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      Lawmakers Clash Over Call for Special Panel to Investigate Capitol Assault

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyLawmakers Clash Over Call for Special Panel to Investigate Capitol AssaultThe disputes are reminiscent of the fight surrounding the creation of the independent commission that conducted an inquiry into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.Speaker Nancy Pelosi was an early proponent of a special commission to fully investigate the Sept. 11 attacks and has called for a special panel to scrutinize the Capitol riot.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesFeb. 25, 2021, 7:12 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Republicans were leery of the prospect of an independent commission to investigate an assault that had shaken the nation and exposed dangerous threats, fearful that Democrats would use it to unfairly cast blame and a political shadow on them.Congress was already conducting its own inquiry, some of them argued, and another investigation was not needed. The commission could be a distraction at a vulnerable time, prompt the disclosure of national secrets or complicate the prosecution of those responsible.The year was 2001, but the clash 20 years ago over the creation of an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 attacks bears unmistakable parallels to the one that is now raging in Congress over forming a similar panel to look into the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.To most Americans, the idea of a blue-ribbon commission to dig into the causes of the Capitol riot and the security and intelligence failures that led to the seat of government being ransacked would probably seem straightforward. But in recent days, it has become clear that, as in the past, devising the legislative and legal framework for such a panel is fraught with political difficulty, particularly in this case, when members of Congress experienced the attack themselves, and some now blame their colleagues for encouraging it.And this time, given the nature of the breach — an event inspired by President Donald J. Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, which were trumpeted by many Republicans — the findings of a deep investigation could carry heavy political consequences.The tensions intensified this week, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi floated a proposal for the creation of a special panel. Republican leaders denounced her initial plan, which envisioned a commission made up of seven members appointed by Democrats and four by Republicans.Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, called her idea “partisan by design,” and compared it unfavorably with the Sept. 11 commission, which was evenly divided. He also predicted that Democrats would use their influence on the panel to focus mainly on violent acts by Mr. Trump’s supporters — who planned and perpetrated the assault — suggesting that its mandate should be broadened to examine left-wing extremists.“If Congress is going to attempt some broader analysis of toxic political violence across this country, then in that case, we cannot have artificial cherry-picking of which terrible behavior does and does not deserve scrutiny,” Mr. McConnell said.Ms. Pelosi fired back on Thursday, saying she was disappointed in Mr. McConnell, who she said had earlier indicated his support for a commission similar to the one established after the Sept. 11 attacks.She accused Republicans of following the lead of Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, who suggested this week that the pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6 had actually been a mostly peaceful crowd seeded with a few “provocateurs,” including members of a loosely affiliated group of far-left anti-fascism activists, known as “antifa.” (The F.B.I. has said there is no evidence that antifa supporters had participated in the Capitol rampage.)“He was taking a page out of the book of Senator Johnson,” Ms. Pelosi said of Mr. McConnell. She added that the crucial aspect of devising the commission was to determine the scope of its work, dismissing the exact makeup of the panel as an “easily negotiated” detail.“I will do anything to have it be bipartisan,” Ms. Pelosi said.The independent, bipartisan National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States was eventually formed and lauded for its incisive report published in July 2004. But first, there were myriad obstacles to its creation.“It was hard,” said Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee at the time who backed the independent panel over objections from the George W. Bush administration. He wanted a deeper look even though his own committee had conducted a revealing joint review with its House counterpart. “I thought it needed to be broader,” Mr. Shelby said.Ms. Pelosi, who was the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee at the time, was an early proponent of a special commission to fully investigate the attack. She argued that any congressional review would almost certainly be too narrow and that an inquiry by the same government that had failed to prevent the attack would lack public credibility. Her proposal was rejected by the Republican-led House under pressure from the Bush administration, which feared disclosures of intelligence lapses and other shortcomings that could cost their party politically.Instead, Congress moved ahead with the joint inquiry by the House and Senate intelligence panels, which revealed a failure by the White House to heed warnings about a looming strike on the United States. But even those leading the inquiry believed an independent commission was needed to break free of congressional constraints.“One of the benefits of a subsequent round of hearings is that you can avoid those interferences,” said Bob Graham, a Democratic senator from Florida and the chairman of the Intelligence Committee at the time.Senator Mitch McConnell denounced the initial Democratic proposal for a commission made up of seven members appointed by Democrats and four by Republicans as “partisan by design.”Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesSenators Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona, responding to calls from the families of those killed on Sept. 11, pushed forward with a proposal for an independent panel. They built on a long tradition of the United States taking such steps after shattering events like the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Kennedy assassination. But the plan encountered stiff resistance from the Bush administration, which finally agreed to its creation in late 2002 after one last round of foot dragging.As the commission began public hearings in the spring of 2003, Ms. Pelosi lamented that it had taken so long but lauded the determination required to make it a reality.“Through the persistence of a member of this commission, former Congressman Tim Roemer, as well as that of Senators McCain and Lieberman, this body was established and has begun its critical work,” she said then.In the case of the Jan. 6 assault, Congress this week began its own set of hearings into what went wrong. Some lawmakers privately suggested that their work could be sufficient and that an independent panel would be redundant. And at his confirmation hearing on Monday to be attorney general, Judge Merrick B. Garland warned that he supported the idea of an independent inquiry only as long as it would not derail the prosecution of any of those charged in the assault.The current Congress is much more polarized than it was in the aftermath of Sept. 11 and the creation of the commission is complicated by the fact that Democrats are highly skeptical of the motives of Republicans. Democrats see some of them as complicit in fueling the attack by spreading falsehoods about the presidential election being stolen and then challenging the electoral vote count on Jan. 6.On Wednesday, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the No. 5 Democrat, accused top Republicans of not acting in good faith and setting a “bad tone” by joining the unsuccessful effort to overturn the election results.“All of that said, Speaker Pelosi still presented the framework to the Republicans, which then, of course, instead of leading to some kind of good-faith conversation from them, they immediately launched into a partisan political attack,” Mr. Jeffries said.But Republicans have suspicions of their own. Even those who have backed the idea of a commission say they will not accept a proposal they see as giving Democrats the upper hand in determining the course of the commission’s work.“It has to be independent,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. “This can’t be the Nancy Pelosi commission.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Full CPAC 2021 Guide: Trump, Cruz, Pompeo and More

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Campaign to Subvert the 2020 ElectionKey TakeawaysTrump’s RoleGeorgia InvestigationExtremist Wing of G.O.P.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhat to Watch For at CPAC: Trump, Cruz, Pompeo and MoreEven more than usual, the Conservative Political Action Conference this year will be a barometer for the Republican Party, newly out of power in Washington and trying to chart a way back.Former President Donald J. Trump in October at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa. On Sunday, he is scheduled to give the culminating speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesFeb. 25, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETStarting on Friday, a medley of conservative politicians, commentators and activists will descend on Orlando, Fla., for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, commonly known as CPAC. In years past, the event has been a reliable barometer for the base of the Republican Party, clarifying how its most devout members define the institution now, and what they want it to look like in the future.For the party’s leadership, those questions have become especially urgent in the aftermath of former President Donald J. Trump’s election loss in November, not to mention the riot at the Capitol carried out last month by Trump supporters. The party has hardened over the past four years into one animated by rage, grievance and — above all — fealty to Mr. Trump. The days ahead will help illuminate whether it’s likely to stay that way.What is Trump’s influence on the event?The former president is scheduled to deliver the culminating speech of the conference at 3:40 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, but his presence will be felt throughout the event. Recent polls show that a majority of Republicans falsely believe the election was stolen from Mr. Trump, and the agenda this year indicates that subjects like voter fraud will be top of mind.On Friday morning, panelists including Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama, who has enthusiastically backed Mr. Trump’s claims of fraud, will gather onstage for a 35-minute segment called “Protecting Elections: Why Judges & Media Refused to Look at the Evidence.” That theme picks up again on Sunday morning, when speakers will discuss what they call the “Failed States” of Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada — states that Joseph R. Biden Jr. won in November, and where Mr. Trump’s legal efforts to overturn the results sputtered.The 45th president won’t be the only Trump to make an appearance. On Friday afternoon, Donald Trump Jr. will speak under the vague banner of “Reigniting the Spirit of the American Dream.” He’ll be introduced by Kimberly Guilfoyle, his girlfriend and a former Fox News personality.In other words, when it comes to the elder Mr. Trump, expect this year’s CPAC to feel similar to the past four — from the number of times his name is invoked to the audience’s eagerness to hear from the man himself.What issues are on the agenda?As conservatives look for a message to rally around ahead of the midterm elections in 2022, the CPAC agenda previews the uphill battle awaiting them. The agenda includes panels on the debt, abortion, education, Big Tech and “cancel culture.” But with so many segments anchored in the 2020 election, the conference appears to be less about mapping the party’s future than relitigating its past.Except for one particular day, that is. Nowhere on the agenda is there any reference to Jan. 6 — not the pro-Trump march in Washington, the chants of “stop the steal,” nor the demonstration that devolved into a riotous mob storming the Capitol. Prominent Republican politicians have tried to pin the riot on antifa and other left-wing movements or groups, and CPAC will reveal how conservative voters regard the events of that day nearly two months later.Senators Mike Lee and Ted Cruz walking through the Capitol subway on Tuesday. Both are set to speak at CPAC.Credit…Erin Scott for The New York TimesWho’s eyeing 2024?A speaking slot at CPAC is prime real estate for ambitious Republicans. This year, a number of those eager to claim the mantle of a post-Trump G.O.P. have managed to nab one. With the event being held in his state, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has perhaps the most coveted spot on the schedule apart from that of Mr. Trump himself — he’ll deliver the conference’s kickoff address on Friday at 9 a.m.Other rumored 2024 candidates include Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who will speak on the “Bill of Rights, Liberty, and Cancel Culture” on Friday at 10:50 a.m.; Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who will discuss “Keeping America Safe” at 12:55 p.m. that day; and Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who is up at 2:55 p.m. for a discussion on “Unlocking Our Churches, Our Voices, and Our Social Media Accounts.”Mr. Scott is immediately followed on the schedule by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, whose speech is simply titled “Remarks.”Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state, and Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota will anchor the lineup on Saturday. He will speak on the Bill of Rights at 1:35 p.m. and she will address the audience at 3:50 p.m.; no topic is listed for her speech.Looming over them all, of course, is Mr. Trump. If the former president’s popularity with the base holds firm, the 2024 election could revolve around whether he chooses to run. If he does, few Republicans are likely to challenge him for the nomination. If he doesn’t, candidates will pour as much energy into earning his endorsement as they do into their ground game in Iowa.And so at CPAC, 2024 hopefuls are likely to deliver their speeches in a familiar mode: to an audience of one.Who won’t be there?With the Republican Party looking to take back the White House in 2024, who isn’t speaking at CPAC this year is as telling as who is.The most notable absence from the lineup is former Vice President Mike Pence. He has kept a low profile since Jan. 6, when some rioters called for his execution and Mr. Trump declined to take action to stop the mob. Politico first reported that Mr. Pence had declined an invitation to speak at CPAC.Also absent from the agenda is Nikki Haley, a former governor of South Carolina who served under Mr. Trump as ambassador to the United Nations. Ms. Haley is another rumored contender for 2024, and her absence from the conservative conference may signal an attempt to occupy a more moderate lane in the party in the years ahead.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      We Still Have to Worry About the Supreme Court and Elections

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Campaign to Subvert the 2020 ElectionKey TakeawaysTrump’s RoleGeorgia InvestigationExtremist Wing of G.O.P.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyWe Still Have to Worry About the Supreme Court and ElectionsThe justices are about to consider whether the Voting Rights Act applies to policies that restrict the vote.Contributing Opinion WriterFeb. 25, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETCredit…Damon Winter/The New York TimesWhen the Supreme Court on Monday rejected Pennsylvania Republicans’ after-the-fact effort to invalidate late-arriving mailed ballots, it was tempting to suppose that the country’s courthouse doors had finally closed on this most litigated of presidential elections.If only it were that simple.True, in denying the Republicans’ petitions, the court didn’t issue an opinion. Of the four votes necessary to accept a case, these two cases (treated by the court as one) garnered only three. So for the official record, the only outcome in Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. DeGraffenreid and in Corman v. Pennsylvania Democratic Party was “denied.”But the three justices who would have accepted the cases — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — issued dissenting opinions that provide both a road map and a rationale for the Supreme Court’s future intervention in the quintessentially state matter of how to conduct elections.Remember Bush v. Gore, the case that decided the 2000 presidential election, in which five justices voted to overturn the Florida Supreme Court’s handling of a statewide recount? That decision was based on a theory of equal protection so wacky that the majority opinion insisted that “our consideration is limited to the present circumstances” — that is to say, don’t dare invoke this poor excuse for an opinion as a precedent.That didn’t stop Justice Thomas from citing Bush v. Gore in his dissenting opinion on Monday, and he did so in a particularly shameless fashion. The language he cited wasn’t even from the Bush v. Gore majority opinion, but rather from a separate concurring opinion filed in that case by only three of the majority justices, who argued that the Florida Supreme Court had violated the U.S. Constitution by substituting its will for that of the state Legislature. Justice Thomas invoked that minority portion of the decision to assert that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was constitutionally out of bounds when, citing both the Covid-19 pandemic and the collapse of the Postal Service as its reasons, it added three postelection days for lawful receipt of mailed ballots.He went on to warn that fraud was “more prevalent with mail-in ballots,” citing as evidence a 1994 Federal District Court case, an article in this newspaper from 2012 and the 2018 Republican ballot-harvesting fraud in North Carolina. Such occurrences, he said, raise “the likelihood that courts will be asked to adjudicate questions that go to the heart of election confidence.” This was the reason, he argued, that the Supreme Court should have taken and decided the Pennsylvania cases before the next election cycle.In his inventory of ballot fraud, Justice Thomas of course could not refer to fraud in the 2020 election, because there wasn’t any. Not a problem:We are fortunate that many of the cases we have seen alleged only improper rule changes, not fraud. But that observation provides only small comfort. An election free from strong evidence of systemic fraud is not alone sufficient for election confidence. Also important is the assurance that fraud will not go undetected.In other words, Justice Thomas would have it both ways: If there was fraud, the court needed to intervene, and if there was no fraud, the court needed to intervene because the fraud might simply be undetected. Despite his disclaimer, the entire structure of his opinion, suggesting that something bad had happened even if no one could prove it, is fairly read as validating the essence of the Trump narrative.Justice Alito, in a separate dissenting opinion that Justice Gorsuch also signed, was more circumspect about the fraud issue. His emphasis was the urgency of stopping state courts from substituting their judgment for that of the legislatures. He said that even though the election was over and late ballots were too few to have made a difference in Pennsylvania’s vote totals, state courts could be expected to behave in the same way in the future unless the Supreme Court used this occasion to stop them.There are several things to note about the Pennsylvania cases. The most obvious is the absence of a fourth vote. In an initial round in the Pennsylvania cases, in mid-October, Justice Brett Kavanaugh had provided Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch with a fourth vote to grant a stay of the state court decision. But a stay requires five votes rather than four. With Amy Coney Barrett not yet confirmed, the eight justices divided 4 to 4, and the stay was denied without opinions. Justice Kavanaugh withheld his vote on Monday, without explanation. Maybe he decided this was a propitious time to offer some cover for Chief Justice John Roberts, who has voted in nearly all the election cases this fall with the three remaining liberal justices.Justice Barrett was also silent. During her confirmation hearing, Senate Democrats had pressed her to promise recusal from any election cases, given that President Donald Trump had said he needed a prompt replacement for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg so that he would have a majority of justices voting his way in any election disputes. Justice Barrett did not recuse herself from the Pennsylvania case. Perhaps her decision not to provide the fourth vote her dissenting colleagues needed was a kind of de facto recusal, in recognition that the optics of voting to hear a last-ditch Trump appeal would be awkward, to say the least.The deeper question raised by Monday’s development is why Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch are so intent on what would seem to be a counterintuitive goal for conservatives: curbing the power of state courts. I’m cynical enough to think it has to do with how these three understand the position of state legislatures and state courts in today’s political climate. It’s been widely reported that Republican-controlled legislatures are rolling out bills by the dozens to restrict access to the polls, aimed at discouraging the kind of turnout that produced Democratic victories in Georgia last month. The vote-suppression effort has become so aggressive that some Republicans are starting to worry about voter backlash, according to a recent Washington Post article.State courts, on the other hand, are capable of standing in the way of this strategy. When state high-court judges are elected, as they are in many states, they typically run in statewide races that are not subject to the gerrymandering that has entrenched Republican power in states that are much more balanced politically than the makeup of their legislatures reflects. What better way to disable the state courts in their democracy-protecting role than to push them to the sidelines when it comes to federal elections.So there is no way the Supreme Court is finished with elections. Next Tuesday, as it happens, the justices will hear a crucial voting rights case. The case, from Arizona, asks the court to decide for the first time how Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 applies to policies that restrict the vote, through such measures as voter ID requirements.Section 2, which pertains nationwide, is the major remaining provision of the Voting Rights Actfollowing the Supreme Court’s dismantling of the act’s Section 5, in the 2013 Shelby County case. That section barred certain states and smaller jurisdictions from making changes in their election procedures without first receiving federal permission, known as “preclearance.” Section 5 provided vital protection in parts of the country where racism had not released its grip on the levers of power.The issue now is whether Section 2 can be deployed to fill that gap. It prohibits any voting practice that “results in a denial or abridgment of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.” It has typically been used to challenge redistricting plans that dilute the electoral power of racial and ethnic minorities. The question of whether it can be useful in challenging the wave of vote-suppression schemes, which can present complex problems of proof, hands the justices arguably the most important civil rights case of their current term.With the country exhausted and still reeling from the turmoil of the 2020 election and its bizarre aftermath, the urge not to think about elections for a while is powerful. I share it. But it’s a luxury the Supreme Court hasn’t given us, not now, not as long as some justices have more to say.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.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      How to Keep Extremists Out of Power

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyHow to Keep Extremists Out of PowerEvery political reform proposal must be judged by its ability to fuel or weaken extremist candidates.Mr. Pildes has spent his career as a legal scholar analyzing the intersection of politics and law and how that impacts our elections.Feb. 25, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETCredit…Shay Horse/NurPhoto, via Getty ImagesAmerican democracy faces alarming risks from extremist forces that have rapidly gained ground in our politics. The most urgent focus of political reform must be to marginalize, to the extent possible, these destabilizing forces.Every reform proposal must be judged through this lens: Is it likely to fuel or to weaken the power of extremist politics and candidates?In healthy democracies, they are rewarded for appealing to the broadest forces in politics, not the narrowest. This is precisely why American elections take place in a “first past the post” system rather than the proportional representation system many other democracies use.What structural changes would reward politicians whose appeal is broadest? We should start with a focus on four areas.Reform the presidential nomination processUntil the 1970s, presidential nominees were selected through a convention-based system, which means that a candidate had to obtain a broad consensus among the various interests and factions in the party. “Brokered conventions” — which required several rounds of balloting to choose a nominee — offered a vivid demonstration of how the sausage of consensus was made. In 1952, for example, the Republican Party convention selected the more moderate Dwight D. Eisenhower over Robert A. Taft, the popular leader of the more extreme wing of the party, who opposed the creation of NATO.Our current primary system shifted control from party insiders to voters. Now, in a primary with several credible contenders, a candidate can “win” with 35 percent of the vote. This allows polarizing candidates to win the nomination even if many party members find them objectionable. (In 2016, Donald Trump won many primaries with less than 40 percent of the vote.)How can we restore some of the party-wide consensus the convention system required? The parties can use ranked-choice voting, which allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. This rewards candidates with broad appeal to a party’s voters, even if they have fewer passionate supporters. In this system, a candidate intensely popular with 35 percent of the party’s voters but intensely disliked by much of the rest would not prevail. A candidate who is the first choice of only 35 percent but the second choice of another 50 percent would do better. Ranked-choice voting reduces the prospects of factional party candidates. Presidents with a broad base of support can institute major reforms, as Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan demonstrated.Reform the party primariesMany incumbents take more extreme positions than they might otherwise endorse because they worry about a primary challenge.One way to help defang that threat is to eliminate “sore-loser” laws. These laws, which exist in some form in 47 states, bar candidates who have lost in a party primary from running in the general election as an independent or third-party candidate. Thus, if a more moderate candidate loses in a primary to a more extreme one, that person is shut out from the general election — even if he or she would likely beat the (sometimes extreme) winners of the party primaries. One study finds that sore-loser laws favor more ideological candidates: Democratic candidates in states with the law are nearly six points more liberal and Republicans nearly nine-to-10 points more conservative than in states without these laws.Though Alaska has a sore-loser law, Senator Lisa Murkowski’s 2010 re-election is still instructive. That year, as an incumbent, she lost the Republican primary to a conservative candidate endorsed by the Tea Party and Sarah Palin. But the state permitted an exception to the sore-loser law for write-in candidates, and Ms. Murkowski, running as a write-in Republican candidate, won the general election.If sore-loser laws are eliminated, that reform should be combined with ranked-choice voting in the general election. That would ensure that in a multicandidate general election, the winner would reflect a broad consensus. Other ideas for restructuring primaries to minimize the existence of factional candidates include one adopted by Alaska voters in November: The top four candidates in a single primary move on to the general election, where the winner is chosen through ranked-choice voting.Reform gerrymanderingMany reformers agree on the need to take redistricting out of the hands of partisan state legislatures and give it to a commission. In several recent state ballot initiatives, voters have endorsed this change. But that still raises a question: What constitutes a fair map?Redistricting reform should have as a goal the creation of competitive election districts. Competitive districts pressure candidates from both the left and the right, which creates incentives to appeal to the political center. They also encourage more moderate candidates to run in the first place, because they know they have a greater prospect of winning than in a district whose seat is safe for the other party.In safe seat districts, as long as a candidate survives the primary, that person is assured of winning the general election — which means primary candidates don’t have to move toward the center.The sources of centrism in the House or Senate frequently come from politicians in swing districts or states. In the recent House impeachment, for example, the percentage of Republicans elected with 57 percent of the vote or less who voted for impeachment was more than double that of Republicans elected with more than 57 percent of the vote. Similarly, it was Democrats holding competitive seats who resisted the initial impeachment of President Trump, until news broke of his call with Ukraine.Not every district can be made competitive. But in 2018, maps that emphasized competitiveness could have produced at least 242 highly competitive districts, although only 72 races actually were competitive. The more senators and representatives who face competitive pressures in their general elections, the larger the forces of compromise and negotiation will be in Congress.The goal of creating competitive districts should not take a back seat to approaches that focus on whether the partisan outcomes match vote shares in a particular map. In these approaches, the closer a plan comes to matching the number of seats one party gets to its statewide share of the vote, the fairer that map is deemed to be. So, if 55 percent of the statewide vote goes to Democrats, then Democrats should have roughly 55 percent of the seats in the state Legislature and the U.S. House delegation from the state. The problem comes when a fair partisan map produces candidates, in getting to that 55 percent overall, who are all elected from seats so safe for one party, they never have to compete for voters in the center.If we want to reduce extremist forces in our politics, candidates should have to appeal to a diverse set of interests and voters in competitive districts as much as possible.Reform campaign-finance reformThe way campaigns are financed also has major effects on the types of candidates who run and win.Campaign-finance efforts are now rightly focused on “leveling up” campaign dollars — by providing public funds to candidates — rather than trying to “level down” by imposing caps on election spending. That shift is partly a result of Supreme Court doctrine, but also of the difficulties of narrowing the number of channels through which money can flow to candidates.But publicly financed elections can take at least two different basic forms, and the form taken can have significant ramifications for whether the forces of extremism are further accentuated or limited.In the traditional form of public financing, which is used in around 11 states that have public financing, the government provides grants of campaign funds to the qualified candidates.In the other form — which has taken up much of the reform energy in recent years — the government provides matching funds for small donations. This based on a matching-funds program that has existed in New York City for a number of years.The campaign-finance reform proposal that House Democrats passed after the 2018 midterms, which is now a focus of the Democratic agenda, would include a small-donor matching program. The legislation would provide $6 in public funds to candidates for every dollar they raise in small donations (those of $200 or less), up to a certain level.But there is a risk that making public funding proportional to small donations will accelerate polarization and extremism even further. Research suggests small donors are more ideologically extreme than average citizens and donate to ideologically more extreme candidates. In his campaigns, Mr. Trump raised a higher percentage of his contributions from small donors than any major-party presidential nominee in history.Numerous studies have shown that in general, individual donors (large and small) are the most ideological source of money in politics. Traditional public financing is far more neutral in the types of candidates who benefit.In debating campaign-finance reform, we must focus not just on the values of participation or equality but also on the overall effects different approaches to reform are likely to have on political extremism or moderation.Jan. 6 provided a painful demonstration of the dangerous currents gathering in American political culture. Every proposed election reform must now be measured against this reality to make sure political reform furthers American democracy.Richard H. Pildes is a professor at New York University’s School of Law and an author of the casebook “The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process.”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.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Mitch McConnell Would Like Trump to Fade Away

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyMitch McConnell Would Like Trump to Fade AwayGood luck with that.Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C. on politics, demographics and inequality.Feb. 24, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETCredit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesMitch McConnell is savvy enough to know that when he took the Senate floor to blame Donald Trump for the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, he was pouring gasoline on an intraparty feud.As accurate as McConnell’s statement may have been — “There’s no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day” — McConnell was attacking a man who had won an unprecedented level of devotion from a majority of the Republican electorate, devotion bordering on religious zeal.The escalating feud threatens to engulf the party in an internal struggle that will be fought out in the 2022 House and Senate primaries, pitting Trump-backed candidates against those who have offended the former president.When Trump viciously counterattacked on Feb. 16, Democrats were especially cheered by this passage in his remarks:Where necessary and appropriate, I will back primary rivals who espouse Making America Great Again and our policy of America First. We want brilliant, strong, thoughtful, and compassionate leadership.In effect, Trump is gearing up to run a slate of favored candidates in the 2022 primaries against incumbent Republicans, especially, but by no means limited to those who supported his impeachment.Politico reported on Feb. 20 that:Trump will soon begin vetting candidates at Mar-a-Lago who are eager to fulfill his promise to exact vengeance upon incumbent Republicans who’ve scorned him, and to ensure every open GOP seat in the 2022 midterms has a MAGA-approved contender vying for it.Twenty Republican-held Senate seats are at stake in 2022, and at least two of the incumbents up for re-election — John Thune of South Dakota and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — are certain to be on Trump’s hit list.Murkowski voted to convict the president. Thune voted against conviction, but before that he publicly dismissed efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. Trump then tweeted on Dec. 13:RINO John Thune, ‘Mitch’s boy’, should just let it play out. South Dakota doesn’t like weakness. He will be primaried in 2022, political career over!!!McConnell will not be on Trump’s hit list for the simple reason that he just won re-election and does not have to face voters until 2026. But his name will be there in invisible ink.Another group Trump is very likely to target for political extinction is made up of the 10 Republican members of the House who voted to impeach the president.These incumbent Republicans only scratch the surface of the potential for intraparty conflict in the event Trump adopts a scorched earth strategy in an all-out attack on Republican candidates who voiced criticism of the former president.Trump’s venom is likely to encompass a host of state-level Republicans who disputed his claims of a stolen election, including Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia and Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, both up for re-election in ’22.Assuming that Trump versus McConnell becomes a major theme in the 2022 Republican primaries, the numbers, especially among white evangelical Christians, favor Trump.Robert Jones, founder and chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute, noted that his group’s polling has found that many Republicans have elevated Trump to near-deity status. In an email, Jones wrote:Just ahead of the election, a majority (55 percent) of white evangelicals and a plurality (47 percent) of Republicans said they saw Trump as “being called by God to lead at this critical time in our country.”Jones continued:If McConnell is counting on the impeachment for inciting insurrection to weaken Trump’s future within the party, he seems to have miscalculated: Three-quarters of Republicans and two-thirds of white evangelicals agreed with the statement, “Trump is a true patriot.”I asked Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California-San Diego, about the consequences of a Trump versus McConnell battle over the future of the Republican Party. He emailed in reply: “The deck is stacked against McConnell, at least for the next election cycle.”Jacobson sent a copy of a paper he is working on, “Donald Trump’s Big Lie and the Future of the Republican Party,” that provides strong evidence in support of his assessment.Among Republicans, over much of the Trump presidency, the favorability ratings of Trump, the party and McConnell generally rose and fell in tandem, Jacobson noted. That changed in December 2020:After the Electoral College voted in mid-December, the proportion holding favorable opinions of all three fell, but more for the Republican Party and much more for McConnell than for Trump. Trump’s average was 5.6 points lower for January-February 2021 than it had been for all of 2020, the party’s average was 11.3 points lower.According to Jacobson, the drop was disastrous for McConnell:In December, after McConnell congratulated Biden, his favorability ratings among Republicans dropped about 13 points from its postelection average (66 percent) and then fell another 17 points after he blamed Trump for the Capitol invasion, with the biggest drop occurring among the share of Republicans who held very favorable opinions of Trump (57 percent in this survey).The pattern is clear in the accompanying graphic:Trump on TopThe share of Republicans holding favorable views of Trump, McConnell and the party overall. More

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      Romney predicts Trump would win the 2024 G.O.P. nomination if he ran for president.

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyLive Updates: Capitol’s Former Security Officials Point to Intelligence Failures Before RiotRomney predicts Trump would win the 2024 G.O.P. nomination if he ran for president.Feb. 23, 2021, 10:03 p.m. ETFeb. 23, 2021, 10:03 p.m. ETSenator Mitt Romney of Utah said on Tuesday that he thought if Donald J. Trump ran for president in 2024, he would win the Republican Party’s nomination.Credit…Erin Scott for The New York TimesSenator Mitt Romney of Utah said on Tuesday that he believed Donald J. Trump would win the Republican nomination for president if he ran for his former office in 2024, another indication of Mr. Trump’s perceived strength in the party.“I don’t know if he’ll run in 2024 or not, but if he does, I’m pretty sure he will win the nomination,” Mr. Romney said at the DealBook DC Policy Project.Mr. Romney noted that “a lot can happen between now and 2024,” but he added, “I look at the polls, and the polls show that among the names being floated as potential contenders in 2024, if you put President Trump in there among Republicans, he wins in a landslide.”Mr. Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, is the sole Republican senator who voted to convict Mr. Trump at both of his impeachment trials.Asked by The New York Times’s Andrew Ross Sorkin whether he would campaign against Mr. Trump, Mr. Romney responded: “I would not be voting for President Trump again. I haven’t voted for him in the past. And I would probably be getting behind somebody who I thought more represented the tiny wing of the Republican Party that I represent.”Mr. Romney’s comments were a clear sign of Mr. Trump’s enduring position in the Republican Party, even after his election defeat last year and his impeachment on a charge of inciting the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6.“He has by far the largest voice and a big impact in my party,” Mr. Romney said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      How Not to Be at the Mercy of a Trumpified G.O.P.

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyHow Not to Be at the Mercy of a Trumpified G.O.P.Barack Obama asked Democrats to kill the filibuster and pass a voting rights bill because it was the right thing to do. There’s a stronger argument.Opinion ColumnistFeb. 23, 2021Credit…Elizabeth Bick for The New York TimesLast year, in his eulogy for Representative John Lewis, President Barack Obama urged Congress to pass a new voting rights act to continue the work of the lifelong civil rights activist.“If politicians want to honor John, and I’m so grateful for the legacy of work of all the Congressional leaders who are here, but there’s a better way than a statement calling him a hero,” Obama said. “You want to honor John? Let’s honor him by revitalizing the law that he was willing to die for.”Obama then called on federal lawmakers to lift as many barriers to voting as they could. “Once we pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, we should keep marching to make it even better,” he said, listing automatic voter registration, felon re-enfranchisement, a national voting holiday, D.C. statehood and curbs on partisan gerrymandering as reforms that would do justice to Lewis’s memory. “And if all this takes eliminating the filibuster,” Obama concluded, “then that’s what we should do.”Although he probably expected them to win in November, Obama said this not knowing whether Democrats would have a majority in the Senate come the start of the next Congress. Well, Democrats have that majority. And thanks in large part to the work of John Lewis and those who followed in his footsteps, it rests on two senators from Georgia, whose political futures rest in turn on whether every voter in the state has equal access to the ballot.The same is true in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where slim margins made the difference between Democratic victory and Republican defeat in the last election, and where Republican legislative majorities are determined to keep Democrats as far from power as possible — and not to lose the next presidential election the way they lost the last one. To that end, they have introduced bills to restrict the vote, to make the race for the Electoral College — as well as any race for statewide office — as noncompetitive as possible, by taking as many Democratic voters off the board as they can.Obama asked Democrats to kill the filibuster and pass a voting rights bill because it was the right thing to do. But there’s a stronger argument: that if Democrats don’t do this, they’ll be at the mercy of a Trumpified Republican Party that has radicalized against democracy itself.Democrats have already written the kind of voting rights bill Obama spoke about. It’s the For the People Act, designated as H.R. 1 in the House and S. 1 in the Senate. If passed and signed into law, it would establish automatic, same-day and online voter registration, protect eligible voters from overly broad purges that remove them from the rolls, restore the Voting Rights Act with a new formula for federal preclearance (which would require select cities and localities to submit new voting rules to the Justice Department for clearance), re-enfranchise the formerly incarcerated, strengthen mail-in voting systems, institute nationwide early voting and increase criminal penalties for voter intimidation.House Democrats introduced H.R. 1 in 2019 at the start of the 116th Congress. Mitch McConnell, then the majority leader of the Senate, denounced the bill as a “naked attempt to change the rules of American politics to benefit one party” and told reporters it was dead on arrival. “This is a terrible proposal,” he said that March, “it will not get any floor time in the Senate.”McConnell no longer controls the floor, but with a de facto supermajority requirement in the Senate, the For the People Act is still dead on arrival. That is, unless Democrats kill the legislative filibuster and restore majority rule to the chamber. Right now, Senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia are the most vocal Democratic opponents of ending the filibuster. “I want to restore the 60-vote threshold for all elements of the Senate’s work,” Sinema said earlier this month, seemingly mistaking McConnell’s Obama-era innovation for an age-old tradition. Manchin has also been emphatic about keeping the supermajority requirement, telling Politico that he will “not vote in this Congress” to change the filibuster.Manchin, who has been winning elections in West Virginia for the last 20 years, is safe in his seat for as long as he wants it. Sinema, on the other hand, is much more vulnerable. Not the least because Arizona’s Republican state Legislature, to say nothing of its Republican Party, is all-in on “stop the steal” and Donald Trump’s war on mail-in voting. Arizona Republicans have already introduced bills to limit voter registration drives, require notarized signatures for mailed ballots and forbid voters from actually mailing-in completed ballots.Arizona Republicans are not alone. To date, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at N.Y.U.’s law school, Republicans in 33 states have introduced more than 165 bills to restrict voting, part of the national conservative backlash to the results of the 2020 presidential election. A bill in Georgia would put new restrictions on absentee and in-person early voting; four different bills in Pennsylvania would eliminate no-excuse absentee voting less than two years after Republican lawmakers voted it into law.Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Republican in the House, captured the mood of the party when, on Sunday, he refused to say that the election wasn’t stolen from Trump. “Once the electors are counted, yes, he’s the legitimate president,” Scalise said in an interview with Jonathan Karl of ABC News, speaking of Joe Biden. “But if you’re going to ignore the fact that there were states that did not follow their own state legislatively set laws. That’s the issue at heart, that millions of people still are not happy with and don’t want to see happen again.”This is euphemism. There was no issue with the election. State legislatures passed laws, courts interpreted them, and officials put them into action. This was true in states Trump won, like Texas and North Carolina, as much as it was in states he lost. It almost goes without saying that the real issue, the reason Republicans are actually unhappy, is that Biden is president and Democrats control Congress.Devoted to Trump, and committed to his fictions about the election, Republicans are doing everything they can to keep voters from holding them and their leaders accountable. They will restrict the vote. They will continue to gerrymander themselves into near-permanent majorities. A Republican in Arizona has even proposed a legislative veto over the popular vote in presidential elections, under the dubious theory that state legislatures have unconditional, unlimited and unrestricted power to allocate electoral votes.The good news is that Democrats in Congress have it in their power to stop a lot of this nonsense, to pre-emptively weaken the rising tide of voter suppression. All it takes is a simple vote to make the Senate work according to majority rule, as the founding fathers intended.The alternative is to allow the supermajority requirement to stand, to allow endless stagnation, to abdicate the authority of Congress to govern the country and tackle its problems, to deny the party of collective action the ability to act for the public good and to give the party of plutocrats and demagogues free rein to twist the institutions of the American republic against its values.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.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Republican Party’s Future: Stay Loyal to Trump, or Disavow Him?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storylettersRepublican Party’s Future: Stay Loyal to Trump, or Disavow Him?A reader cites a joke from “Annie Hall” to describe the Republicans’ dilemma.Feb. 22, 2021 Credit…Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Why Are Republicans Still This Loyal to a Mar-a-Lago Exile?,” by Peter Wehner (Op-Ed, nytimes.com, Feb. 14):The old joke retold in “Annie Hall” captures the Republican Party’s dilemma: A guy walks into a psychiatrist’s office and says, “Doc, my brother’s crazy; he thinks he’s a chicken.” The doc says, “Why don’t you commit him?” The guy replies, “I would, but we need the eggs.”Nearly half a century ago, the Republican establishment, which favors low taxes, limited regulations and free trade, realizing that these policies have limited appeal beyond boardrooms and country clubs, welcomed into the G.O.P. anti-abortion evangelicals, gun-owning single-issue voters and those opposing programs to help African-Americans, gay people and other marginalized Americans. For the following decades, party elites ruled the Republican roost, won elections and pushed their economic platform.Starting five years ago with Donald Trump besting Jeb Bush et al., the chickens now top the Republican pecking order. Mr. Wehner argues that the party should embrace “a policy agenda to meet the challenges of the modern world” and no longer be “the nesting place of lunacy.”Good luck, but the experience of half a century shows that to win elections the Republican Party needs the eggs.Larry KahnPotomac, Md.To the Editor:I think Peter Wehner is spot on. I have been worried about the substance and direction of the Republican Party for the past five years as well.One possible solution to both ensure that the Trumpian phoenix does not rise from the ashes and to help put more thoughtful, honest and moderate Republicans in a position to have greater influence is by having Democrats change their voter registration to Republican.I am not advocating that Democrats jump ship; they can always vote Democratic in general elections. I am advocating that by registering Republican for the primaries they will be able to undermine the power that Donald Trump has over the party and put in place candidates who are not megalomaniacal, undemocratic and dishonest (if not just plain chicken).Crosby BrownWyndmoor, Pa.To the Editor:Lindsey Graham, in an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News, said the winning strategy for the Republicans going forward is to tie their strings to the recently acquitted ex-president.Donald Trump lost the election, lost 61 court challenges and helped the Republicans lose control of the Senate. The Trump insurgents who stormed the Capitol with their MAGA caps and Trump signs effectively branded MAGA cap-wearers as insurrectionists. He lost his Twitter account in addition to his presidential pulpit.Democrats should be encouraged if Republicans follow Mr. Graham’s advice.Alan LubellNew YorkTo the Editor:If Senator Lindsey Graham and Representative Kevin McCarthy want to build a Republican Party that can win elections, they should recruit conservatives within the African-American and Hispanic communities. African-Americans are the most regular American churchgoers, followed by Hispanic people, then whites. Along with Hispanic Americans, a large percentage have conservative views on abortion.So why is the Republican leadership repelling them by actively perpetuating false stereotypes of African-Americans as violent — most recently by repeatedly referring to the tiny minority of Black Lives Matter demonstrations that were violent, rather than the 93 percent that were peaceful? Why fight to retain the loyalty of a racist minority rather than fighting to recruit principled conservatives, whatever their ethnicity?The success of our American experiment depends on our devotion to the ideas of our foundational documents, not to any particular ethnic or tribal identity.Susan WagnerNederland, Colo.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More