Subterms
Lauren Justice for The New York TimesConservatives have controlled the court since 2008. Though the court upheld Wisconsin’s 2020 election results, last year it ruled drop boxes illegal, allowed a purge of the voter rolls to take place and installed redistricting maps drawn by Republican legislators despite the objections of Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat. More
Virginia’s Republican governor is considering a presidential run, but a divided state legislature may thwart his ambitions for conservative policy victories.VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Gov. Glenn Youngkin headlined a rally on Saturday outside the red-brick City Hall here, urging voters to back a fellow Virginia Republican in a special election for State Senate.It was part of a broader effort by the governor to use the 2023 session of the Virginia legislature to bolster his conservative credentials and agenda as he tests a possible presidential run in 2024. “I need Kevin in the Senate to help me get it done, so we have to win this election now,” Mr. Youngkin told the crowd, referring to Kevin Adams, the State Senate candidate.But Tuesday’s election was a bust for Mr. Youngkin and Virginia Beach Republicans: Mr. Adams was narrowly defeated, Democrats flipped the Republican-held seat he was seeking and one of the governor’s prominent right-wing initiatives — a 15-week abortion ban — seemed all but doomed as Democrats expanded their narrow majority in the upper chamber of the General Assembly.Mr. Youngkin’s 2021 election in blue Virginia instantly set off speculation about a potential White House run in 2024. In just his second year in office, he has had both a local and national focus.The governor has laid out priorities beyond abortion for the legislative session that begins this week: a proposed $1 billion in tax cuts, improving crisis mental health care and luring 2,000 police officers from other states that, as he put it, “do not support law enforcement.” He has also cultivated big donors and Republican voters outside Virginia, traveling widely before the midterms to support 15 Republican candidates for governor and appearing frequently on Fox News, where he advances the “parents’ matter” agenda that helped get him elected.Mr. Youngkin campaigned in October in Arizona with Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor. She lost her race.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesIn September, Mr. Youngkin stumped for Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, who won his race.Audra Melton for The New York TimesBut unlike some other potential Republican contenders in 2024, Mr. Youngkin is facing home state political dynamics that make it harder to notch clean conservative victories.Although other Republican governors testing the presidential waters enjoy Republican-led statehouses — in New Hampshire, Florida and South Dakota — Mr. Youngkin has a divided legislature. After the G.O.P. defeat in the special election for State Senate, Democrats hold a 22-18 majority. Republicans control the House of Delegates.“His challenge is that he can talk about things, but because of the political environment of Virginia, which is different from, let us say, Florida, he can by no means accomplish these conservative goals,” said Bob Holsworth, the founding director of the School of Government at Virginia Commonwealth University.Mr. Youngkin’s rising profile has attracted the attention of former President Donald J. Trump, whose unusually early announcement of a third presidential campaign in November was aimed in part at clearing the Republican field for 2024. On his social media platform, Mr. Trump wrote on Nov. 11 that his endorsement of Mr. Youngkin had cemented the governor’s 2021 victory. And Mr. Trump also made a racist remark about Mr. Youngkin’s name.“Young Kin (now that’s an interesting take. Sounds Chinese, doesn’t it?) in Virginia couldn’t have won without me,” the former president said in a series of posts on Truth Social.Mr. Youngkin’s victory — becoming the first Republican elected governor of Virginia since 2009 — stemmed from appealing to the Trump-centric base while keeping Mr. Trump himself at arm’s length to win suburban voters, whom he wooed with promised tax cuts. But he has now signaled a more aggressive approach toward Mr. Trump.Mr. Youngkin became the first Republican governor of Virginia since 2009.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesIn a brief interview before the rally on Saturday in Virginia Beach, Mr. Youngkin rejected Mr. Trump’s taunt about his name as the opposite of how he deals with people.“I do not roll that way,” Mr. Youngkin said. “I do not call people names. I treat people well, and I believe that’s the way that everyone should behave and sometimes in politics I think folks forget that.”Since the midterms, when many Trump-endorsed candidates lost their races, some of Mr. Youngkin’s backers perceive Mr. Trump’s influence on the wane and the opportunities for challengers on the rise. Furthermore, the former president has all but disappeared into his Florida estate after announcing his bid for re-election.Mr. Youngkin is little known to Republican voters beyond Virginia, barely registering in early primary polls. His main appeal is to political consultants and to the donor class, those who connect with him as a wealthy former co-chief executive of the Carlyle Group, a financial investment firm.Ron DeSantis, Florida’s pugilistic governor, is the leading Trump alternative. But Youngkin supporters paint him as a worthy alternative with a more affable, less prickly personality, someone who transitioned easily from a corporate glad-hander to a first-time candidate. Supporters envision Mr. Youngkin winning over droves of primary voters in the intimate campaign settings of Iowa and New Hampshire.“He’s got this very likable persona,” said Tom Davis, a former Republican congressman from Virginia. “He’s not angry. He walks into a room and he smiles.” Mr. Davis called Mr. DeSantis “the shiny new object right now,” but added, “When you get into one-on-one campaigning, I would just say Glenn is a natural.”Jimmy Centers, a Republican strategist in Iowa, said Mr. Youngkin’s championing of parent rights — over how America’s racial history is taught or what books students can be exposed to — grabbed the attention of conservatives nationally in 2021. But now, Mr. Centers said, Mr. Youngkin needs to build on that victory.“One could argue he was the first candidate to demonstrate parental rights was a winning issue,” Mr. Centers said. “That issue and his position will open doors for him in Iowa and other states, but my sense is that voters and caucusgoers will also want to measure results now that he is in office.”Mr. Youngkin, who is 56, insisted on Saturday that he had no timeline for making up his mind about a presidential run.“There’s no plans for decisions,” he said. “What there really is a plan for is to focus on delivering the agenda when Virginians hired me.”Mr. Youngkin signing executive orders on his first day in office in 2022.Steve Helber/Associated PressA political action committee Mr. Youngkin set up to support the campaigns of fellow Virginia Republicans and to tend to his own political future raised $4.8 million from donations of $10,000 or more through last year, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. The PAC paid $94,183 in 2022 to Axiom Strategies, a top G.O.P. consulting firm.Jeff Roe, the head of Axiom and Mr. Youngkin’s chief political adviser, addressed major Youngkin donors at a September retreat at a luxury resort outside Charlottesville. No specific plans were laid for 2024, according to attendees.“Youngkin is obviously somebody I’d very much like to run,” said Ray Washburne, a major G.O.P. donor from Dallas, who attended. But he said he wanted to hear more about Mr. Youngkin’s potential strategy, and gauge his legislative achievements, before making a lasting commitment. “After he finishes this session, let’s see what that world looks like.”Virginia Republicans were lowering expectations for the new legislative session even before this week’s special election solidified Democrats’ State Senate majority. The Virginia Beach race drew tens of thousands of dollars from pro- and anti-abortion groups. After Roe v. Wade was overturned last year, tossing abortion regulation down to the states, Mr. Youngkin told an anti-abortion forum he would “gleefully” sign any bill “to protect life.” In December, while unveiling a new state budget, he proposed a 15-week abortion ban.At the rally in Virginia Beach, however, Mr. Youngkin did not mention abortion once in an eight-minute speech. It suggested he wished to draw no further attention to an issue on which he could not deliver a conservative victory.The special election was a preview of a more important crucible for the governor this fall, when every seat in both legislative chambers is on the ballot.If Republicans hold their House majority and flip the Senate, the governor can present himself nationally as a giant slayer, someone who fully turned around a blue state. If, however, his party suffers further setbacks, Mr. Youngkin will have fewer claims on conservatives outside Virginia.Mr. Youngkin in Lansing, Mich., campaigning for Tudor Dixon, the candidate for governor who lost her race.Emily Elconin for The New York TimesCampaigning widely for Republicans running for governor last year, including Kari Lake in Arizona and Tudor Dixon in Michigan, both of whom lost, Mr. Youngkin was sometimes trailed by a media crew filming him for future TV ads. He appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News last week to denounce a Virginia high school for delaying notification to students who earned distinction on a national test. “They didn’t want the other students to feel bad,” Mr. Youngkin said.Although Mr. Youngkin issued an executive order on his first day in office banning teaching critical race theory in K-12 schools (educators said it wasn’t taught in the first place), other initiatives have gone less smoothly. A revision of state history standards, influenced by Youngkin appointees, was withdrawn after an uproar that it downplayed slavery as a cause of the Civil War and referred to Native Americans as the “first immigrants.” More
Lester Chang, a newly elected Republican representing a Brooklyn district, faces questions over whether he lives in the borough or in Manhattan.As Democrats returned to Albany to begin the 2023 legislative session on Wednesday, the politically explosive question of whether to remove a newly elected Assembly Republican hung over their triumphant homecoming.Democrats elected the first woman as governor of New York and retained their supermajorities in both chambers in November. But their return to the State Capitol this week was consumed by a divisive debate over whether to expel Lester Chang, a Republican war veteran who staged a surprise victory last year to unseat an entrenched 36-year Democratic incumbent in Brooklyn.Mr. Chang’s Democratic foes have accused him of actually living in Manhattan, not Brooklyn, thus failing to meet the residency requirements — a claim Mr. Chang has forcefully denied.Democrats in the Assembly are navigating uncharted territory as they consider whether to oust Mr. Chang from the lower chamber, setting up the potential of a protracted legal battle and sparking accusations from Republicans that Democrats are undermining the will of voters.“Any challenges to his eligibility should have been presented long before the election, not after the results were certified,” said Will Barclay, the Republican minority leader in the Assembly. “Blocking his path to being seated is not a precedent that should be set.”There is also intraparty distress: Some Democrats have raised concerns that removing Mr. Chang, who is Chinese American, could lead to political blowback from Asian Americans, a bloc of voters that has increasingly gravitated toward Republicans in recent elections.Ron Kim, a Democrat from Queens who is Korean American, described the situation as a political “tough spot,” saying that “a lot of Chinese voters feel like this is an effort to take away a Chinese person who was elected by the people in that community.”“In the short run, if you move forward with removing him, there will be a strong backlash from the Asian community,” he said. “In the long run, you also don’t want to see someone with even an ounce of a fraudulent background.”Following an Assembly hearing and subsequent report last month, Mr. Chang’s fate hung in the balance Wednesday, when lawmakers gaveled themselves into session and took part in a host of ceremonial duties, taking oaths of office and re-electing their respective legislative leaders.It was at first unclear if Democrats would seek to block Mr. Chang from taking office altogether, but he was ultimately allowed to take his seat this week.He received a name plate in the Assembly chamber, participated in a ceremonial swearing-in on Tuesday, and signed a formal oath of office that was sent to the New York State Department of State, according to a spokesman for Assembly Republicans. On Wednesday, in a show of solidarity, Republicans erupted into thunderous applause when Mr. Chang cast his first vote, for Mr. Barclay as leader of the chamber, in the cavernous Assembly.“It’s a distraction from the people’s business,” Mr. Chang, who became the first Asian American to represent Brooklyn in the Assembly, said in an interview on Wednesday.The last time the Assembly expelled one of its own was over a century ago in 1920, when several socialist lawmakers were voted out during the anti-communist Red Scare.Democrats may challenge assemblyman Lester Chang’s presence in Albany on residency grounds. Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesDemocrats in the Assembly met privately on Tuesday for about three hours to discuss the issue. Many lawmakers voiced their support for removing Mr. Chang, but others said they were more ambivalent about taking such an extraordinary step, according to people familiar with the closed-door discussions.Running in a South Brooklyn district that is heavily Democratic, Mr. Chang stunned Democrats in November when he narrowly defeated Peter J. Abbate Jr., a Democrat who had comfortably held the seat since 1986. His victory, in a diversifying district that is now majority Asian American, was part of a stronger than expected showing by Republicans who ran on a tough-on-crime platform statewide.Reeling from the defeat, Democrats began raising questions about whether Mr. Chang had met the residency requirements outlined in the State Constitution: In a redistricting year like 2022, candidates are required to have been a resident of the county that they are running in for at least one year before Election Day.Democrats pointed to the fact that, in 2021, Mr. Chang voted in Manhattan, where he has a rent-stabilized apartment he once shared with his late wife and that he didn’t change his voting registration until earlier last year. But Mr. Chang has argued that he also maintained a residence in the same house in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn where he grew up, and where his mother, who suffers from dementia, still lives and whom he now cares for.“Home is home, 50 years, you can’t erase that,” Mr. Chang said. “I have my baseball cards, I have my yearbooks, I have all those memories. That’s home.”The imbroglio over Mr. Chang’s residency — and what constitutes a residence for the purposes of running for office — played out during a tense hearing held by the Assembly judiciary committee on Dec. 21 in which a special counsel hired by Democrats repeatedly sought to poke holes into Mr. Chang’s account, citing different records in which Mr. Chang listed his Lower Manhattan apartment as his residence.Mr. Chang and his legal team sought to rebuff those efforts, in part, with affidavits signed by Mr. Chang’s sister and neighbors, who said Mr. Chang had maintained a residence in Brooklyn. They also accused Democrats of trying to overturn Mr. Chang’s election, pointing to the fact that they did not object to Mr. Chang’s candidacy in the courts before Election Day, the norm when disputing residency requirements.“This residency issue was raised only after Lester Chang won,” Mr. Chang’s lawyer, Hugh H. Mo, said in an interview on Wednesday. “The Democrats were blindsided, they didn’t expect him to win.”The hearing was part of an investigation into Mr. Chang’s residency that was ordered by Carl E. Heastie, the Assembly speaker, after the election.Mr. Heastie has argued that the inquiry is purely a constitutional matter, not a political consideration, but has acknowledged the optics of potentially undermining the democratic process.“There’s a sense of the constitution needs to be respected,” Mr. Heastie told WNYC on Wednesday. “But I’ll also say that I don’t want to make it seem like it’s been lost on the members that an election did happen.”A subsequent report by the special counsel, released on Dec. 31, outlined evidence showing Mr. Chang may have lived in Manhattan — it said he was effectively a “visitor” in Brooklyn — but stopped short of making a recommendation.An expulsion could very well be contested in the courts, and the Assembly may decide to refer the matter to Letitia James, the state attorney general. If so, the ambiguity around his residency could end up benefiting Mr. Chang, according to Jerry H. Goldfeder, an election lawyer.“Under the executive law, she can bring a lawsuit to remove him,” he said. “But, frankly, because it’s not an open-and-shut case, it’s doubtful a court would do it.” More
Representative Mark Rozzi, long a moderate Democrat, pledged not to caucus with either party as speaker of the closely divided state House of Representatives. Many questions remain.HARRISBURG, Pa. — The new legislative session began at noon on Tuesday, and despite the cheery bouquets and wide-eyed family members, the statehouse was humming with nervous anticipation. For weeks, it had been unclear which party could claim a majority in the state House of Representatives: the Democrats won more seats in November, but because of a death and two resignations, the Republicans had more members for now.The election of a speaker, the new House’s first piece of business, was going to put this fiercely debated question to the test.After a long afternoon of suspense, and to the surprise of nearly everyone in the House, the choice was made: a moderate Democrat from the Reading area, nominated by two Republicans, who was on almost no one’s radar and who pledged in his first speech to be “the commonwealth’s first independent speaker.”“I’m sure a lot of you didn’t see this coming today,” the new speaker, Representative Mark Rozzi, said at the rostrum.Harrisburg is not the only capital where the mere act of deciding who is in charge has proved fraught in the early days of the new year. Before the session in Pennsylvania began, the repeated botched attempts by Republicans in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to elect a speaker in the U.S. House of Representatives were playing out on televisions in the Pennsylvania statehouse. Meanwhile, Democratic state representatives next door in Ohio helped elect a Republican House speaker there who is not as conservative as the candidate backed by most Republicans in their supermajority.The fights in Washington and Ohio were ideological, but the maneuvering in Pennsylvania was largely about strategy, given the bizarre circumstances leading up to Tuesday’s vote. Democrats outperformed expectations on Election Day in Pennsylvania, winning a U.S. Senate seat, the governor’s office and, perhaps most surprising of all, control of the state House, where they had been out of power for more than a decade.It was only a one-seat majority, though, and one of the winning candidates had died a few weeks before the November election. Then, in early December, two Democrats who had been re-elected to the House and at the same time had been elected to higher offices resigned their House seats.At issue in the weeks that followed was whether “majority” meant the party that the voters in the most districts had chosen, or the party that had the most members at the moment the session began. The Democrats argued for the former, the Republicans the latter. The question was put to the courts, even as Republicans and Democrats held dueling swearing-in ceremonies last month for House majority leader.Democrats are heavily favored to win the special elections to fill the three vacant seats, but the first of those votes won’t take place until at least Feb. 7. So the looming question as the session opened Tuesday was which party would control the House for now, while Republicans have a 101-99 advantage.Few lawmakers, it seemed, began the day Tuesday thinking of Mr. Rozzi as a candidate for speaker. Members recited the Pledge of Allegiance at a swearing-in ceremony.Matt Smith/Associated PressThe significance was not just symbolic, even in a state where power was already divided, with a Republican-controlled State Senate and a Democratic governor. Republicans hoped to vote on several constitutional amendments that would not require Gov. Josh Shapiro’s signature; one would require voters to show identification at the polls and another would give the legislature the power to reject regulations put in place by the executive branch. Democrats were worried that the Republicans would also change the rules of the House if they briefly won control, making it hard to elect a new speaker after the Democrats retook the majority.Caucuses and party leaders gathered all morning on Tuesday to discuss strategy, talks that continued in the afternoon in smaller huddles on the House floor. A vote to adjourn without picking a speaker deadlocked at 100-100, with one Republican voting with the Democrats.Then the clerk called for nominations for speaker. What came next were a series of surprises. First, Representative Jim Gregory, a Republican representing a district outside Altoona, stood and named Mr. Rozzi, a Democrat.“As we are gathered in this chamber today, we must look at our razor-thin majorities,” Mr. Gregory said, urging the members to put “people over politics.” Then another lawmaker, the Republican House whip, seconded the nomination.All eyes turned toward the Democrats, and specifically toward Representative Joanna McClinton, the Democratic leader, who had been expected to become the first Black woman to serve as speaker of the Pennsylvania House. Ms. McClinton announced that she supported the nomination of Mr. Rozzi.With 16 Republicans, including party leaders, joining all of the Democrats, Mr. Rozzi won the speakership, defeating a traditionally conservative Republican who only minutes earlier had been the presumptive Republican choice.Virtually no one in the House other than Mr. Gregory and Mr. Rozzi, it seemed, had recognized Mr. Rozzi as a candidate when the day began. Mr. Gregory said afterward that he raised the idea with Republican leaders shortly before nominating him on the floor. Mr. Gregory had developed a good working relationship with Mr. Rozzi, but he also saw nominating him as a way to outflank an almost assured Democratic majority.“Here in Pennsylvania, we play two different games: Some people play checkers, and some people play chess,” Mr. Gregory said after the vote. “And I think what you just witnessed is a Democrat member who was in the majority leave the majority to go independent.”As the Republicans saw it, Mr. Rozzi’s move would mean that the Democrats could not achieve a majority even after the special elections. In the halls of the capitol afterward, Republicans mulled how such an evenly split House would operate: who would control committees, for example, and how they would be divvied up.But it had all happened so quickly that on Wednesday, there were far more questions than answers. Mr. Rozzi, who has been a reliable moderate Democrat during his tenure in the House, is best known for his efforts on behalf of victims of childhood sexual abuse. Having spoken openly of being raped by a priest as a child, Mr. Rozzi sponsored, along with Mr. Gregory, a constitutional amendment allowing victims to sue their abusers long after criminal statutes had expired. Mr. Rozzi pushed for a bill to extend the statute of limitations for sexual abuse cases, an issue he discussed in 2016 with the governor at the time, Tom Wolf.Nicole Bengiveno/The New York TimesIf the House and Senate vote on it early in the new session, that amendment could be on the ballot as soon as this May. Mr. Gregory said that making sure the House moved quickly on the amendment was the main reason that he and Mr. Rozzi had begun discussing their plan for the speakership.While Mr. Rozzi did emphasize in his initial remarks before the House that he aimed to be an independent speaker, pledging not to caucus with either party, it remained unclear what that would mean in practice.In a private meeting with Democrats after the vote on Tuesday, Mr. Rozzi assured them that he still considered himself a Democrat, comments first reported by SpotlightPA, a state news outlet, and confirmed by a Democratic House member.In response, the House Republican leader, Representative Bryan Cutler, said in a statement that Republicans “continue to believe what he committed to publicly in his address and what he promised to our leaders privately about fully becoming an Independent has not changed.”On Tuesday evening, after hours of hushed meetings, Mr. Rozzi briefly addressed a crowd of reporters in the capitol rotunda who were hungry for any information that would make sense of the day’s events.“I look forward to talking to you more about my plans as speaker, but such a heavy discussion deserves considered forethought,” the new House speaker of the fifth-largest state said, standing in the glare of spotlights at a hastily assembled lectern. “And as this was unexpected, I will be making no further comments tonight. Thank you.”Many of the lingering questions may not be answered until the House reconvenes, at a time to be set by the speaker. As of Wednesday afternoon, no date had been announced. More
After retaining most of the governor’s offices they hold and capturing the legislatures in Michigan and Minnesota, Democrats are putting forward a long list of proposals to expand voting access.NEW ORLEANS — For the last two years, Democrats in battleground states have played defense against Republican efforts to curtail voting access and amplify doubts about the legitimacy of the nation’s elections.Now it is Democrats, who retained all but one of the governor’s offices they hold and won control of state legislatures in Michigan and Minnesota, who are ready to go on offense in 2023. They are putting forward a long list of proposals that include creating automatic voter registration systems, preregistering teenagers to vote before they turn 18, returning the franchise to felons released from prison and criminalizing election misinformation.Since 2020, Republicans inspired by former President Donald J. Trump’s election lies sought to make voting more difficult for anyone not casting a ballot in person on Election Day. But in the midterm elections, voters across the country rejected the most prominent Republican candidates who embraced false claims about American elections and promised to bend the rules to their party’s advantage.Democrats who won re-election or will soon take office have interpreted their victories as a mandate to make voting easier and more accessible.“I’ve asked them to think big,” Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said of his directions to fellow Democrats on voting issues now that his party controls both chambers of the state’s Legislature. Republicans will maintain unified control next year over state governments in Texas, Ohio, Florida and Georgia. In Texas and Ohio, along with other places, Republicans are weighing additional restrictions on voting when they convene in the new year.Democratic governors in Arizona and Wisconsin will face Republican-run legislatures that are broadly hostile to expanding voting access, while Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor-elect of Pennsylvania, is likely to eventually preside over one chamber with a G.O.P. majority and one with a narrow Democratic majority.And in Washington, D.C., the Supreme Court is weighing a case that could give state legislatures vastly expanded power over election laws — a decision with enormous implications for the power of state lawmakers to draw congressional maps and set rules for federal elections.Democrats have widely interpreted that case — brought by Republicans in North Carolina — as dangerous to democracy because of the prospect of aggressive G.O.P. gerrymandering and the potential for state legislators to determine the outcome of elections. But it would also allow Democrats to write themselves into permanent power in states where they control the levers of elections.The Supreme Court’s deliberation comes as many Democrats are becoming increasingly vocal about pushing the party to be more aggressive in expanding voting access — especially after the Senate this year failed to advance a broad voting rights package.The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6A moment of reflection. More
The hearings of the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol presented a careful, convincing and disturbing account of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. They provided an abundance of detail about what we’ve long known: that Mr. Trump and his allies engaged not only in an assault on Congress, but on democracy itself.The work done by the committee over the past 18 months may be even more important than its report, which is expected to be released Thursday. The long months of scouring investigation and the carefully staged hearings, in which the evidence of Mr. Trump’s malfeasance was presented to the public, were critical elements in the nation’s full understanding of the attack on the Capitol. Through the work of these hearings, Congress showed that the best possible answer to political violence lay in the tools that were right at hand: the rule of law, checks and balances, testimony given under oath and the careful process of bureaucracy.Like a slow-motion replay, the committee’s work also gave Americans a second chance to comprehend the enormity of what transpired on Jan. 6. It seems plausible, as some members of the panel have asserted, that the hearings made protecting democracy a significant issue in the midterm elections and helped to persuade voters to reject some election deniers who ran for state offices. The sustained attention on Mr. Trump’s conduct in his final days in office is also valuable as he mounts a renewed campaign for the presidency. And the hearings focused the attention of the public and policymakers on the extremist groups that participated in the attack on the Capitol and that pose a threat of renewed violence.Congressional hearings are often filled with the distraction of partisan squabbling, grandstanding and detours into tangential subjects. The Jan. 6 committee was different, and the American people were better off for it. Mr. Trump and others refused to answer subpoenas from the committee, which would have given them an opportunity to answer questions and make their case. Their refusal is unfortunate; they deserve the chance to defend themselves and present their account of the facts, and Americans deserve the chance to hear from them. They’re still due that chance, and Mr. Trump may still have his say in a court of law.The seven Democrats and two Republicans who served on the committee captured the attention of Americans who may not have been sufficiently informed or alarmed about Mr. Trump’s role in the events of Jan. 6 to take notice. The two Republicans on the committee, Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, deserve particular credit for defying their own party to participate. Their presence, and the damning testimony delivered by Mr. Trump’s own aides and allies, conveyed the message that some things are necessarily more important than loyalty to a political party.Americans have also learned, thanks to these hearings, exactly how close this country came to even greater tragedies. Rioters came within 40 feet of Vice President Mike Pence. A Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, in late December 2020 sought to send a letter — based on lies — to officials in Georgia and potentially several other key states that warned of election irregularities and called for a special legislative session to select alternate slates of presidential electors.The lesson, in part, is that our democracy is inescapably fragile. It requires Americans, and those who serve them as elected officials and in law enforcement, to act in good faith. The committee rightly spent many hours of its work documenting the actions of all those local, state and federal officials who defied Mr. Trump’s demands and acted in many different ways to protect democracy.The dangers remain clear and present, so this work is not complete. House Republicans will be in the majority come January, including many who sought to overturn President Biden’s victory, and some who encouraged the rioters.Political violence is on the rise, especially among right-wing extremists.And Mr. Trump is running for president again on a platform of his grievances, still insistent that he did not lose the last election, still refusing to accept the rule of law. He is, in fact, escalating his rhetoric.The nation needs to respond to these threats. Congress needs to pass the reforms to the electoral process that are included in the year-end omnibus spending bill. Law enforcement can do more to crack down on extremist violence. Voters should reject Mr. Trump at the polls.As the select committee’s chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, emphasized at its final hearing on Monday, the government should continue to pursue those responsible for the Jan. 6 attack and to hold them accountable.More than 900 people already have been charged with crimes related to the attack on the Capitol, and several hundred of those have either been convicted or pleaded guilty. Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the extremist Oath Keepers group, was convicted of seditious conspiracy in November. Jury selection has begun in the federal trial of Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, another extremist group, who faces similar charges.The committee called upon the Justice Department to also bring criminal charges against Mr. Trump and the lawyer John Eastman, for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including Mr. Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack. The Justice Department is still engaged in its own investigation. As we wrote in August, if there is sufficient evidence to establish Mr. Trump’s guilt on a serious charge in a court of law, then he should be charged and tried; the same goes for all of the others whom the committee referred to the Justice Department.Mr. Thompson, urging action on all these fronts, said that as a nation, “We remain in strange and uncharted waters.” Yet the hearings also underscored that the country is better off with clarity and truth.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More
Lawmakers are headed to Albany today to vote themselves a raise that would make them the best-paid legislators in the nation.Good morning. It’s Thursday. We’ll find out why the State Senate and the Assembly will convene today in an unusual special session. We’ll also look at why some New Yorkers say race shapes the criticism of Mayor Eric Adams.Tristan Spinski for The New York TimesState lawmakers are gathering in Albany today to give themselves a raise. If only a salary bump were that easy for everyone. The bill before the lawmakers, who already get six-figure base salaries for a five-month scheduled session in Albany, would boost their pay to roughly twice the median family income in the United States and slightly more than five times what lawmakers in neighboring Connecticut make. I asked my colleague Jesse McKinley for details.How are lawmakers in New York paid in comparison with other state legislators?Pretty darn well. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, New York lawmakers rank No. 2 in the nation in base pay, thanks to a raise they received in 2018. California, which has a habit of besting New York in all kinds of categories (population, economic output, number of professional baseball teams) is No. 1 for the moment.Won’t this make lawmakers in New York the best-compensated in the nation?Yes, with Thursday’s anticipated pay hike, Albany’s 213 lawmakers will now have the highest base salary of any in the country: $142,000 a year, from the current $110,000 a year. State lawmakers in California will still be taking home $119,702 a year.What’s the catch?The concession made by lawmakers to get that $32,000 raise is that they will agree to a $35,000 cap on outside income, something that good government groups have long pushed for (though some would like an even lower threshold for such nongovernment earning).The concern is the potential for corruption and conflicts of interest that could arise from, say, working in a law firm. Legislative leaders say this is a big step toward wiping out Albany’s well-deserved reputation for money-driven malfeasance. But the $35,000 limit won’t take effect until 2025, unlike the raise, which will take effect on Jan. 1.Why did they go back to Albany for one day just to give themselves a raise?Albany loves leaving things till the last minute, including its budgets, which used to be chronically late and now are only periodically late.The more germane answer, however, is that the bill authorizing the raise has to be approved before the new session of the Legislature begins in January. Lawmakers cannot vote themselves a raise that takes effect during the same session as the vote. It says so in the state Constitution. Obviously time is running out between now and January — hence, a lot of people descending on the capital for a one-day-only session.Will Gov. Kathy Hochul sign the bill raising their compensation? What happens if she decides not to sign it?The governor hasn’t explicitly said she’ll sign the bill to hike the lawmakers’ pay, but she’s expressed support for such an increase in the past. Also, it seems unlikely to me that the legislators would go all the way back to Albany without an implicit understanding that Hochul — a Democrat, like the leaders that control both houses of the Legislature — is cool with higher salaries.If she decided not to sign the bill, my best guess is that she would get very few Christmas presents from legislative leaders this year.What has the reaction been?Giving yourself a raise is always a bad look for politicians, even if many outside groups agree that it’s not unjustified. Republicans have lambasted the raise — and its timing during a “special session” — and some watchdog groups have said it doesn’t go far enough to limit outside earning.But legislative leaders stand by it, including the speaker of the Assembly, Carl Heastie. “I don’t think there’s enough money in the world,” he said recently, “that could compensate you for being away from your families.”WeatherPrepare for wind gusts and rain persisting through the evening. Temps will be steady around the low to mid-50s.ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKINGIn effect until Dec. 26.The latest New York newsJohnny Milano for The New York TimesCrimeSuffolk cyberattack: The malicious cyberattack that forced the county government offline for weeks this fall began more than a year ago, officials revealed.Brooklyn subway shooting: The man accused in a shooting spree on an N train has told his lawyers he wants to admit to the April attack. He is expected to plead guilty to terrorism as well as a firearms charge.Councilman’s home invaded: Protesters descended on the home and the office of a gay member of the New York City Council, vandalizing the walls with homophobic graffiti and attacking one of his neighbors, over his support for Drag Story Hour events at libraries.More local newsA fall triathlon: The New York City Triathlon will move to the fall, with a race date of Oct. 1, following years of interruptions from extreme summer heat.Seasonal staples are back: After one holiday season lost to the pandemic and another curtailed by Omicron, “The Nutcracker” is being danced, “A Christmas Carol” is being performed and “Messiah” is being sung again.“Almost Famous” closing: “Almost Famous,” a stage adaptation of the acclaimed 2000 film, will close on Broadway on Jan. 8 after facing soft ticket sales in a competitive market.Race and criticism of the mayorDavid Dinkins in 1988.Joyce Dopkeen/The New York TimesThe end of the year is in sight — the end of Mayor Eric Adams’s first year in office. It has been a difficult 12 months in which he faced the challenges of moving the city past the pandemic, reinvigorating a weakened economy and tempering heightened fears of crime.Some New Yorkers have questioned whether he moved fast enough to address intractable problems like homelessness and a lack of affordable housing. Complaints have also focused on his hiring practices, his response to the crisis at the Rikers Island jail complex and how he handled the influx of migrants from Texas.But my colleagues Jeffery C. Mays and Emma G. Fitzsimmons write that several Black leaders are raising concerns that criticism of the mayor has been shaped by race. They suggest that implicit racism undermined Mayor David Dinkins, the city’s first Black mayor, a generation ago, and could undercut Adams now.Adams himself said that he was accustomed to criticism, but that when some people “look at these two Black mayors, Dinkins and my role now, there are those that wish we fail.”“Look at all the mayors,” he said. “Dinkins and I are the only two mayors that people talk about how we went out at night. They used to say he had a tuxedo in his car all the time because he went out to different galas and balls and what have you. That’s the role of the mayor.”Adams’s allies may be hoping to discourage criticism at a time when his popularity appears to be waning: In a recent Siena College poll, 50 percent of voters in the city viewed him favorably and 35 percent unfavorably.Adams, a former police captain, has sought to have a better relationship with the police than Dinkins did: He brought back a controversial plainclothes police unit. He has also dispatched waves of officers to address crime on the subway and protected police funding in his budget while often standing by officers accused of misconduct.Adams said he had drawn two lessons from Dinkins’s loss to Rudolph Giuliani in 1993: Focus on making “real changes in office” and do not allow your political coalition to erode. He has made sure that his base feels heard after winning the mayoralty with a coalition of Black and Latino voters and moderates outside Manhattan.“My secret sauce is everyday working-class families,” he said, adding that he had met some of those families on a recent visit to the Rockaways in Queens. “They’re just not complicated. They just want a safe place to raise their children and families. Those are my folks.”METROPOLITAN diaryRock, rock, rockDear Diary:“Rock, rock, rock,” I heard a voice repeating. “Rock, rock, rock.”I was walking up a trail into the Ramble in Central Park when I came upon the voice’s owner: a tall, slender man with a twist of silver hair over one eye.I waited, not wanting to interrupt whatever it was that he was doing.“Rock, rock, rock,” he said again in a monotone. “Rock, rock, rock.”Two minutes later, a red cardinal flew down from a tree, landed on a large flat rock and did the hokey pokey, hopping tentatively toward the middle of the rock.That was when I noticed a single peanut in the shell sitting there. The cardinal grappled with how to lift the nut. After finally securing it, the bird flew off.The man turned to me.“The wife is much smarter,” he said in a serious tone. “I’ve known the family for years. I never have to wait when she’s around.”— Sharyn WolfIllustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.Melissa Guerrero, Morgan Malget and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team nytoday@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More
Perhaps you missed the big news: In 2023, there will be a record-breaking 12 women serving as governors around the nation. Way over the previous record of … nine.And your reaction is:Hey, that’s 24 percent — not bad.That’s less than a quarter!Are any of them going to run for president? And does that mean we have to discuss Kamala Harris? Because I’m really not sure. …OK, one thing at a time, please. Just think of 2023 as the Year of Women Governors.Even so, we’ve still got a way to go. Eighteen states have yet to select a woman governor, ever. California! Pennsylvania! And Florida — really Florida, there’s a limit to how much time we’ve got to complain about you.New York elected a woman for the first time last month, a development that began when then-Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul was propelled into the job because of Andrew Cuomo’s sexual harassment scandal. Sorry, Andrew, but history may well recall this as your final gift to New Yorkers.Arizona hasn’t gotten enough attention — electing Katie Hobbs as its fifth female governor kept it the national record-holder. Good work, guys! It was also one of the states with a woman-vs.-woman race, although being Arizona, it featured a crazy subplot. Kari Lake, the defeated Republican Trumpophile, is taking the whole thing to court.It’s important to admit that while the quantity of female governors expands, the quality is … varied. Current incumbents include the newly re-elected Kristi Noem of South Dakota, whose attitude toward Covid vaccination has been, at best, deeply unenthusiastic. (Noem spent $5 million of pandemic relief funds on ads to promote tourism.)On the other side, there’s Michigan’s current governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who led the Democrats to a monster statewide sweep last month. She went through a lot to do it — remember when a group called Wolverine Watchmen plotted to kidnap her and put her on trial for treason?Our female governors, both incumbent and newly elected, have a wide ideological range, but it’s very possible they’ll still be more conscious of women’s issues — like child care and sexual assault — than would a group of men from similar political backgrounds.And abortion rights — although some, like Noem, are definitely not on that boat. The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision mobilized female voters so much in the fall that you’d think we’d be seeing more women out there carrying the flag in the governors’ races.“It may well have come down too late to see candidacies emerge as a result,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, who’s hoping the surge will still be coming.If so, it’ll be the next chapter in a saga that goes back a century — the first two women ever elected governor won their jobs in 1925, in Wyoming and Texas.The Wyoming winner, Nellie Tayloe Ross, was the widow of the prior governor. When he died, his party nominated her to succeed him before she’d decided to run. She won anyhow and apparently liked the job. Ross ran for re-election and lost but went on to forge a successful career as director of the U.S. Mint. Wyoming, however, has never since chosen a woman as governor. Get a move on, Wyoming.The other woman who became governor a century ago was a little less, um, encouraging. Texas’ Miriam “Ma” Ferguson also succeeded her husband — who was, in this case, impeached. “Ma” basically vowed to carry on her husband’s not-totally-reputable practices. Elect her, she promised voters, and get “two for the price of one.” That, you may remember, is what Bill Clinton said when he ran for president in 1992 — pick him and get Hillary as well.It worked a lot better for the couple from Arkansas than it did for the couple in Texas. Ma Ferguson won, and voters got a governor who pardoned an average of 100 convicts a month. Most did not appear to be worthy of release on any basis other than cold cash. But hey, she was definitely carrying on a family tradition.The first woman elected governor in her own right was Ella Grasso in Connecticut. That was in 1974 and I was in Hartford at the time, starting out my career covering the state legislature. My clients were little papers who forked over a tiny bit of money to hear what their lawmakers were up to. The regular pressroom decreed there was no room for any newcomers, and I was dispatched — along with my partner, Trish Hall — to work out of the Capitol attic.The other facilities in said attic included a men-only bar for legislators. The 35 women in the legislature at the time didn’t seem upset about discrimination when it came to access to drinking quarters. Possibly because the facility in question, known as the Hawaiian Room, was a dark, moldy space with dusty plastic leis hanging from the ceiling.But I did complain about having to work in the attic, and one night when I was there alone — it was really pretty late — Ella Grasso herself showed up to check the accommodations. As she was walking down the narrow room, a bat flew down from the ceiling and into her hair.She took it very well.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More
