I’m certainly willing to have an honest conversation about voter I.D., as long as that is something that is not used as a hindrance to voting,” Mr. Shapiro said in an interview in December.First-time voters and those applying for absentee ballots are currently required to present identification in Pennsylvania, but Republicans want to expand the requirement to all voters in every election and have proposed issuing voter ID cards. Critics say the proposal would make it harder to vote and could compromise privacy.Mr. Shapiro has separately said he hoped that Republicans in the legislature would agree to change the state’s law that forbids the processing of absentee ballots and early votes before Election Day. The ballot procedures, which can drag out the counting, have been a flash point in a series of election lawsuits filed by Republicans.Georgia’s top election official, a Republican, calls to end runoff system.Early voting fell precipitously in Georgia’s nationally watched Senate runoff in December after Republicans, who control of state government, cut in half the number of days for casting ballots before Election Day.Long lines at some early-voting sites, especially in the Atlanta area, during the runoff led to complaints of voter suppression.But the G.O.P. lost the contest, after a set of runoff defeats a year earlier that gave Democrats control of the Senate.Now Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who is Georgia’s secretary of state and its top election official, wants to abandon the runoff system altogether, saying that the condensed timeline had put added strain on poll workers.Critics of ranked-choice voting cited the system as being instrumental to the re-election last year of Senator Lisa Murkowski, a centrist Republican.Ash Adams for The New York TimesRepublicans in Alaska want to undo some voting changes approved in 2020.After a special election last year and the midterms, when Alaska employed a novel election system for the first time, some conservatives reeling from losses at the polls have directed their ire at a common target: ranked-choice voting.At least three Republican lawmakers have introduced bills seeking to repeal some of the electoral changes that were narrowly approved by voters in 2020, which introduced a “top-four” open primary and ranked-choice voting in general elections. In addition to deciding winners based on the candidate who receives the most votes, the bills also seek to return to a closed primary system, in which only registered party members can participate.Supporters of the new system contend that it sets a higher bar to get elected than to simply earn a plurality of votes.But critics have called the format confusing. Some have blamed it for the defeat of Sarah Palin, the Republican former governor and 2008 vice-presidential nominee, in a special House election in August and again in November for the same office.They also cited the system as being instrumental to the re-election last year of Senator Lisa Murkowski, a centrist Republican who angered some members of her party when she voted to convict Mr. Trump at his impeachment trial after the Jan. 6 attack.Still, Republican foes of ranked-choice elections could face hurdles within their own party. According to The Anchorage Daily News, the incoming Senate president, a Republican, favors keeping the system in place.Nebraska Republicans aim to sharply curb mail voting.Nebraska does not require voters to provide a reason to vote early by mail, but two Republican state senators want to make wholesale changes that would mostly require in-person voting on Election Day.Under a bill proposed by Steve Halloran and Steve Erdman, G.O.P. senators in the unicameral legislature, only members of the U.S. military and residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities could vote by mail.The measure would further require all ballots to be counted on Election Day, which would become a state holiday in Nebraska, along with the day of the statewide primary.The League of Women Voters of Nebraska opposes the bill and noted that 11 of the state’s 93 counties vote entirely by mail under a provision that gives officials in counties with under 10,000 people the option to do so.“This is an extreme bill and would be very unpopular,” MaryLee Mouton, the league’s president, said in an email. “When most states are moving to expand voting by mail, a bill to restrict vote by mail would negatively impact both our rural and urban communities.”In the November election, Nebraskans overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative that created a statewide photo ID requirement for voting.A Republican bill in Missouri would hunt for election fraud.In Missouri, where Republicans control the governor’s office and Legislature, one G.O.P. bill would create an Office of Election Crimes and Security. The office would report to the secretary of state and would be responsible for reviewing election fraud complaints and conducting investigations.Its investigators would also be authorized to enter poling places or offices of any election authority on Election Day, during absentee voting or the canvass of votes. More

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      Democrats Face Obstacles in Plan to Reorder Presidential Primary Calendar

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      The party is radically reshuffling the early-state order, but Georgia and New Hampshire present challenges.Democratic efforts to overhaul which states hold the first presidential primaries entered a new and uncertain phase this week, with hurdles to President Biden’s preferred order coming into focus even as several states signaled their abilities to host early contests, a key step in radically reshaping the calendar.But in Georgia, Democrats face logistical problems in moving up their primary. And New Hampshire, the longtime leadoff primary state, has officially indicated that it cannot comply with the early-state lineup endorsed by a D.N.C. panel, under which the state would hold the second primary contest alongside Nevada.That panel backed a sweeping set of changes last month to how the party picks its presidential nominee, in keeping with Mr. Biden’s vision of putting more racially diverse states at the beginning of the process.Democratic nominating contests have for years begun with the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. Under the new proposal, the 2024 Democratic presidential primary calendar would begin in South Carolina on Feb. 3, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada on Feb. 6, Georgia on Feb. 13 and then Michigan on Feb. 27.Those states — several of which played critical roles in Mr. Biden’s 2020 primary victory — had until Thursday to demonstrate progress toward being able to host contests on the selected dates. According to a letter from the co-chairs of the D.N.C.’s Rules and Bylaws Committee, Nevada, South Carolina and Michigan have met the committee’s requirements for holding early primaries.Both Georgia and New Hampshire are more complex cases.In the letter, sent on Thursday, the committee’s co-chairs recommended that the two states be granted extensions to allow for more time to work toward meeting the requirements of the new calendar.“We expected both the New Hampshire and Georgia efforts to be complicated but well worth the effort if we can get them done,” wrote Jim Roosevelt Jr. and Minyon Moore, in a letter obtained by The New York Times. They added, “We are committed to seeing out the calendar that this committee approved last month.”Under the new D.N.C. proposal, Georgia would host the fourth Democratic primary in 2024. A onetime Republican bastion that helped propel Mr. Biden to the presidency, Georgia also played a critical role in cementing the Democratic Senate majority and has become an undeniably critical battleground state. Atlanta has been vying to host the Democratic National Convention and is considered one of the stronger contenders.President Biden, if he seeks re-election, could decide against filing in the New Hampshire primary, a state where he came in fifth place in 2020.David Degner for The New York TimesBut there are challenges in moving up Georgia’s Democratic primary. Republicans have already agreed to their own early-voting calendar, keeping the order of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, and rules from the Republican National Committee are clear: States that jump the order will lose delegates, and party rules have already been set (though the R.N.C. is in a period of tumult as its chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, faces a challenge to her leadership).In Georgia, the primary date is determined by the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican. Officials from his office have stressed that there is no appetite to hold two primaries or to risk losing delegates.“This needs to be equitable to both political parties and held on the same day to save taxpayers’ money,” Jordan Fuchs, Georgia’s deputy secretary of state, said in a statement this week.Georgia Democrats hoping that the money and media attention that come to an early primary state might persuade Gov. Brian P. Kemp, a Republican, to intercede for them may be disappointed, too.“The governor has no role in this process and does not support the idea,” Cody Hall, an adviser to Mr. Kemp, said on Wednesday night.The situation is fraught for different reasons in New Hampshire, which has long held the nation’s first primary as a matter of state law. Neither the state’s Democrats nor its Republicans, who control the governor’s mansion and state legislature, are inclined to buck the law, playing up the state’s discerning voters and famed opportunities for small-scale retail politicking.That tradition puts New Hampshire’s Democrats directly at odds with the D.N.C. mandate to host the second primary in 2024. Officials in the state have signaled their intent to hold the first primary anyway, risking penalties.In a letter to the Rules and Bylaws Committee before the deadline extension, Raymond Buckley, the chairman of the state Democratic Party, wrote that the D.N.C.’s plan was “unrealistic and unattainable, as the New Hampshire Democratic Party cannot dictate to the Republican governor and state legislative leaders what to do, and because it does not have the power to change the primary date unilaterally.”He noted a number of concessions New Hampshire Democrats would seek to make, but urged the committee to “reconsider the requirements that they have placed,” casting them as a “poison pill.”The early-state proposal is the culmination of a long process to reorder and diversify the calendar, and Mr. Roosevelt and Ms. Moore said later Thursday that the tentative calendar “does what is long overdue and brings more voices into the early window process.”D.N.C. rules stipulate consequences for any state that moves to operate ahead of the party’s agreed-upon early window, as well as for candidates who campaign in such states.If New Hampshire jumps the line, Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign, assuming he runs, could decide against filing in the New Hampshire primary, a state where he came in fifth place in 2020.While few prominent Democratic officials expect, as of now, that he would draw a major primary challenge if he runs — making much of the drama around the early-state calendar effectively moot in 2024 — a lesser-known candidate could emerge and camp out in New Hampshire, some in the state have warned.The eventual calendar is not set in stone for future elections: Mr. Biden urged the Rules and Bylaws Committee to review the calendar every four years, and the committee has embraced an amendment to get that process underway.And there are still a number of steps this year.The Rules and Bylaws Committee is expected to meet to vote on the proposed extensions. The D.N.C.’s. winter meeting, where the five-state proposal must be affirmed by the full committee, is scheduled for early February in Philadelphia, and there is certain to be more jockeying ahead of that event.“The first real inflection point is the meeting of the full D.N.C.,” Mr. Roosevelt said in an interview late last month. More

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      Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow’s retirement sets up fierce 2024 Senate contest

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      Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow’s retirement sets up fierce 2024 Senate contestThe vacancy will make Michigan’s Senate seat one of the most competitive in the nation, as Republicans vie for more control Michigan senator Debbie Stabenow, a member of the Democratic leadership, announced on Thursday that she would not seek re-election in 2024, setting the stage for a fierce contest to claim an open seat in a critical midwestern battleground state.How Michigan Democrats took control for the first time in decadesRead moreStabenow, 72, is the first Senate Democrat to announce her retirement ahead of 2024, when the party will try to defend its razor-thin majority by fending off challenges to incumbents in several states that former president Donald Trump won.But Democrats delivered a strong performance in Michigan last year and expressed confidence that the seat would remain in the party’s control.“Inspired by a new generation of leaders, I have decided to pass the torch in the US Senate,” Stabenow said in a statement on Thursday. “I am announcing today that I will not seek re-election and will leave the US Senate at the end of my term on 3 January 2025.“Under the cloud of unprecedented threats to our democracy and our basic freedoms, a record-breaking number of people voted last year in Michigan. Young people showed up like never before. This was a very hopeful sign for our future,” she said.Stabenow’s decision not to seek a fifth term after serving two decades in the chamber immediately turned the race for Michigan’s open Senate seat into one of the most competitive in the nation. Republicans welcomed the development as a sign that Democrats’ hopes of maintaining their one-seat majority were already fading.“We are going to aggressively target this seat in 2024,” said Mike Berg, communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm of Senate Republicans. “This could be the first of many Senate Democrats who decide to retire rather than lose.”Senate Democrats face a punishing electoral map next year. They are defending nearly a quarter of the seats in the Senate, many of them in competitive states as well as in red states like Ohio, Montana and West Virginia. By contrast, no Senate Republican faces re-election in a state Joe Biden won.But their prospects have improved in Michigan since Trump won the state in 2016. Biden won the state in 2020. And two years later, fury over efforts to ban abortion in Michigan in the wake of the supreme court decision overturning Roe v Wade propelled Democrats to victory up and down the ballot in the state.In a statement, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer praised Stabenow as the embodiment of the “true Michigan spirit” and thanked her for her years of service in Congress and her leadership within the caucus. “With Debbie’s help, and the strong Michigan Democratic party she helped build, Debbie and I are confident Democrats will retain the seat,” he said.Speculation began to swirl about who Democrats might nominate to replace Stabenow. Attention immediately turned to Democratic congresswoman Elissa Slotkin who clinched a decisive victory in November in one of the most competitive House races that cycle. Other possible contenders included congresswoman Haley Stevens, transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who recently moved to Michigan to be closer to his husband’s family.In a statement, Buttigieg called Stabenow a “force in the Senate” but said he was “not seeking any other job”.Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who resoundingly won re-election in November, praised Stabenow as a “champion for Michigan” while indicating that she was not interested in running for the seat. “As governor of this great state for the next four years, I look forward to working with [Stabenow] through the end of her term and beyond in however she serves our state next,” Whitmer said in a statement, emphasizing her plans to serve a full four-year term.Other Michigan officials whose names have been raised include Lt governor Garlin Gilchrist, secretary of state Jocelyn Benson, attorney general Dana Nessel as well as state senator Mallory McMorrow, who drew interest after a forceful rejoinder to Republican accusations that Democrats want to “groom” children went viral.Stabenow first joined Congress in 1996 after serving in the Michigan state legislature. In 2000, she became the first woman to represent Michigan in the US Senate. Stabenow climbed through the ranks, becoming a member of Democratic leadership and chair of the agriculture committee. In 2018, she turned back a well-funded and closely-watched challenge from Republican John James, who is seen as a rising star on the right.House Republicans aim to rein in ethics body preparing to investigate their partyRead moreJames was elected to the House in November and is considered a potential contender for the Republican Senate nomination. Other possible Republican candidates are former congressman Peter Meijer, a relative moderate who lost his seat last year as well as Tudor Dixon, a Trump loyalist who was defeated by Whitmer in the race for governor.In her statement, Stabenow reflected on the progress Michigan women had made in politics since she first ran for office in 1974, at the age of 24.“This began years of breaking barriers, blazing trails and being the ‘first’ woman to reach historic milestones as an elected official,” she said, adding: “But I have always believed it’s not enough to be the ‘first’ unless there is a ‘second’ and a ‘third’…”TopicsUS politicsMichiganDemocratsUS CongressUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

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      Michigan governor kidnap plot: man sentenced to over 19 years in prison

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      Michigan governor kidnap plot: man sentenced to over 19 years in prisonBarry Croft Jr, the co-leader of the stunning plot to abduct the governor from her vacation home, is the final defendant in the case A Delaware trucker described as a co-leader of the conspiracy to kidnap Michigan’s governor has been sentenced to more than 19 years in prison.Leader of plot to kidnap Michigan governor sentenced to 16 yearsRead moreBarry Croft Jr was the fourth and final federal defendant to learn his fate, a day after ally Adam Fox was sentenced to 16 years in prison. The two men were convicted in August of conspiracy charges at a second trial in Grand Rapids.They were accused of running a stunning plot to abduct Governor Gretchen Whitmer from her vacation home just before the 2020 presidential election. The conspirators were furious over tough Covid-19 restrictions that Whitmer and officials in other states had put in place during the early months of the pandemic, as well as perceived threats to gun ownership.Whitmer was not physically harmed. The FBI was secretly embedded in the group and made 14 arrests.Fox, 39, and Croft, 47, were convicted of two counts of conspiracy at a second trial in August. Croft also was found guilty of possessing an unregistered explosive. A different jury in Grand Rapids, Michigan, could not reach a verdict on the pair at the first trial last spring but acquitted two other men.“The abduction of the governor was only meant to be the beginning of Croft’s reign of terror,” assistant US attorney NilsKessler said. “He called for riots, ‘torching’ government officials in their sleep and setting off a ‘domino’ effect of violence across the country.”A key piece of evidence: Croft, Fox and others traveled to see Whitmer’s vacation home in northern Michigan with undercover agents and informants inside the cabal.At one point, Croft told allies: “I don’t like seeing anybody get killed either. But you don’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, you know what I mean?”Croft’s attorney tried to soften his client’s role. In a court filing, Joshua Blanchard said the Bear, Delaware, man did not actually have authority over others and often frustrated them because he “just kept talking”.Croft was smoking 2 ounces (56g) of marijuana a week, Blanchard said.“Simply put, to the extent that the jury determined he was a participant, as they necessarily did, he was a participant to a lesser degree than others,” Blanchard insisted.How Michigan Democrats took control for the first time in decadesRead moreTwo men who pleaded guilty and testified against Fox and Croft received substantial breaks: Ty Garbin already is free after a 2.5-year prison term, while Kaleb Franks was given a four-year sentence.In state court, three men recently were given lengthy sentences for assisting Fox earlier in the summer of 2020. Five more are awaiting trial in Antrim county, where Whitmer’s vacation home is located.When the plot was extinguished, Whitmer blamed then-President Donald Trump, saying he had given “comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division”. In August, 19 months after leaving office, Trump said the kidnapping plan was a “fake deal”.TopicsMichiganUS politicsUS crimenewsReuse this content More

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      Democrats, Feeling New Strength, Plan to Go on Offense on Voting Rights

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      After retaining most of the governor’s offices they hold and capturing the legislatures in Michigan and Minnesota, Democrats are putting forward a long list of proposals to expand voting access.NEW ORLEANS — For the last two years, Democrats in battleground states have played defense against Republican efforts to curtail voting access and amplify doubts about the legitimacy of the nation’s elections.Now it is Democrats, who retained all but one of the governor’s offices they hold and won control of state legislatures in Michigan and Minnesota, who are ready to go on offense in 2023. They are putting forward a long list of proposals that include creating automatic voter registration systems, preregistering teenagers to vote before they turn 18, returning the franchise to felons released from prison and criminalizing election misinformation.Since 2020, Republicans inspired by former President Donald J. Trump’s election lies sought to make voting more difficult for anyone not casting a ballot in person on Election Day. But in the midterm elections, voters across the country rejected the most prominent Republican candidates who embraced false claims about American elections and promised to bend the rules to their party’s advantage.Democrats who won re-election or will soon take office have interpreted their victories as a mandate to make voting easier and more accessible.“I’ve asked them to think big,” Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said of his directions to fellow Democrats on voting issues now that his party controls both chambers of the state’s Legislature. Republicans will maintain unified control next year over state governments in Texas, Ohio, Florida and Georgia. In Texas and Ohio, along with other places, Republicans are weighing additional restrictions on voting when they convene in the new year.Democratic governors in Arizona and Wisconsin will face Republican-run legislatures that are broadly hostile to expanding voting access, while Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor-elect of Pennsylvania, is likely to eventually preside over one chamber with a G.O.P. majority and one with a narrow Democratic majority.And in Washington, D.C., the Supreme Court is weighing a case that could give state legislatures vastly expanded power over election laws — a decision with enormous implications for the power of state lawmakers to draw congressional maps and set rules for federal elections.Democrats have widely interpreted that case — brought by Republicans in North Carolina — as dangerous to democracy because of the prospect of aggressive G.O.P. gerrymandering and the potential for state legislators to determine the outcome of elections. But it would also allow Democrats to write themselves into permanent power in states where they control the levers of elections.The Supreme Court’s deliberation comes as many Democrats are becoming increasingly vocal about pushing the party to be more aggressive in expanding voting access — especially after the Senate this year failed to advance a broad voting rights package.The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6A moment of reflection. More

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      Men sentenced to prison for supporting plot to kidnap Michigan governor

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      Men sentenced to prison for supporting plot to kidnap Michigan governorJoe Morrison, Pete Musico and Paul Bellar were members of paramilitary group that trained with leader of conspiracy A judge on Thursday handed down the longest prison terms so far in the plot to kidnap the Democratic governor of Michigan, sentencing three men who forged an early alliance with a leader of the scheme before the FBI broke it up in 2020.Joe Morrison, Pete Musico and Paul Bellar were not charged with direct roles in the conspiracy but were members of a paramilitary group that trained with Adam Fox, who separately faces a possible life sentence on 27 December.The trio were convicted in October of providing material support for a terrorist act, which carries a maximum term of 20 years, and two other crimes.Musico was sentenced to a minimum of 12 years in prison, followed by his son-in-law Morrison at 10 years and Bellar at seven. They will be eligible for parole after serving those terms.In a recorded video, the governor, Gretchen Whitmer, urged the judge to “impose a sentence that meets the gravity of the damage they have done to our democracy”.“A conspiracy to kidnap and kill a sitting governor of the state of Michigan is a threat to democracy itself,” said Whitmer, adding that she now scans crowds for threats and worries “about the fate of everyone near me”.The judge, Thomas Wilson, presided over the first batch of convictions in state court, following the high-profile conspiracy convictions of four others in federal court.Fox and Barry Croft Jr were described as captains of an incredible plan to snatch Whitmer from her vacation home, seeking to inspire a US civil war known as the “boogaloo”.Whitmer, recently elected to a second term, was never physically harmed. Undercover FBI agents and informants were inside Fox’s group for months and the scheme was broken up with 14 arrests in October 2020.A person convicted of more than one crime in Michigan typically gets prison sentences that run at the same time. But Wilson took the unusual step of ordering consecutive sentences for Musico and Morrison, making their minimum stays longer.In addition to being convicted of supporting terrorism, the three men were each convicted of a gun crime and of being a member in a gang.Musico, 45, Morrison, 28, and Bellar, 24, were members of the Wolverine Watchmen. The three held gun training with Fox in rural Jackson county and shared his disgust for Whitmer, police and public officials, especially after Covid-19 restrictions disrupted the economy and triggered armed Capitol protests and anti-government belligerence.But defense attorneys argued that the trio cut ties with Fox before the Whitmer plot came into focus by late summer 2020. Bellar had moved to South Carolina in July. The three men also didn’t travel with Fox to look for the governor’s second home or participate in a key training session inside a “shoot house” in Luther, Michigan.“Mr Bellar is clueless about any plot to kidnap the governor,” the attorney Andrew Kirkpatrick said in a court filing last week.A jury quickly returned guilty verdicts in October after nine days of testimony, mostly evidence offered by a pivotal FBI informant, Dan Chappel, and federal agents.Separately, in federal court in Grand Rapids, Fox and Croft face possible life sentences in two weeks’ time. Two men who pleaded guilty received substantial breaks: Ty Garbin is free after a two-and-a-half-year prison term while Kaleb Franks was given a four-year sentence.Brandon Caserta and Daniel Harris were acquitted by a jury.When the plot was foiled, Whitmer blamed then-president Donald Trump, saying he had given “comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division”.In August, after 19 months out of office, Trump said the kidnapping plan was a “fake deal”.TopicsMichiganUS crimeUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Gary Peters on How Democrats Held and Expanded Their Senate Majority

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      The Michigan Democrat who led the party’s campaign effort credits candidate quality, abortion rights and the battleground map.WASHINGTON — Senator Gary Peters knows tough campaigns.A Michigan Democrat, he beat an eight-term Republican incumbent in 2008 to win a House seat and then survived the Tea Party wave in 2010 in a district the Republican governor carried by 26 points. Republicans targeted him for extinction in 2012 in a redistricting effort that placed his residence on the dividing line between three districts. He won again, after weathering a primary against a fellow Democratic incumbent.Then in 2014, Mr. Peters won Michigan’s open Senate seat in a year when Republicans picked up nine seats in the chamber, making him the only newly elected Democrat and the party’s incoming class of one. And in his 2020 re-election bid, he held off the Republican Party’s top recruit and $40 million in outside spending to win again, outperforming President Biden.This year, as the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Mr. Peters did not have a race of his own, but he applied some of the political lessons learned through his experience in difficult contests to forge a winning strategy for his party in multiple challenging campaigns featuring Democrats.“We had an incredibly sophisticated ground campaign that helped us, that allowed us to win even though the other side had spent millions of dollars against me,” Mr. Peters said of his own races. “I saw the power of a ground campaign in making sure your voters are voting.”He exceeded expectations in the midterm elections, helping Democrats add to their majority in a cycle that would typically favor Republicans, bolstering their 50-50 majority to a more functional 51-49.“Gary Peters did an amazing, amazing job as head of the D.S.C.C.,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, who will benefit significantly from the extra Senate seat won in the election.Despite his electoral track record and chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Mr. Peters, 64, is not a particularly prominent figure in the Senate. But that status may change given the party’s showing in November.The New York Times interviewed Mr. Peters about his strategy and takeaways from the midterm election. It has been condensed and lightly edited.What was your secret?The secret is usually always hard work. We put in a lot of hard work. We were very disciplined. But I would say the No. 1 factor for us holding and expanding the majority was the quality of our candidates, especially vis-à-vis the quality of the opposition. Clearly, our candidates were superior. They had records to run on, records of accomplishment. They were aligned with the issues that people cared about, and the Republicans were out of touch, often very extreme. And when you compare the two candidates, it was clear for folks who should be their senator.Mr. Peters addressed a crowd at a rally for Democrats in Grand Rapids, Mich., last month.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesSo when Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Republicans had a “candidate quality” problem, you agreed with him?The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6A moment of reflection. More

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      Two Groups Quietly Spent $32 Million Rallying Voters Behind Voting Rights

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      The money largely went to state and local organizations that often focused on turning out young voters and people of color, including with messages about threats to freedom and democracy.Two organizations quietly spent $32 million in last month’s midterm elections on organizing meant to combat election denialism and promote voting access, according to a progressive strategist behind the effort.The Pro-Democracy Center and the Pro-Democracy Campaign put that money into 126 organizations across 16 states, with a particular focus on Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan, as well as toward a range of national organizations, some of them left-leaning. The effort also connected donors with key organizations, resulting in an additional $16 million investment, said David Donnelly, the initiative’s lead strategist. The Pro-Democracy Center and the Pro-Democracy Campaign did not directly spend on specific candidates or buy advertising, he said. The initiative did, however, engage around retention of Supreme Court justices in Arizona, he said.Mr. Donnelly said the groups invested in organizations that focused in particular on turning out young voters and people of color, two key parts of the Democratic coalition, and often recommended messages about threats to freedom and democracy.“If you roll back the clock to the beginning of this year, there was a lot of ink and pixels spilled about the possibility of democratic collapse, and all that didn’t happen,” Mr. Donnelly said. A number of Republicans who made names for themselves as election deniers lost high-profile races. “It’s not the full story, but you can’t understand why without lifting up some of the groups that were doing organizing and mobilizing in communities of color and among young people.”Mr. Donnelly would not name the donors behind the groups, which as nonprofits are not required to disclose their contributors. Politico first reported on the efforts from Pro-Democracy Center and Pro-Democracy Campaign on Monday.The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6A moment of reflection. More