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      Ron DeSantis Rallies With Doug Mastriano and J.D. Vance

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      PITTSBURGH — Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, widely seen as the Republican who poses the biggest threat to Donald J. Trump if they both run for president in 2024, blitzed through Pennsylvania and Ohio on Friday during a national tour with hard-right candidates that was clearly intended to elevate his standing and earn political capital with potential future leaders in battleground states.Before an audience of more than 1,000 at an event in Pittsburgh nominally meant to help the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, Mr. DeSantis delivered a 40-minute address that had the trappings of a speech by a national candidate: bits of personal biography, blasts at the Biden administration and boasts of his Florida accomplishments, which were heavy on cultural messages.“We can’t just stand idly by while woke ideology ravages every institution in our society,” Mr. DeSantis proclaimed, citing laws he has signed to bar transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports and to ban instruction of gender identity and sexual orientation in early grades.As he aims to wrest control of the conservative movement, Mr. DeSantis is appearing with some of its highest-profile and most incendiary figures — midterm candidates who, unlike him, have relentlessly pushed the fiction that the 2020 election was stolen. His rallies on Friday for Mr. Mastriano and J.D. Vance, the Republican nominee for Senate in Ohio, came five days after an event for Kari Lake, the G.O.P. pick for governor of Arizona, and Blake Masters, the nominee for Senate there.The catch: All of these candidates identify with Mr. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement and have his endorsement.That leaves Mr. DeSantis walking a fine line as he tries to build alliances with Mr. Trump’s chosen 2022 candidates while simultaneously conveying the message that the Republican Party does not belong only to the former president.Mr. DeSantis and his allies may see a political opening in Mr. Trump’s mounting legal problems. But at the same time, the former president is widely expected to embark on a third run for the White House, and the investigations surrounding him have prompted Republicans to circle wagons around their embattled leader, reaffirming his power over the party.In Pittsburgh, Mr. DeSantis began his speech with a personal slide show that was typical of how a candidate might be introduced at a political convention.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesSupporters of Mr. DeSantis believe he can appeal to many Republicans as a figure who fights the same cultural battles as Mr. Trump but without the chaos and with the ability to win over some moderate voters beyond the party’s base.“DeSantis leans into and leads on the important policy issues people care about, but he does so without the off-putting craziness that turns off independent and swing voters — the people you need to win Pennsylvania,” said Matthew Brouillette, the leader of an influential conservative political group in the state. “They gave Trump a chance in 2016, but had enough in 2020. It’s time to move on.”More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsLiz Cheney’s Lopsided Loss: The Republican congresswoman’s defeat in Wyoming exposed the degree to which former President Donald J. Trump still controls the party’s present — and its near future.2024 Hint: Hours after her loss, Ms. Cheney acknowledged that she was “thinking” about a White House bid. But her mission to thwart Donald J. Trump presents challenges.The ‘Impeachment 10’: With Ms. Cheney’s defeat, only two of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump remain.Alaska Races: Senator Lisa Murkowski and Sarah Palin appeared to be on divergent paths following contests that offered a glimpse at the state’s independent streak.In Pittsburgh, Mr. DeSantis began his speech with a personal slide show that was typical of how a candidate might be introduced at a political convention, including a picture of him as a toddler in a Pittsburgh Steelers hat.The governor, who has a reputation as a sometimes wooden speaker, stood throughout his address behind a rostrum as if giving a lecture, holding on to its edges with his hands.Mr. DeSantis attacked Democrats’ newly passed climate, health and tax law by zeroing in on its hiring of more than 80,000 Internal Revenue Service employees.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesBut the crowd reacted enthusiastically, frequently jumping to its feet as he spoke of how under his watch, Florida had banned what he called “ballot harvesting,” or the practice of voters depositing ballots for other people, as well as prohibited schools from enacting mask mandates during the pandemic.He attacked Democrats’ newly passed climate, health and tax law by zeroing in on its hiring of more than 80,000 Internal Revenue Service employees over a decade, meant in part to restore the agency’s depleted enforcement staff. Echoing conspiracy theories on the right about the hires, which the Biden administration says will not result in new audits of households earning under $400,000, Mr. DeSantis claimed that the increased staffing was “absolutely going to hit people who are small business folks, contractors, handymen, you name it.”On Tuesday, Florida Democrats will decide whether to nominate Representative Charlie Crist or Nikki Fried, the state’s agriculture commissioner, to challenge Mr. DeSantis in November. Mr. DeSantis’s national profile has allowed him to raise more than $130 million in campaign cash, making him a formidable incumbent.Democrats know they face long odds to defeat him, but they have recently begun to believe there is a narrow path to do so, in part because of voter frustration over the elimination of federal abortion rights and a new Florida law restricting abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. More

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      Marcy Kaptur, a Veteran Democrat, Breaks with Biden in New TV Ad

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      Representative Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, the second-most tenured woman in congressional history, has released a new television ad explicitly breaking with President Biden, the most prominent Democrat to do so, as she seeks re-election in a Toledo-area seat that was redrawn to be sharply more Republican.Ms. Kaptur, who was first elected in 1982, criticized Mr. Biden in the ad over “letting Ohio solar manufacturers be undercut by China” and ended it with an attempt to cast her identity as independent from his.“Marcy Kaptur: She doesn’t work for Joe Biden; she works for you,” the ad concludes. “I’m Marcy Kaptur and I approve this message.”The remapping of districts in Ohio made Ms. Kaptur’s seat substantially more red this year by taking away parts of the Cleveland suburbs and exchanging them for a western swath of the state that reaches toward the Indiana border. The result turned the district from one that Mr. Biden easily won in 2020 to one that former President Donald J. Trump would have carried that year.Still, the ad from Ms. Kaptur is a relative surprise. She appeared with Mr. Biden only a few weeks ago, greeting him at an airport in Cleveland where photos appear to show the president kissing her hand on the tarmac.Mr. Biden greeting Ms. Kaptur in Cleveland in July.Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn response to her new ad, Republicans were already recirculating video of Ms. Kaptur campaigning for Mr. Biden in 2020 and declaring, “It will be my honor to not just vote for Joe Biden but to work for him.”The ad signals how important the political makeup of a district is, as it is increasingly rare for a lawmaker to hold a seat in an area that the opposing party’s presidential candidate won.Ohio has steadily trended Republican ever since Mr. Trump won the state in 2016. In 2020, the perennial presidential battleground had become a distinctively second-tier swing state. Mr. Trump succeeded in part by making inroads with the kind of union constituency that has always been a key part of Ms. Kaptur’s base.In her new ad, Ms. Kaptur says that while she has been “fighting back” against Mr. Biden, she has also been “working with Republican Rob Portman,” the state’s retiring senator.At least one other incumbent congressional Democrat has aired an ad distancing himself from Mr. Biden: Representative Jared Golden of Maine, who in 2020 won the most pro-Trump House seat of any Democrat in the nation. He aired an ad earlier this month positioning himself as an “independent voice” and saying he had voted against “trillions of dollars of President Biden’s agenda because I knew it would make inflation worse.”The leading House Republican super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, announced a new ad on Friday linking Mr. Golden to Mr. Biden, saying he “cast one of the deciding votes for Biden’s new massive spending bill.”Democrats are seeking to boost Mr. Biden’s image after the recent signing of the Inflation Reduction Act, with the Democratic National Committee being the latest to announce an ad buy highlighting parts of the package.In Ms. Kaptur’s ad, she also calls her opponent, J.R. Majewski, out by name and labels him an “extremist.”Mr. Majewski, an Air Force veteran, was a surprise primary winner in May who first garnered attention after turning his lawn into a 19,000-square foot “Trump 2020” sign. He said he was proud of going to Washington on the day of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, but added, “I didn’t do anything illegal. Unfortunately, there were some that did.” He has spread the baseless theory that the attack was “driven by the F.B.I. and it was a stage show.”Mr. Majewski has also expressed interest in the Qanon conspiracy theory, which espouses falsely that there is a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles controlling the government.The Cook Political Report rates the Ohio contest as a tossup. More

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      Republicans keep gerrymandered maps – after they were struck down by court

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      Republicans keep gerrymandered maps – after they were struck down by courtOhio Republicans have maneuvered to keep districts in place for this fall’s election despite the state supreme court striking them down seven times this year Hello, and Happy Thursday,When I called up Catherine Turcer on Tuesday, she mentioned that her daughter had just sent her a text message saying it must feel like she’s living the same day over and over again.Turcer is the executive director of the Ohio chapter of Common Cause, a government watchdog group, and one of the most knowledgeable people about redistricting in her state. Earlier that morning, the Ohio supreme court struck down the map for the state’s 15 congressional districts, saying they were so distorted in favor of Republicans that they violated the state constitution. It was the seventh time this year the court has struck down either a congressional or state legislative map (it has struck down the congressional map twice and state legislative districts five times).Despite those rulings, Republicans have maneuvered to keep both the congressional and state legislative maps in place for this fall’s election. It has set up an extraordinary circumstance in Ohio: voters will cast ballots for federal and state representation this fall in districts that are unconstitutional.Turcer and I have spoken several times over the last few months as the saga in Ohio has unfolded, and she is not someone who sugar-coats things. I’ve been interested in her perspective as someone who was initially optimistic about the reforms – she fought to pass them – but has seen the reality of how Republicans have brazenly ignored them this year.“It’s incredibly painful to participate in elections that you know are rigged,” she told me. “I’ve been encouraging folks to look at the upcoming elections as important to participate because if we do just opt out, we would have even worse representation.”This wasn’t the way things were supposed to happen.After egregiously aggressive GOP gerrymandering in 2011, Ohio voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment in 2015 that set new guardrails on the practice when it came to drawing state legislative lines. It left a bipartisan commission of lawmakers in control of the process, but said it had to follow certain rules, including a requirement that said districts can’t “primarily” favor a political party. In 2018, voters approved a measure that set similar constraints on congressional redistricting.It was a huge win for reformers. Before 2015, there had been several statewide referendums to limit partisan gerrymandering and all of them failed. And even though lawmakers still had control over the redistricting process, Turcer believed that it could weed out the most severe gerrymandering. I covered the 2018 amendment, and I remember there was some criticism at the time about whether it went far enough to limit lawmakers.Now, Ohio Republicans have validated that criticism. In both their congressional and state legislative maps, they’ve sought district lines that would give them a huge advantage, and have passed their plans on partisan lines. Each time the supreme court has rejected their efforts, they’ve only made marginal tweaks and submitted the plan again. Eventually, they ran out the clock, forcing courts to allow their maps to go into effect this year.“This could have worked if the elected officials had approached this in good will,” she told me, making it clear lawmakers were to blame for the failure. “I am no longer assuming good will on anyone’s part… I no longer have faith that elected leaders will do the right thing when it comes time to draw voting districts.”Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, tweeted on Wednesday what I thought was an insightful analysis of why the maps failed.The failure of the Ohio reforms ultimately comes down to three things: Politicians were left in control; maps can still be passed on a party line basis; and, most importantly, courts can strike down but not draw a replacement map.— Michael Li 李之樸 (@mcpli) July 19, 2022
      The one big safeguard in the Ohio reforms was supposed to be that maps passed on a party-line basis have to be redrawn after 4 years-when maybe the other party would be in control. But Ohio is less swingy today & having to do a redraw seems like less of a risk to today’s Rs.— Michael Li 李之樸 (@mcpli) July 19, 2022
      Most significantly, there was no meaningful “stick” to force Ohio Republicans to draw constitutional maps. Under the constitutional amendment, the Ohio supreme court can only send lawmakers back to the drawing board, not draw a map for it. And the only “punishment” lawmakers face for passing a map along partisan lines is that it won’t be in effect for an entire decade, a consequence Republican lawmakers were clearly unfazed by.“We should have fought harder over leaving the Ohio redistricting in charge of mapmaking,” Turcer told me. “It seems really clear that giving the Ohio supreme court the stick, shall we say, not just the carrot, could have made an enormous difference.”After seeing the reforms fail, Turcer said she expects a push to create an independent redistricting commission in Ohio, something that the chief justice of the Ohio supreme court, the critical swing vote in all the redistricting cases, has encouraged.“It certainly hasn’t worked the way it should. The mapmakers are just drunk on power. And you take away the keys from drunks,” she said. “Clearly, the next step is an independent, insulated commission.”Also worth watching…
      The Trump administration sought to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census as part of an effort to change the way congressional seats are allocated
      A bipartisan group of senators has introduced a bill to reform the Electoral Count Act.
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      New Ohio law allows teachers to carry guns in schools without a permit

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      New Ohio law allows teachers to carry guns in schools without a permitGovernor Mike DeWine signs law which also applies to custodians and bus drivers, while slashing training requirements Ohio’s permitless gun carry law for “qualifying” adults went into effect on Monday – a measure that would lift restrictions on school teachers, custodians and bus drivers from carrying firearms at work.After Governor Mike DeWine announced he signed House Bill 99, which lowers the required training hours for armed personnel from 728 hours to 24 hours, DeWine said he still preferred law enforcement officers to carry the guns at schools.Amy Schumer among stars urging change in Hollywood gun portrayalsRead moreSigned into law after 19 children and two teachers were killed at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, the legislation no longer makes it a requirement for Ohioans aged 21 and older to complete eight hours of the handgun training course to carry and conceal a firearm. And it eliminates the requirement for gun carriers to tell police officers they have a concealed weapon on them, though they must say if they are asked.“My office worked with the general assembly to remove hundreds of hours of curriculum irrelevant to school safety and to ensure training requirements were specific to a school environment and contained significant scenario-based training,” DeWine said in a statement after the bill passed earlier this month.He thanked lawmakers “for passing this bill to protect Ohio children and teachers”.DeWine said local school districts may still prohibit guns on school grounds. “This does not require any school to arm teachers or staff,” he said. “Every school will make its own decision.”While school boards will not be required to arm personnel, they will have to notify parents if they choose to do so. Boards can mandate additional training beyond what is required in the new state law.According to the bill, training must include how to stop an active shooter, how to de-escalate a violent situation, trauma care and first aid, at least four hours in “scenario-based or simulated training exercises” and completing “tactical live firearms training”.Republican state lawmakers have said that HB 99 was a “doing something” response to the Uvalde massacre and other recent deadly mass shootings.However, Democratic politicians in the state have argued against the measure, saying that lifting carry laws for teachers was not what the community was asking for. “They’re not asking for no guns. They’re asking for background checks,” state representative Juanita Brent, a Democrat from Cleveland, said after the bill passed.According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 28 states allow people other than security officers to carry guns on school grounds. A 2018 Gallup poll showed that 73% of teachers opposed the idea.In Ohio, school employees have been allowed to carry guns on school grounds for years as long as the local school board consents. The Ohio supreme court ruled in 2021 that they should receive the same 700 hours of training as law enforcement officials or security officers.In Ohio, “permitless carry” applies only to adults over 21 who are not prohibited from possessing a firearm under state or federal law. Under the new law, adults who can lawfully own a firearm will be able to conceal carry a handgun without a permit or background checks.TopicsOhioUS politicsUS gun controlnewsReuse this content More

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      Republicans keep passing extreme anti-abortion bans without popular support. Here’s why

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      Republicans keep passing extreme anti-abortion bans without popular support. Here’s whyMost Americans don’t want abortion bans but gerrymandering allows politicians to face little accountability Hello, and happy Thursday,As states have passed a wave of increasingly extreme abortion restrictions in recent years, a sort of puzzling contradiction has emerged. The American public broadly supports the right to an abortion, public polling has shown, yet politicians who pass these controversial restrictions are consistently re-elected. Why is that?US braces for House committee’s primetime January 6 hearings – liveRead moreYesterday, we published a story that seeks to answer that question. A big part of why politicians face little accountability is gerrymandering. State lawmakers, who have the power to draw the boundaries of their own districts in most places, can pick which voters they represent and virtually guarantee their re-election.It’s more important than ever to understand this dynamic. In his draft opinion overturning Roe v Wade, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that abortion is an issue that should be resolved by the political process, not the courts. By insulating politicians from accountability, extreme gerrymandering prevents the political process from doing that. In 2019, Alito joined four of the court’s conservative justices in saying there was nothing federal courts could do to police even the most extreme gerrymandering.Few places better capture the link between partisan gerrymandering and extreme anti-abortion measures than Ohio.In 2010, Republicans won control of the Ohio legislature and drew new maps that allowed them to hold a veto-proof majority for the next decade. In 2011, the legislature began to pass a series of restrictions on abortion. Republicans enacted a new law that banned abortion after a fetus was viable and required viability testing after 20 weeks. They passed another measure that prohibited taxpayer-funded hospitals from entering into patient transfer agreements with clinics, making it harder for the clinics to operate. In 2019, the state had banned abortion after six weeks, one of the most restrictive laws in the country. (The Ohio Policy Evaluation Network, which tracks abortion access in Ohio has a good timeline of these bills).When Ohio lawmakers were passing these measures, there wasn’t overwhelming public support for them. Ohio voters are closely divided on abortion and a majority did not support the six week ban (one poll after it passed in 2019 showed that a majority of people opposed it). Even so, Ohio Republicans have maintained their majorities in the state legislature.“That mismatch between what we see in public opinion and what we see at the statehouse, really suggests that what citizens are thinking about abortion access really is not reflected in their statehouse,” Danielle Bessett, a sociology professor at the University of Cincinnati, who closely studies abortion care in Ohio, told me. “That suggests that there isn’t a concern about this being sort of something that they’re going to get held accountable for at the polls.”It’s an imbalance that exists across the country. Nationally, 61% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, but states are enacting a blitz of increasingly extreme restrictions, including several that are considering outright bans. Republicans continue to control more state legislative chambers than Democrats do, and very few are expected to flip partisan control (fewer than 1 in 5 state legislative districts are estimated to be competitive this year).In Ohio, Republicans have once again engineered maps that preserve their advantage. After the state supreme court struck down five proposals for a new legislative map because they were too gerrymandered, lawmakers ran out the clock. They convinced a federal court to impose a map for the 2022 elections that will allow them to maintain, at minimum, 54% of the seats in the state legislature.“It’s frustrating. In some ways it’s hopeful that people do think that abortion should be a right and should exist for people in Ohio,” Sri Thakkilapati, the interim executive director of PreTerm, an abortion clinic in Cleveland told me. “It’s helpful to know that there are more of us. But in some ways it’s very disheartening…It feels like it’s not gonna make a difference.”Also worth watching…
      Jim Marchant, a QAnon linked candidate running to be Nevada’s chief election official, is seeking his party’s nomination in the GOP primary on Tuesday.
      Voters with disabilities are suing Alabama for offering inadequate access to absentee ballots for people who are blind
      TopicsUS newsFight to voteUS politicsAbortionOhioRoe v WadefeaturesReuse this content More

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      How Republicans pass abortion bans most Americans don’t want

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      How Republicans pass abortion bans most Americans don’t wantLegalized abortion in some form is widely supported, but gerrymandered districts allow politicians to push extreme measures through On 10 April 2019, the Ohio legislature easily passed SB 23, a bill that banned abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.It was a move that should have carried considerable political risk in Ohio, a state closely divided between Democrats and Republicans. There wasn’t widespread support for the bill – polling showed public opinion was nearly evenly split over the bill (a poll after the bill was passed showed a majority opposed it), John Kasich, a previous Republican governor, had twice vetoed the bill, saying it was unconstitutional, and it had stalled in the legislature for years.But Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, a Republican, nonetheless signed the bill into law the next day. And the following fall, when the politicians who passed the measure came up for re-election, Republicans didn’t lose any seats in the state legislature. In fact, they expanded their majority.Pro-choice forces are working to keep abortion legal in Michigan with a ballot initiativeRead moreOhio offers a case study of how US politicians enact extreme abortion measures that don’t align with voters’ views but face little accountability at the polls – an issue even more at stake this month as the supreme court is on the verge of issuing a decision that will probably overturn Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 decision establishing a constitutional right to an abortion. In Ohio and elsewhere, politicians are protected by their ability to draw their own political districts every 10 years, distorting them in such a way as to virtually guarantee their re-election. Republicans drew the lines in Ohio in 2011 and have held a supermajority in the state legislature ever since. “We can kind of do what we want,” Matt Huffman, the top Republican in the Ohio senate, told the Columbus Dispatch recently.In a leaked draft opinion overturning Roe, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that disputes over abortion should be resolved through the political process. “The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations, upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting,” Alito wrote, quoting the late Justice Antonin Scalia.But as it urges returning abortion to the political sphere, the supreme court has sanctioned a manipulation of the political process that makes it nearly impossible for Ohioans and voters in other states to make their voices heard on abortion. In 2019, Alito and four of the court’s conservative justices said federal courts could not do anything to police partisan gerrymandering, giving lawmakers in Ohio and elsewhere more freedom to gerrymander their districts.That kind of gerrymandering will probably serve as an invisible, virtually impenetrable fortress that will allow lawmakers across the US to continue to push extreme abortion measures that are unsupported by the public. Although public attitudes about abortion can be complex, the vast majority do not support overturning Roe v Wade and a majority supports legalized abortion in some form. State lawmakers who have pushed measures criminalizing abortion and outlawing it entirely have ignored those attitudes.“They are different strands of the same braid. We don’t have those restrictions without the gerrymandering,” said Kellie Copeland, the executive director of Pro-Choice Ohio, a group that works to protect abortion access in the state.When Ohio was considering the six-week abortion ban, Copeland said, her organization facilitated a “parade of witnesses” – medical professionals, women who had abortions, religious leaders – to give emotional testimony to the legislature. Many lawmakers didn’t stick around to listen. “They don’t care. And they don’t care because they know they’re untouchable because of gerrymandering,” she said.It’s a problem that exists beyond Ohio. The vast majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal in at least some circumstances, but state lawmakers continue to offer a blitz of increasingly extreme restrictions on abortion. Republicans control far more state legislative chambers than Democrats do and only about 17.5% of state legislative districts are expected to be competitive over the next decade. Very few chambers are expected to flip partisan control. In Ohio, Republicans have once again come up with a state legislative map distorted to their advantage and have openly defied the state supreme court’s orders to come up with a fairer map.Extreme restrictions with extreme consequencesIn 2010, Kasich had ousted an incumbent Democrat and Republicans flipped control of the Ohio house as part of a nationwide Republican effort aimed at winning state legislative chambers to control the redistricting process. Armed with complete redistricting power, Ohio Republicans drew new districts that allowed them to win a supermajority in the state legislature throughout the last decade, even as Barack Obama carried the state in 2008 and 2012.A wave of new restrictions on abortion restrictions began to flow. In 2012, the state enacted a new law banning abortions after a fetus was viable, except in cases of medical emergency, and requiring viability testing at 20 weeks (three to four weeks before the accepted medical definition of viability). The next year, Ohio lawmakers tucked a number of restrictions into a budget bill, including a hugely consequential measure that prevented abortion clinics from entering into required patient-transfer agreements with taxpayer-funded hospitals. The state went on to prohibit certain government money from going to Planned Parenthood, ban abortion at 20 weeks post-fertilization outright and, in 2019, passed the six-week abortion ban.“Throughout the ’80s, ’90s, early 2000s, there were occasional laws that would tinker with the informed consent requirement for an abortion or tinker around the edges with minors access to abortion and things like that,” said Jessie Hill, a law professor at Case Western Univerity. “We really started to see an uptick in abortion restrictions after 2010, or 2011, the last time the redistricting took effect in Ohio. It’s been since then, just sort of increasingly extreme restrictions.”Those restrictions produced extreme consequences. Between 2011 and 2015, seven of the state’s 16 abortion clinics either closed or curtailed their operations (six full-service clinics remain open today with three additional clinics providing medication abortion services). A complete ban on abortion in the state could increase the average distance a woman has to travel in Ohio to an abortion clinic from an average of 26 miles to as much as 269 miles in a worst-case scenario, according to one recent study.It’s a burden that significantly harms those in rural areas, who have seen clinics in their counties close and who will have to take more time off work to travel.“It’s kind of death by a thousand cuts,” said Sri Thakkilapati, the interim executive director of PreTerm, an abortion clinic in Cleveland. “Maybe any one or two of these things you could overcome, but all together it becomes a really burdensome process,” As the supreme court weighs overturning Roe v Wade, Ohio is now considering a virtually complete ban on abortion. Such a ban would mean that those seeking an abortion will have to pay “exorbitant amounts of income” to travel to obtain an abortion out of state, said Danielle Bessett, a professor at the University of Cincinnati who studies abortion access. “People who are not gonna be able to afford that travel … are then going to try and self-source abortion care at home. And we’ll probably see lots of inequality in how people are prosecuted and arrested for that,” she said.And lastly, she said, there will be those who don’t try either of those and are forced to carry their pregnancy to term. “There are equity issues there, too, with Black women having the highest rate of maternal mortality,” she said.As lawmakers have pushed these severe restrictions, they have consistently remained out of line with what most Ohioans believe. Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Ohio voters support some form of legalized abortion, while a minority believes it should be illegal.“Those who are anti-abortion and claim a faith tradition, they don’t speak for me. They don’t represent the countless folks who are faithfully pro-choice. Same thing with our elected leaders. They don’t represent who we are and what we believe in our communities,” said Elaina Ramsey, the executive director of Faith Choice Ohio, which works to protect abortion access.Thakkilapati agrees. “It’s frustrating. In some ways it’s hopeful that people do think that abortion should be a right and should exist for people in Ohio. It’s helpful to know that there are more of us. But in some ways it’s very disheartening,” she said. “It feels like it’s not gonna make a difference.”TopicsAbortionThe fight to voteOhioRoe v WadeUS supreme courtUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      The Republican primaries are a tug-of-war between rightwing and even-righter-wing | Lloyd Green

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      The Republican primaries are a tug-of-war between rightwing and even-righter-wingLloyd GreenTrump’s claim that the 2020 election was ‘stolen’ is now entrenched as Republican Gospel, and the candidates he endorsed have – mostly – done well in the primaries Donald Trump’s sway over the Republican party continues. On Tuesday, Republicans again paid heed to the ex-president’s endorsements even as they declined to march in lockstep. Flecks of daylight emerged across the primary battlegrounds. Still, Trump has little to worry about. His fantastical claim that the 2020 election was stolen is firmly entrenched as Republican Gospel.Trump still won’t shut up. He’s doing Democrats running for office a huge favor | Robert ReichRead moreIn North Carolina, Representative Ted Budd received Trump’s seal of approval, and won the Republican nod for US senator with nearly 60% of the vote. Budd was a Trump loyalist when it counted most.In January 2021, the congressman sided with the majority of his House Republican colleagues. He voted to deprive Joe Biden of his win. Before Budd received Trump’s endorsement, he had been trailing – just like JD Vance in Ohio.Over in Pennsylvania, Trump is the reason that Mehmet Oz is still standing. Right now, “Dr Oz” holds a 0.2% lead over David McCormick, a hedge fund titan who Trump savaged as a China-loving globalist. Fewer than 2,700 votes separate the pair. Kathy Barnette, a conservative commentator with a murky résumé and described by Trump as unelectable, has third place, all to herself.The race has not yet been called. A recount is almost certain. If Oz loses, he can blame Barnette, who exposed him as a latecomer to the Maga-verse. Once upon a time, the doctor was a Harvard-educated, pro-choice physician who served in Turkey’s army. America First, not so much.To be sure, Oz is an acquired taste who suffered from a popularity deficit heading into the primary. Among Republicans, his favorability stood underwater, 37%–48%.Significantly, Oz led among those who cast their ballots on primary day itself, as opposed to early voters. At the beginning of the evening, McCormick actually held a double-digit lead thanks to mail-in ballots, an advantage which evaporated as the night wore on.Beyond that, Oz showed particular strength in Trump’s Pennsylvania strongholds. To illustrate, he ran well in Luzerne county, a so-called “pivot county”. Nestled in the north-east part of the state, Luzerne went for Barack Obama by five points in 2012.Four years later, Luzerne delivered a nearly 20% margin to Trump, and with it the Keystone state. On Tuesday, Oz captured 41% of Luzerne’s Republican primary vote, and ran ahead of McCormick there by better than 10 points.The falcon heard the call of the falconer. Elsewhere, not so much. Oz failed to win the counties in and around Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.Out west, in Idaho, Brad Little, the incumbent Republican governor, beat back a challenge from Janice McGeachin, Idaho’s Trump-endorsed lieutenant governor, and a favorite of the far right.On the issues, McGeachin managed to surpass Little’s hostility toward mask mandates. She also advocated increased in-state production of weapons and ammunition, and delivered a video address to the America First Political Action Conference.Some perspective is in order. Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist, organized the conference. McGeachin wore it as a badge of pride.Significantly, Idaho’s outcome stands as a harbinger for the upcoming Georgia governor’s race. Brian Kemp, the incumbent, faces a challenge from David Perdue, a former US senator who is Trump’s designated attack dog.Trump loathes Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state. In 2020, the pair refused to “find” Trump votes after his defeat. Right now, Kemp is favored over Perdue, who lies about the outcome of November election and his own recent defeat. Meanwhile, a grand jury is examining Trump’s post-election conduct.And then there is Madison Cawthorn, North Carolina’s over-the-top congressman. He went down to defeat after videos of his alleged nude antics hit the internet. Republicans were unamused. By contrast, Cawthorn’s earlier visit to Hitler’s vacation home did not move the needle.In the hours and days ahead, expect Oz and McCormick to garner continued media attention. But come November, another contest in Pennsylvania will also grab its share of the spotlight – the race for governor.Douglas Mastriano is now the Republican gubernatorial candidate. Unlike Oz and McCormick, Mastriano truly believes the Maga message. It is a tenet of faith. As a candidate, he championed Christian nationalism, espoused election denialism and flipped the bird at efforts to curb Covid’s spread.A Pennsylvania state senator and a retired colonel, Mastriano has pledged to appoint a Maga secretary of state to oversee Pennsylvania’s election machinery. He also vowed that his secretary of state would “reset” the voter rolls.Fittingly, Mastriano attended the 6 January rally. He and his wife watched as a rioter stormed a police barricade. They did not enter the building, but the House select committee has subpoenaed him. The fact that Mastriano recently attended a Qanon rally did not deter the Republican Governors Association from eventually backing him.Mastriano makes some Pennsylvania Republicans nervous. They predict his presence may cost the Republican party control of the governor’s mansion and the Senate.Then again, inflation still rages, the possibility of a recession looms, the stock market wobbles. Populist rage propelled Trump to the White House. History can repeat itself. If empowered, Mastriano will do all that he can to make it happen.
      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York. He was opposition research counsel to George HW Bush’s 1988 campaign and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionRepublicansDonald TrumpPennsylvaniaOhioIdahoGeorgiacommentReuse this content More