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      Former Ohio Speaker Householder Faces Sentencing in Bribery Scheme

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      Larry L. Householder, former speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, awaits sentencing on Thursday after being convicted of participating in a racketeering conspiracy that resulted in a bailout for two struggling nuclear power plants.It is, federal prosecutors say, perhaps the biggest public corruption scandal in Ohio’s history, a three-year conspiracy in which one of Ohio’s biggest corporations funneled some $60 million to one of the state’s most powerful politicians in exchange for a $1.3 billion bailout.And those investigators say they are only coming to the end of Act I.On Thursday, the former Republican speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, Larry L. Householder, will be sentenced in federal court in Cincinnati for violating racketeering and bribery laws.The outlines of the charges have been known since his arrest, with four other men, three years ago: FirstEnergy Corporation, a Fortune 500 electric utility based in Akron, funneled the $60 million though various nonprofit entities. In return, Mr. Householder rammed a law through the state legislature that gave the company the bailout for two troubled nuclear power plants. Prosecutors have recommended a sentence of up to 20 years.But, as described early this year in a 26-day trial, the alliance between the utility and Mr. Householder, 64, was far more than a bribery scandal. Among other things, prosecutors and experts say, it was an almost cinematic example of how the dark money that pervades both state and federal politics slithers unseen from donor to beneficiary.It is also a cautionary tale about how state legislatures — second-rung political bodies that are often run by part-time politicians, but increasingly dealing with issues of national importance — are at least as prone to manipulation by special interests as their Washington counterparts.David DeVillers, who oversaw the federal investigation as the U.S. attorney in Cincinnati until early 2021, said in an interview that the gusher of dark money was crucial to the plot and an issue well beyond Ohio.“Any time you have a supermajority, whether it’s Republicans or Democrats, and industries that are based on passing laws like marijuana or sports gambling or energy, it’s a formula for corruption,” he said.In a memorandum on sentencing last week, Mr. Householder’s lawyer, Steven L. Bradley, said that his client had not admitted wrongdoing, and that Mr. Householder genuinely believed that the legislation enacting the bailout “was an important piece of legislation, which is why he advocated and voted for it.” The blare of publicity and the ignominy of conviction, Mr. Bradley wrote, had left Mr. Householder “a broken man.” In an email, Mr. Bradley said he plans to “vigorously pursue an appeal with the hope of winning a new trial.”Mr. Householder, a onetime insurance agent from an impoverished rural county in southeast Ohio, had been House speaker from 2001 to 2004. He left his legislative seat because of term limits and faced a federal corruption investigation after leaving the post then, but was not charged.After returning to the legislature in 2016, Mr. Householder secretly spent millions in 2018 to support Republican candidates for 21 seats in the State House — more than a fifth of the 99 seats — who would back his insurgent campaign to again become House speaker. He spent more millions on a media campaign to push the nuclear bailout law to passage, and then tens of millions on a scorched-earth crusade to undermine a ballot initiative that threatened to undo it.By the time he was arrested in July 2020, Mr. Householder was soliciting secret contributions from others seeking legislative favors — and plotting to change the State Constitution’s term limits clause to extend his tenure by 16 years.At each step, a web of political action committees and dummy nonprofit organizations called 501(c)(4)s, after their place in the federal tax code, ensured that money fueling the schemes could not be traced to Mr. Householder or FirstEnergy.“The scope of the conspiracy was unprecedented,” prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memorandum. “So was the damage it left in its wake, both in terms of its potential financial harm to Ohioans and its erosion of public trust.”In a wiretap disclosed during the trial, a lobbyist charged in the affair, Neil Clark, boasted to undercover F.B.I. agents about his handiwork.“I spent close to $20 million in the last eight weeks, $20 million,” he said. “FirstEnergy got $1.3 billion in subsidies, free payments.”He later added: “So what do they care about putting in $20 million a year for this thing?”FirstEnergy sought a bailout for two nuclear power plants, including this one in North Perry, Ohio.Amy Sancetta/Associated PressFirstEnergy had sought state subsidies for two nuclear power plants on the shore of Lake Erie for years when Mr. Householder returned to the State House in 2016. The company claimed that renewable energy and cheaper fuels had made both plants unprofitable.Mr. Householder left little doubt that he wanted his old job as speaker back. After his 2016 election, FirstEnergy’s chief executive at the time, Chuck Jones, invited him to fly on the company’s private jet to attend the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump.Over several days of socializing at high-end restaurants, prosecutors said, they discussed a deal: Mr. Householder needed money to regain the speaker’s post when its occupant left office in 2018. The company needed a legislative solution to its nuclear power woes.What began with a handshake became a multimillion-dollar political operation, with the money laundered through nonprofit groups allowed by the tax code to conceal donors’ names.“They can give as much or more to the (c)(4) and nobody would ever know,” the lobbyist, Mr. Clark, told Mr. Householder in another wiretapped conversation. “So you don’t have to be afraid.”Chuck Jones in 2015, when he was FirstEnergy’s president and chief executive.Phil Masturzo/Akron Beacon Journal, via Associated PressNeil Clark, a lobbyist, was also charged in the affair.Jonathan Quilter/The Columbus Dispatch, via USA Today NetworkWeeks later, Mr. Householder established a 501(c)(4) called Generation Now. Other nonprofits, both new and old, were rolled into the scheme: a PAC called Hardworking Ohioans, two new nonprofits and many more.Rivers of anonymous money — most, but not all, from FirstEnergy — began to flow. In one typical transaction, Generation Now shunted $1 million of FirstEnergy donations to the newly formed Coalition for Growth and Opportunity, whose only reported officer was a Kentucky lawyer who oversaw other nonprofits. The Coalition for Growth and Opportunity donated $1 million to its separate PAC, which spent it on media campaigns supporting Republicans friendly to Mr. Householder and opposing unfriendly ones.And so it went: At least $3 million spent in 2018 to elect Republicans backing Mr. Householder’s speaker ambitions. Nearly $17 million more in 2019 on a successful media campaign supporting House Bill 6, the legislation bailing out FirstEnergy nuclear plants.Clean energy advocates and the natural gas industry opposed the $1.3 billion measure, which propped up two unrelated coal-fired plants and solar energy projects besides the $1 billion nuclear subsidy. And when they began collecting signatures for a ballot initiative to overturn the bailout, FirstEnergy devoted another $38 million to quash that effort.The money paid for a private detective and bullies to disrupt signature gatherers, as well as a saturation advertising campaign claiming that China was “quietly invading our energy grid” with the help of opponents of the bailout.Backers considered it money well spent. When House Bill 6 became law in July 2019, Mr. Jones, the FirstEnergy chairman, sent a picture of Mount Rushmore to Samuel C. Randazzo, then the chairman of the state Public Utilities Commission. Supplanting the mountain’s four presidents were faces of the two men and executives at FirstEnergy and another utility.Below that, prosecutors said, was an all-capital-letters caption that extolled their political clout with a common sexual vulgarity.Meanwhile, Mr. Householder’s Generation Now nonprofit was already plowing new ground. In a wiretapped conversation in 2018, Mr. Householder said he was “expecting big things in (c)(4) money from payday lenders,” an industry that has lobbied federal and state officials against regulating high-interest loans to the poor.For some, the cost of exposure has been heavy.FirstEnergy fired its top executives. Later, it paid $234 million in fines to federal agencies and surrendered another $115 million in ill-gotten gains after admitting to large-scale fraud.Mr. Clark, the lobbyist, died by suicide in 2021 after publishing a book that alleged a lifetime of dirty deals in state politics.Federal prosecutors say their inquiry is continuing, although they have not said where it might lead.F.B.I. agents removing items from the home of Samuel C. Randazzo, then the Ohio Public Utilities Commission chairman, in 2020.Adam Cairns/The Columbus Dispatch, via Associated PressIn what was, in effect, a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, FirstEnergy confessed that it had given Mr. Randazzo $4.3 million “to further FirstEnergy Corp.’s interests” on nuclear and other issues in 2019, weeks before Gov. Mike DeWine named him to head the state Public Utilities Commission.Mr. Randazzo, who denies wrongdoing, has not been charged.Court filings and related lawsuits have referred to Governor DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, who have said they were unaware of the illegal payments. Both supported House Bill 6, and Mr. DeWine benefited from hundreds of thousand of dollars in get-out-the-vote support from FirstEnergy during his 2018 election campaign. The company also donated $75,000 to his daughter’s failed bid for a local elective office.FirstEnergy, meanwhile, faces investigation by the federal Securities and Exchange Commission and shareholder lawsuits.And in the five states where it owns electric utilities, utility commissions are likely to require tens of millions of dollars in refunds to customers, in part involving scandal-related spending.On Wednesday, the company said in a statement that it “has accepted responsibility for its actions related to House Bill 6 and has taken significant steps to put past issues behind us.”“Today we are a different, stronger company with a sound strategy and focused on a bright future,” it added.Mr. DeVillers, the former U.S. attorney, said that nonprofits like those central to the FirstEnergy scandal have been largely ignored by law enforcement. Enforcement of restrictions in the federal tax code on 501(c)(4) groups has been lax.Dave Anderson, the communications director of the Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group that follows the energy industry, said that might now change.“This is a case that really illustrates how they can be used for criminal malfeasance,” he said, referring to nonprofits. Now, he said, lawyers who told clients that 501(c)(4) groups are safe conduits for secret cash may be “holding their breath and thinking, ‘Maybe the convictions will be thrown out.’” More

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      It’s Not Possible to ‘Win’ an Argument With Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

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      In the summer of 2006, I jumped into the ring for a few rounds of debate with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was peddling reckless claims about an important issue on which he lacked expertise. It wasn’t vaccines. It was the 2004 presidential race. In an article for Rolling Stone, Kennedy suggested that the election had been stolen from John Kerry — a suggestion that, after thorough reporting, didn’t hold up.But now I see where I went wrong. Not on the merits; there’s still no case that Kerry actually won in 2004. My mistake was attempting to debate and debunk Kennedy in the first place. At best, the effort was a waste of time and energy; at worst, a big bow-wrapped gift of the thing a conspiracy theorist desires most — recognition that his arguments are important enough to merit serious debate.After getting in the mud with Kennedy all those years ago, I realized something important that we’d do well to remember now, as Kennedy mounts a long-shot run against Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination: You can come armed with all the facts in the world, but when you’re dealing with a conspiracist, there’s no real way to “win” an argument. For people whose views aren’t anchored to facts, winning is simply getting attention — and when you publicly argue with someone like Kennedy, you’ve already lost.I got to thinking about all of this last week, when Kennedy went on Joe Rogan’s podcast and served up a helping of misinformation on the issue for which he is best known, his conviction that several common, widely-used vaccines are harmful.When Peter Hotez, a well-known vaccine researcher, tweeted a link to a Vice story critical of Rogan’s anti-vaccine statements and Kennedy’s appearance on the show, Rogan offered a $100,000 charitable donation if Hotez would come on the podcast to debate Kennedy. Not long after, Elon Musk chimed in, and soon an avalanche of Twitterati were pledging money for a debate; according to one Twitter user who claims to have been tracking the pledges, the pot is now over $2 million.So far, Hotez has courageously refused to take the bait, rejecting, as a physician and scientist, an effort to goad him into defending his work from a skeptic who has for years resisted evidence on vaccines. A back-and-forth between Kennedy and Hotez or another vaccine expert wouldn’t prove anything. And that’s not scientists’ method, anyway. They have established ways of assessing empirical questions — you know, things like lab experiments and clinical trials — and none of them involve owning an interlocutor on a popular podcast.And what would winning a debate with Kennedy even mean? As I learned when I argued with him about the 2004 election, trying to fight misinformation with facts is a tricky business. One side is bound by clearly documented evidence; the other side is free to cherry pick factoids from anywhere, to assert that establishment institutions are inherently suspect and that efforts to fact-check their claims amount to nit-picking, and that anyone who doesn’t see a bigger narrative in a collection of loosely related stories is, in effect, a naïf.I was a reporter at Salon during the 2004 election cycle. I’d spent several months before Election Day covering the ways America had been changing its voting systems since the fiasco of 2000, including the adoption in some places of electronic voting machines that could be vulnerable to hackers or other security lapses. Throughout that time I’d cultivated many sources in the insular, nerdy world of election administration and I’d become familiar with the minutiae of how elections are run.This left me well-prepared for what happened after Election Day — a barrage of theories from people on the left that, due to the electronic voting machines or other problems, the election had been stolen. In his Rolling Stone piece, referring to George W. Bush, Kennedy wrote that he’d “become convinced that the president’s party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004.” He argued that in Ohio, where Bush’s victory put him over the top in the Electoral College, enough Kerry votes were uncounted, flipped or otherwise kept out of the race to cast doubt on Bush’s roughly 118,000-vote margin in that state.I investigated many of these theories, often by consulting the sources I’d cultivated. Kennedy was right that the 2004 election had been rife with irregularities and efforts at disenfranchising voters, particularly in Ohio, where a partisan secretary of state, Kenneth Blackwell, had overseen several divisive voting measures and obstacles. But pretty much every expert I talked to said that none of the issues were likely big enough to have undone Bush’s win. An investigation by the Democratic National Committee which looked at precinct level voting counts found that the data “does not suggest the occurrence of widespread fraud that systematically misallocated votes from Kerry to Bush.”And so: I wrote a point-by-point debunking of Kennedy’s breathless claims. Then Kennedy wrote a rebuttal to my rebuttal, which I, again, rebutted.For a week or two this dust-up took over my life. Salon, a generally liberal-leaning publication, was deluged by letters from readers angry that I was defending Bush’s win. Thankfully, my editors supported me, and I remember coming away from the episode feeling bruised but journalistically vindicated: A man with a famous political name was wrong on the internet, and, armed with the facts, I had stepped in to correct the record.Looking back, though, I cringe. The other day I went back and listened to a debate I had with Kennedy on public radio’s “The Brian Lehrer Show.” Lehrer opened the program by asking Kennedy for his big-picture case. But whether Kennedy is talking about vaccines, elections or other out-there topics (he told Rogan he is “aware” that he could be assassinated by the American government) he tends to present his theories in a particular way. He starts with a few sprinkles of truth — Ohio’s vote was run by a partisan official, some vaccines have serious side effects — and then swirls them up with enough exaggerations, omissions and leaps of logic to create a veritable McFlurry of doubt.Such was his effort when we met on Lehrer: Kennedy offered an assortment of claims about the election that, in big and small ways, were unsubstantiated. So when Lehrer turned to me, I felt I had no choice but to start out by correcting Kennedy’s misstatements. I did so pretty handily, but because I had to point to sources and tease out the nuances Kennedy had elided, I couldn’t help but sound like the boring, persnickety nerd stuck in the weeds. After a few rounds of this back-and-forth, I can’t imagine that much of anything had been clarified for the audience. Instead, the impression was one of earnest complexity: One side says X, the other says Y, but whoever is right, it sure seems like this is a debate we should be having.At one point, Kennedy even made this plain: “You’ll be able to dispute the numbers till the end of time,” he told Lehrer of the faults I found in his case. “Mr. Manjoo,” he continued, “has made a cottage industry of reciting the Republican talking points” by bringing up “arcane disputes of each of these numbers.” “The numbers are correct,” Kennedy claimed, but the arguments over facts were “almost a side issue.” The real story, he said, is that Republicans tried to suppress Democratic votes and “they probably succeeded or may or may not have succeeded in shifting the vote to President Bush, but they certainly tried, and the press has not covered this issue.”In other words: Each side has their own numbers. We’ll never know what actually happened. This guy sounds like a Republican. My story could be right. And isn’t it suspicious that no one is talking about it?Office Hours With Farhad ManjooFarhad wants to chat with readers on the phone. If you’re interested in talking to a New York Times columnist about anything that’s on your mind, please fill out this form. Farhad will select a few readers to call.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Jayland Walker shooting: officers won’t face charges in death of Black motorist

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      Eight police officers who fired dozens of rounds at Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old Black man, following a car and foot chase will not face criminal charges in his death because a grand jury declined to indict them, Ohio’s attorney general announced Monday.Walker’s death last June sparked protests in Akron after police released body camera footage showing him dying in a hail of gunfire. Police said he had refused to stop when they tried to pull him over for minor equipment and traffic violations, though they haven’t specified further. Police say Walker fired a shot from his car 40 seconds into the pursuit.Officers chased the car on a freeway and city streets until Walker bailed from the still-moving vehicle, ignored officers’ commands and ran into a parking lot where he was killed while wearing a ski mask, body cam video showed. Authorities said he represented a “deadly threat”. A handgun, a loaded magazine and a wedding ring were found on the driver’s seat of his car.Walker took at least one shot from his vehicle at police and then after jumping out of his car he ignored commands to stop and show his hands, Yost said. “There is no doubt he did in fact shoot at police officers,” Attorney General Dave Yost of Ohio said.Walker reached for his waistband as officers were chasing and raised his hand, Yost said. The officers, not knowing he left his gun in the car, believed he was firing again at them, Yost said.Yost said it is critical to remember that Walker had fired at police, and that he “shot first”.Walker’s family called it a brutal and senseless shooting of a man who was unarmed at the time and whose fiancee recently died. Police union officials said the officers thought there was an immediate threat of serious harm and that their actions were in line with their training and protocols.The blurry body camera footage did not clearly show what authorities say was a threatening gesture Walker made before he was shot. Police chased him for about 10 seconds before officers fired from multiple directions, a burst of shots that lasts 6 or 7 seconds.The eight officers, whose names have been withheld from the public, initially were placed on leave, but they returned to administrative duties three and a half months after the shooting.A county medical examiner said Walker was shot at least 40 times. The autopsy also said no illegal drugs or alcohol were detected in his body.City leaders have been meeting with community leaders, church groups, activists and business owners ahead of the grand jury meeting while also preparing for potential protests.Walker’s death received widespread attention from activists, including from the family of the Rev Martin Luther King Jr. The NAACP and an attorney for Walker’s family called on the justice department to open a federal civil rights investigation.President Joe Biden responded during a trip to Ohio last summer by saying the DoJ was monitoring the case.Separately, another grand jury has refused to indict a former northern Virginia police officer after he fatally shot an unarmed shoplifting suspect outside a busy shopping mall in February.Authorities presented the case to a grand jury for an indictment against Wesley Shifflett, who shot and killed Timothy McCree Johnson outside Tysons Corner Center on 22 February.The shooting occurred after Shifflett and another Fairfax county police officer chased Johnson on foot from the mall after receiving a report from security guards that Johnson had stolen sunglasses from a Nordstrom department store.Dimly lit body camera video shows the chase and the shooting. The officer is heard saying “Get on the ground” and later saying “stop reaching” as shots are fired. After the shooting, Shifflett tells another officer that he saw Johnson “continually reaching in his waistband”.A search of the grounds after the shooting turned up no weapons.Shifflett was fired last month for what Fairfax county police chief Kevin Davis called “a failure to live up to the expectations of our agency, in particular use of force policies”.A lawyer for Johnson’s family likened the shooting to an execution. Johnson’s mother, Melissa Johnson, said officers shot her son when all they knew at the time was “that he was Black and male and had allegedly triggered an alarm from a store for some sunglasses”. More

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      Republicans Face Setbacks in Push to Tighten Voting Laws on College Campuses

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      Party officials across the country have sought to erect more barriers for young voters, who tilt heavily Democratic, after several cycles in which their turnout surged.Alarmed over young people increasingly proving to be a force for Democrats at the ballot box, Republican lawmakers in a number of states have been trying to enact new obstacles to voting for college students.In Idaho, Republicans used their power monopoly this month to ban student ID cards as a form of voter identification.But so far this year, the new Idaho law is one of few successes for Republicans targeting young voters.Attempts to cordon off out-of-state students from voting in their campus towns or to roll back preregistration for teenagers have failed in New Hampshire and Virginia. Even in Texas, where 2019 legislation shuttered early voting sites on many college campuses, a new proposal that would eliminate all college polling places seems to have an uncertain future.“When these ideas are first floated, people are aghast,” said Chad Dunn, the co-founder and legal director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project. But he cautioned that the lawmakers who sponsor such bills tend to bring them back over and over again.“Then, six, eight, 10 years later, these terrible ideas become law,” he said.Turnout in recent cycles has surged for young voters, who were energized by issues like abortion, climate change and the Trump presidency.They voted in rising numbers during the midterms last year in Kansas and Michigan, which both had referendums about abortion. And college students, who had long paid little attention to elections, emerged as a crucial voting bloc in the 2018 midterms.But even with such gains, Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the voting rights program for the Brennan Center for Justice, said there was still progress to be made.“Their turnout is still far outpaced by their older counterparts,” Mr. Morales-Doyle said.Now, with the 2024 presidential election underway, the battle over young voters has heightened significance.Between the 2018 and 2022 elections in Idaho, registration jumped 66 percent among 18- and 19-year-old voters, the largest increase in the nation, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. The nonpartisan research organization, based at Tufts University, focuses on youth civic engagement.Gov. Brad Little of Idaho gave his approval to a law that bans student ID cards as a form of voter identification.Kyle Green/Associated PressOut of 17 states that generally require voter ID, Idaho will join Texas and only four others — North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee — that do not accept any student IDs, according to the Voting Rights Lab, a group that tracks legislation.Arizona and Wisconsin have rigid rules on student IDs that colleges and universities have struggled to meet, though some Wisconsin schools have been successful.Proponents of such restrictions often say they are needed to prevent voter fraud, even though instances of fraud are rare. Two lawsuits were filed in state and federal court shortly after Idaho’s Republican governor, Brad Little, signed the student ID prohibition into law on March 15. “The facts aren’t particularly persuasive if you’re just trying to get through all of these voter suppression bills,” Betsy McBride, the president of the League of Women Voters of Idaho, one of the plaintiffs in the state lawsuit, said before the bill’s signing.A fight over out-of-state students in New HampshireIn New Hampshire, which has one of the highest percentages in the nation of college students from out of state, G.O.P. lawmakers proposed a bill this year that would have barred voting access for those students, but it died in committee after failing to muster a single vote.Nearly 59 percent of students at traditional colleges in New Hampshire came from out of state in 2020, according to the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education at Tufts.The University of New Hampshire had opposed the legislation, while students and other critics had raised questions about its constitutionality.The bill, which would have required students to show their in-state tuition statements when registering to vote, would have even hampered New Hampshire residents attending private schools like Dartmouth College, which doesn’t have an in-state rate, said McKenzie St. Germain, the campaign director for the New Hampshire Campaign for Voting Rights, a nonpartisan voting rights group.Sandra Panek, one of the sponsors of the bill that died, said she would like to bring it back if she can get bipartisan support. “We want to encourage our young people to vote,” said Ms. Panek, who regularly tweets about election conspiracy theories. But, she added, elections should be reflective of “those who reside in the New Hampshire towns and who ultimately bear the consequences of the election results.”A Texas ban on campus polling places has made little headwayIn Texas, the Republican lawmaker who introduced the bill to eliminate all polling places on college campuses this year, Carrie Isaac, cited safety concerns and worries about political violence.Voting advocates see a different motive.“This is just the latest in a long line of attacks on young people’s right to vote in Texas,” said Claudia Yoli Ferla, the executive director of MOVE Texas Action Fund, a nonpartisan group that seeks to empower younger voters.Students at the University of Texas at Austin lined up to cast their ballots on campus during the 2020 primary. A new proposal would eliminate all college polling places in the state.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesMs. Isaac has also introduced similar legislation to eliminate polling places at primary and secondary schools. In an interview, she mentioned the May 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers — an attack that was not connected to voting.“Emotions run very high,” Ms. Isaac said. “Poll workers have complained about increased threats to their lives. It’s just not conducive, I believe, to being around children of all ages.”The legislation has been referred to the House Elections Committee, but has yet to receive a hearing in the Legislature. Voting rights experts have expressed skepticism that the bill — one of dozens related to voting introduced for this session — would advance.G.O.P. voting restrictions flounder in other statesIn Virginia, one Republican failed in her effort to repeal a state law that lets teenagers register to vote starting at age 16 if they will turn 18 in time for a general election. Part of a broader package of proposed election restrictions, the bill had no traction in the G.O.P.-controlled House, where it died this year in committee after no discussion.And in Wyoming, concerns about making voting harder on older people appears to have inadvertently helped younger voters. A G.O.P. bill that would have banned most college IDs from being used as voter identification was narrowly defeated in the state House because it also would have banned Medicare and Medicaid insurance cards as proof of identity at the polls, a provision that Republican lawmakers worried could be onerous for older people.“In my mind, all we’re doing is kind of hurting students and old people,” Dan Zwonitzer, a Republican lawmaker who voted against the bill, said during a House debate in February.But some barriers are already in placeGeorgia has accepted student IDs only from public colleges and universities since 2006, so students at private institutions, including several historically Black colleges and universities, must use another form of identification.Georgia has accepted student IDs only from public colleges and universities since 2006, a rule that means students at private institutions, like several historically Black colleges and universities, must use another form of identification. Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesIn Ohio, which has for years not accepted student IDs for voting, Republicans in January approved a broader photo ID requirement that also bars students from using university account statements or utility bills for voting purposes, as they had in the past.The Idaho bill will take effect in January. Scott Herndon and Tina Lambert, the bill’s sponsors in the Senate and the House, did not respond to requests for comment, but Mr. Herndon said during a Feb. 24 session that student identification cards had lower vetting standards than those issued by the government.“It isn’t about voter fraud,” he said. “It’s just making sure that the people who show up to vote are who they say they are.”Republicans contended that nearly 99 percent of Idahoans had used their driver’s licenses to vote, but the bill’s opponents pointed out that not all students have driver’s licenses or passports — and that there is a cost associated with both.Mae Roos, a senior at Borah High School in Boise, testified against the bill at a Feb. 10 hearing.“When we’re taught from the very beginning, when we first start trying to participate, that voting is an expensive process, an arduous process, a process rife with barriers, we become disillusioned with that great dream of our democracy,” Ms. Roos said. “We start to believe that our voices are not valued.” More

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      G.O.P. States Abandon Group That Helps Fight Voter Fraud

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      Five red states have severed ties since last year with the Electronic Registration Information Center, a nonprofit that helps maintain accurate voter rolls.First to leave was Louisiana, followed by Alabama.Then, in one fell swoop, Florida, Missouri and West Virginia announced on Monday that they would drop out of a bipartisan network of about 30 states that helps maintain accurate voter rolls, one that has faced intensifying attacks from election deniers and right-wing media.Ohio may not be far behind, according to a letter sent to the group Monday from the state’s chief election official, Frank LaRose. Mr. LaRose and his counterparts in the five states that left the group are all Republicans.For more than a year, the Electronic Registration Information Center, a nonprofit organization known as ERIC, has been hit with false claims from allies of former President Donald J. Trump who say it is a voter registration vehicle for Democrats that received money from George Soros, the liberal billionaire and philanthropist, when it was created in 2012.Mr. Trump even chimed in on Monday, urging all Republican governors to sever ties with the group, baselessly claiming in a Truth Social media post that it “pumps the rolls” for Democrats.The Republicans who announced their states were leaving the group cited complaints about governance issues, chiefly that it mails newly eligible voters who have not registered ahead of federal elections. They also accused the group of opening itself up to a partisan influence.In an interview on Tuesday, Jay Ashcroft, a Republican who is Missouri’s secretary of state, said that the group had balked at his state’s calls for reforms, some of which were expected to be weighed by the group’s board of directors at a meeting on March 17. He denied that the decision to pull out was fueled by what the organization and its defenders have described as a right-wing smear campaign.“It’s not like I was antagonistic toward cleaning our voter rolls,” Mr. Ashcroft said.Shane Hamlin, the group’s executive director, did not comment about particular complaints of the states in an email on Tuesday, but referred to an open letter that he wrote on March 2 saying that the organization had been the subject of substantial misinformation regarding the nature of its work and who has access to voter lists.Wes Allen, Alabama’s secretary of state, withdrew the state from the Electronic Registration Information Center in January, a day after he was sworn in.Butch Dill/Associated PressDefenders of the group lamented the departures, saying they would weaken the group’s information-sharing efforts and undermine it financially because of lost dues. And, they said, the defections conflict with the election integrity mantra that has motivated Republicans since Mr. Trump’s defeat in 2020.Republicans haven’t always been so sour about the work of the coalition, which Louisiana left in 2022.It was just last year that Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida mentioned the group’s benefit to his state, which he described as useful for checking voter rolls during a news conference announcing the highly contentious arrests of about 20 people on voter fraud charges. He was joined then by Cord Byrd, Florida’s secretary of state, a fellow Republican who, on Monday, was expressing a much different opinion. In an announcement that Florida was leaving the group, Mr. Byrd said that the state’s concerns about data security and “partisan tendencies” had not been addressed.“Therefore, we have lost confidence in ERIC,” Mr. Byrd said.Representatives for Mr. DeSantis, who is considering a Republican run for president, did not respond to a request for comment.Mr. LaRose, in Ohio, also had a stark shift in tone: After recently describing the group to reporters as imperfect but still “one of the best fraud-fighting tools that we have,” by Monday he was also calling for reforms and put the group on notice.“Anything short of the reforms mentioned above will result in action up to and including our withdrawal from membership,” Mr. LaRose wrote. “I implore you to do the right thing.”The complaints about partisanship seem centered on David Becker, a former Justice Department lawyer who helped develop the group and is a nonvoting board member. Mr. Ashcroft said he didn’t think that Mr. Becker, a former director of the elections program at the Pew Charitable Trusts who has vocally debunked election fraud claims, including disputing Mr. Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, should be on the board.Mr. Becker is the founder and director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, another nonpartisan group that has been attacked by election deniers.“There’s truth and there’s lies,” Mr. Becker said on a video call with reporters on Tuesday. “I will continue to stand for the truth.”Mr. Hamlin vowed that the organization would “continue our work on behalf of our remaining member states in improving the accuracy of America’s voter rolls and increasing access to voter registration for all eligible citizens.”While some Republican states are ending their relationship with the group, California, the nation’s most populous state, could potentially join its ranks under a bill proposed by a Democratic state lawmaker. But in Texas, a Republican lawmaker has introduced a bill with the opposite intention.Still, Sam Taylor, a spokesman for Texas’s Republican secretary of state, said in an email on Tuesday that “We are not currently aware of any system comparable to ERIC, but are open to learning about other potentially viable, cost-effective alternatives.”New York, another heavily populated state, is also not a member of the group.Seven states started the organization more than a decade ago. It charges new members a one-time fee of $25,000 and annual dues that are partly based on the citizen voting age population in each state. The Pew Charitable Trusts provided seed funding to the group, but that money was separate from donations that it had received from Mr. Soros, according to the website PolitiFact.Shenna Bellows, a Democrat who is Maine’s secretary of state, said in an interview on Tuesday that the group had been particularly helpful in identifying voters who have died or may no longer live in the state, which became a member in 2021.“We have a lot of Mainers who retire to Florida for example,” Ms. Bellows said.Ms. Bellows called the recent defections “tragic” and said that her office had received several inquiries from residents who had read criticism of the group online.“Unfortunately, this move by our colleagues in Florida and elsewhere to leave ERIC in part because of misinformation being spread by election deniers deprives all of us of the ability to effectively clean our voter rolls and fight voter fraud,” she said. More

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      The Democrats botched the Ohio disaster response – and handed Trump a victory | Michael Massing

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      The Democrats botched the Ohio disaster response – and handed Trump a victoryMichael MassingThe failure of Pete Buttigieg, the US secretary of transportion, to appear for nearly three weeks recalls the incompetence of Fema during Hurricane Katrina“Where’s Pete Buttigieg?” someone shouted at a February 15 town hall meeting in East Palestine, Ohio. “I don’t know,” Mayor Trent Conaway replied.Twelve days earlier, a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous chemicals had derailed near the town. Three days later, the company announced it was going to carry out a controlled burn of vinyl chloride that would send dangerous gasses into the air, forcing many of East Palestine’s 4,700 residents to evacuate. They returned after receiving assurances that the air and water were safe, but a strong chemical odor clung to the town, and many continued to complain of headaches, nausea, and burning throats. And so several hundred residents had crowded into a local school to demand answers. Conaway said that two weeks had passed before anyone at the White House had contacted him, and the US secretary of transportation still hadn’t materialized.In Washington, Republicans made hay. “Secretary Buttigieg laughing about Chinese spy balloons, while ignoring the Ohio train derailment, shows you how out of touch Democrats are,” Ohio congressman Jim Jordan tweeted. Senator Marco Rubio called Buttigieg “an incompetent who is focused solely on his fantasies about his political future & needs to be fired”.On Fox, Tucker Carlson mocked Buttigieg for commemorating “Transit Equity Day” while remaining silent about the majority-white, struggling East Palestine. If the disaster had happened in a rich Washington DC neighborhood like Georgetown, he said, the National Guard would have been called in, and the story would have led every news channel. “But it happened to the poor benighted town of East Palestine, Ohio, whose people are forgotten and in the view of people who lead this country, forgettable.”But it wasn’t just the right who complained. Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota tweeted that “East Palestine railroad derailment will have a significant negative impact on the health and wellbeing of the residents for decades … We need Congressional inquiry and direct action from @PeteButtigieg to address this tragedy.” In a rare show of partisanship, Senator Ted Cruz said he “fully agreed” with her.On 22 February, Donald Trump visited East Palestine. He distributed thousands of bottles of Trump-branded water, walked through the town with his son Donald Trump Jr and Ohio senator JD Vance, and visited a local McDonald’s to buy food for first responders. “You are not forgotten,” Trump said in a speech not far from the accident site. “In too many cases, your goodness and perseverance were met with indifference and betrayal.”The next day, Buttigieg finally showed. Surveying the site of the derailment in a hard hat and safety vest, he acknowledged that he could have spoken out “sooner” about the accident. “I was taking pains to respect the role that I have, the role that I don’t have – but that should not have stopped me from weighing in about how I felt about what was happening.” He tweeted a photo of himself at the site along with the message that he was “amazed by the resilience and decency of the people of East Palestine”.The Department of Transportation did not have the lead role in the accident response – that fell to the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Transportation Safety Board – but the failure of the nation’s top transportation official to appear at the disaster site for nearly three weeks inevitably recalled the incompetence and disengagement of Fema director Michael Brown during Hurricane Katrina. (President George W Bush famously claimed Brown was doing “a heck of a job”.) It also allowed Trump to present himself as the champion of blue-collar America.How could so poised and polished a figure as Buttigieg so badly miscalculate? A glowing Washington Post profile in August 2021 described him as a skilled communicator and “nimble public speaker” who “rarely makes verbal miscues”.President Joe Biden had made Buttigieg the lead spokesman for his massive infrastructure program, offering him an opportunity to meet with local officials around the country as he promoted roads, ports, bridges and tunnels. During the presidential campaign, the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor had assumed the mantle of outsider, but, the Post observed, he had “quickly morphed into a quintessential Washington insider” – omnipresent on television, a fixture at dinners, a tireless networker seeking to advance both the president’s agenda and his own political prospects.Buttigieg’s East Palestine no-show can help answer the question, What’s the matter with Ohio? Formerly considered a “battleground state”, it has in recent years become unshakably red. Columbiana county, where East Palestine is located, is a microcosm. In 2008, John McCain barely took the county with 52% of the vote. Donald Trump won 68% in 2016 and 71.5% in 2020 – a reflection of the perception that the Democrats had abandoned small-town America.In January, Biden went to Covington, Kentucky, to publicize the awarding of $1.6bn in federal funds to reconstruct a bridge over the Ohio River to Cincinnati, a key regional artery. He was joined by Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, and Ohio governor Mike DeWine. The Democrats hope that such investments and ceremonies over the long term can help repair the damage done to the Democrats’ standing in the midwest by their longstanding embrace of free trade, globalization and the outsourcing of jobs to China and Mexico.In the short term, however, Buttigieg’s no-show in East Palestine reinforces the perception that the Democrats really don’t care. It didn’t help that on February 20, as East Palestine was still dealing with the fallout from the derailment, Biden made his surprise visit to Kyiv. “The biggest slap in the face,” Mayor Conaway called it on Fox News, adding, “that tells you right now he doesn’t care about us. He can send every agency he wants to, but I found out this morning that he was in Ukraine giving millions of dollars away to people over there and not to us, and I’m furious.”All the investment in bridges, roads, and factories will not translate into political gains if the party continues to be missing in action.Heck of a job.
      Michael Massing is the author most recently of Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionDonald TrumpPete ButtigiegOhioPollutionHealthcommentReuse this content More

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      Sherrod Brown in tough election fight as Ohio crash tests Democrats’ chances

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      Sherrod Brown in tough election fight as Ohio crash tests Democrats’ chances Leftwing senator has bucked trend of statewide Democratic losses but derailment in East Palestine set to test re-election hopesUS Senator Sherrod Brown has survived a decade of statewide Democratic losses in Ohio by building a reputation as the rare person in his party who can still connect with the white working-class voters who have increasingly shifted to Republicans.But as he heads into what could be a tough re-election campaign, Brown is facing a critical test in the aftermath of the train derailment in the eastern Ohio village of East Palestine.US Capitol rioter pleads guilty to stealing badge from beaten officerRead moreRepublicans, including Donald Trump, argue the federal response shows Democrats have left such regions behind. Brown is under heightened pressure to prove them wrong.In the early stages of what will be a fierce fight for control of Congress next year, the response to the train derailment in Ohio is emerging as an early barometer of whether Democrats can rebuild support in working-class communities.Brown has laid the blame for the disaster squarely on the corporation that operated the train that derailed, Norfolk Southern, and positioned himself as a fighter for places like East Palestine.“It’s the kind of community that’s too often forgotten about or exploited by corporate America,” he told reporters this week. “My job is always to fight for the dignity of work, to fight for these workers, to fight for these communities, to make sure this never happens again. I’ll work with anyone to do that and to get these reforms passed.”Brown has also made a pair of visits to East Palestine to meet with emergency workers and local residents. And this week, he followed with bipartisan legislative action to call on federal agencies to make long-term medical testing available to residents as well as proposing new federal safety regulations and financial consequences for train operators.As the images of black, billowing smoke from the wreck and concerns of local residents morphed from a man-made disaster into a political battleground, there is a growing sense among lawmakers that locals don’t appreciate being used as a political backdrop.Republican congressman Bill Johnson, who represents the area, called on Joe Biden to visit the community. The US president has not made the trip and transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg’s trip there was pre-empted by Trump last week.Safety regulators say Ohio toxic train derailment ‘100% preventable’Read moreThe stretches of eastern Ohio industrial towns have tilted increasingly to Republicans over the last decade, contributing to Ohio’s shift from a presidential bellwether to a potential GOP stronghold. Republicans have cast it as a forgotten swath of the country – fertile ground for Trump’s grievance politics.But the region is also familiar ground for Brown, who has become a mainstay in the state’s political constellation with a populist brand. Brown, who wears suits purchased from a union shop near his Cleveland home, has developed an old-school network of union support over a decades-long political career that began in the General Assembly.David Pepper, a former chair of the Ohio Democratic party, says Brown’s “secret sauce” is his willingness to take his made-in-America, union-strong messaging to the people outside cities.“That guy is fighting against big corporations for the little guy,” Pepper said.For Democrats, he’s proof they can still win in the Buckeye State. But Ohio is both a must-win presidential state for Republicans and a potential path to a Senate majority, and Brown sits atop the list of seats that could be flipped in 2024.TopicsDemocratsOhio train derailmentOhioUS politicsUS elections 2024newsReuse this content More

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      After the East Palestine disaster, Congress needs to pass the Derail Act | Chris Deluzio and Rohit Khanna

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      After the East Palestine disaster, Congress needs to pass the Derail ActChris Deluzio and Ro KhannaOur legislation will help to address the wrongs of what happened in OhioOn February 3, a freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed in the town of East Palestine, Ohio, just across the state line with Pennsylvania. A fire erupted, an evacuation order was issued, and the dangerous chemical being transported, vinyl chloride, was spilled. It’s a devastating tragedy and one that could have been prevented.Here’s the real reason the EPA doesn’t want to test for toxins in East Palestine | Stephen LesterRead moreOne of us represents constituents in Beaver county, Pennsylvania, and the people who live, work and play just miles from the site of the Norfolk Southern derailment. The other has spent six years visiting factory towns, rural communities and working on policies to bring manufacturing and technology jobs to communities decimated by globalization. Residents are scared about their health and livelihoods. They are unsure whether the air, water and soil will be safe after this disaster. They want answers, accountability and assurance that something like this will never happen again.These are the working-class folks who feel invisible and abandoned by our nation. American communities have been hurt by decades of deindustrialization, watching as disastrous trade and economic policies sent their jobs overseas. Now, they are being displaced from their homes because of corporate greed and weak regulations that failed to keep them safe from toxic chemicals.From western Pennsylvania to Silicon Valley, political leaders from across the country have a moral duty to speak out loudly for better safety regulations and to acknowledge what the people around East Palestine and so many Americans are going through.That’s why we have come together to introduce the Derail Act, the first piece of legislation in Congress to hold the railroads accountable and protect Americans. The bill will ensure that trains carrying hazardous materials are properly classified and rail carriers are required to take proper safety precautions when carrying these materials across the country. That means investing in newer rail cars, better braking equipment, setting stricter speed limits, and more.Our legislation will also improve information sharing by requiring rail carriers to report to the National Response Center, state officials and local officials within 24 hours after a train carrying toxic chemicals derails. This is something concrete that we can do to address the wrongs of what happened.This bill is an important step forward, but there is much more that needs to be done. Under the Trump administration, the Department of Transportation repealed a train safety rule that would have required trains carrying highly hazardous material to have electronic brakes installed to help stop quickly. That rule should be immediately reinstated. The Biden administration should also work closely with DoT to establish new, commonsense rules like preventing older train cars from carrying dangerous materials and mandating two-person minimum crews to help respond in the case of an emergency.To directly help the people of East Palestine and Darlington Township, we should require Norfolk Southern, the railroad responsible for the accident, to pay for all clean up and relocation costs. The EPA has already ordered the company to offer cleaning services to those impacted and has the power to charge it $70,000 per day for failure to comply. If a company can afford to pay their CEO $4m a year and provide billions in stock buybacks to shareholders, it can afford to clean up the wreckage it has caused.What this situation comes down to is the difference between those who think that government should let companies chase profits at any cost and those, like us, who instead believe that government must protect our workers and our communities. Over the past few years, Norfolk Southern reported a rise in accidents also corresponding to a rise in profits. And just months before the derailment, the company was lobbying DoT against safety standards. These companies are not going to hold themselves responsible, and it’s putting their workers and the public at risk. It is up to us to push back against the lobbying blitz and stand with workers and regular Americans.For the past 40 years, our nation has given corporations free rein and been complicit in the hollowing out of our middle class. Our governing class watched it happen. No more. This is the moment to create a society that works for everyone. We need a patriotic economy where working conditions are safe, human needs are prioritized, and everyone is treated with dignity and respect.
      Congressman Chris Deluzio is a US representative from Pennsylvania’s 17th district
      Congressman Rohit Khanna is US representative from California’s 17th congressional district
      TopicsOhio train derailmentOpinionUS politicsUS CongressOhioHouse of RepresentativesDemocratsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More