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      Michigan Democrats Reclaim Full Control of Statehouse With Special Election Wins

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      Michigan Democrats started 2023 with full control of state government for the first time since the 1980s. They ended the year in a political bind after two House members left to become mayors of suburbs, leaving that chamber with an even partisan split and making it impossible for Democrats to pass bills without Republican support.On Tuesday, five months after their House majority evaporated, Democrats won two special elections to reclaim those seats and full control at the Michigan Capitol. The Associated Press said the Democrats Mai Xiong, a Macomb County commissioner, and Peter Herzberg, a Westland City Council member, defeated their Republican opponents. The results of the special elections had never been in great doubt. Both districts, situated in the Detroit area, are liberal strongholds that Democratic candidates had carried by large margins in 2022. But the details of scheduling and running special elections meant a long, slow winter for Democratic lawmakers in Lansing while the House was evenly divided between the two parties. Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, is a Democrat, and her party has a majority in the State Senate.Republicans hope the Democrats’ renewed House majority is short-lived. Michigan, long a swing state, is expected to be a pivotal presidential battleground again this year. President Biden is working to rebuild a coalition that helped him win the state in 2020, but early polling has been favorable to former President Donald J. Trump. Republicans see an opening to deliver Michigan for Mr. Trump in November and to win control of the Michigan House, a goal that could be helped by newly redrawn legislative maps in the Detroit area. All 110 Michigan House seats are up for election in November, including the two seats that were contested on Tuesday.Before losing their House majority last year, Michigan Democrats raced through a list of longstanding policy goals that had been stymied during decades of divided government or Republican control of the state. In the span of several months in 2023, Ms. Whitmer and legislative Democrats enacted new gun laws, codified civil rights for L.G.B.T.Q. people, solidified abortion rights and undid Republican laws that they said weakened labor unions.Those efforts slowed in November after one House member, Kevin Coleman, was elected mayor of Westland and another, Lori M. Stone, was elected mayor of Warren. Under Michigan law, Mr. Coleman and Ms. Stone had to resign from the Legislature when they became mayor.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Under Pressure From Trump, Arizona Republicans Weigh Response to 1864 Abortion Ban

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      Facing mounting pressure to strike down a near-total abortion ban revived last week by Arizona’s Supreme Court, Republican state legislators are considering efforts to undermine a planned ballot measure this fall that would enshrine abortion rights in the Arizona Constitution, according to a presentation obtained by The New York Times.The 1864 law that is set to take effect in the coming weeks bans nearly all abortions and mandates prison sentences of two to five years for providing abortion care. The proposed ballot measure on abortion rights, known as the Arizona Abortion Access Act, would enshrine the right to an abortion before viability, or about 24 weeks. Supporters of the measure say they have already gathered enough signatures to put the question on the ballot ahead of a July 3 filing deadline.Republicans in the Legislature are under tremendous pressure to overturn, or at least amend, the 1864 ban. Former President Donald J. Trump, the national standard-bearer of the Republican Party, directly intervened on Friday, calling on Republican legislators, in a frantically worded post online, to “act immediately” to change the law. A top Trump ally in Arizona who is running for the Senate, Kari Lake, has also called for the overturning of the 1864 law, which she had once praised.Abortion rights have been a winning message for Democrats since the Supreme Court, with three justices appointed by Mr. Trump, overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. And even though it is an objectively unpopular aspect of his White House legacy, Mr. Trump has repeatedly bragged that he is personally responsible for overturning Roe.Republicans in Arizona, however, have already resisted efforts to repeal the 160-year-old law and are bracing for the potential for another floor battle on the ban that is looming for the Legislature, which is set to convene on Wednesday. The plans that circulated among Republican legislators suggest the caucus is considering other measures that would turn attention away from the 1864 law.The presentation to Republican state legislators, written by Linley Wilson, the general counsel for the Republican majority in the Arizona State Legislature, proposed several ways in which the Republican-controlled Legislature could undermine the ballot measure, known as A.A.A., by placing competing constitutional amendments on the ballot that would limit the right to abortion even if the proposed ballot measure succeeded.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Audit Questions Purchase of $19,000 Lectern by Arkansas Governor’s Office

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      The legislative audit found several ways that the heavily scrutinized purchase potentially violated state law. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders criticized the findings.Legislative auditors in Arkansas found that the purchase last year of a $19,000 lectern by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s office potentially violated state laws, according to a report released on Monday.But the findings may be moot after the state attorney general, Tim Griffin, said last week that state purchasing laws do not apply to the governor or other executive branch officials.Ms. Sanders, a Republican, faced sharp scrutiny for the purchase, even from members of her own party. But on Monday, she appeared eager to fling away those attacks, posting a video montage seemingly mocking the lectern controversy on social media, complete with hype music and dramatic edits.Her office described the report as “deeply flawed” and said that “no laws were broken.”The potential violations found by the audit include shredding a document that should have been preserved and mishandling the purchase process. The legislative auditors said that their report would be forwarded to the Sixth Judicial District prosecuting attorney and to Mr. Griffin’s office.State lawmakers approved the audit last year after it was revealed that the governor’s office had purchased the lectern and an accompanying traveling case in June, using a state-issued credit card to pay $19,029.25 to Beckett Events L.L.C., an event management company with ties to Ms. Sanders.Matthew Campbell, a lawyer and blogger who had filed a broad public records request, was the first to obtain the information.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lawmaker Is Left With ‘Lifetime Trauma’ as Attacker Pleads Guilty

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      Andrey Desmond pleaded guilty to three felony charges in the attack on Maryam Khan, a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives, last June.It has been nearly 10 months since a man attacked Maryam Khan, the first Muslim elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives, outside an Eid al-Adha prayer service in Hartford, Conn. She is still struggling to heal, she said.“I have a lot of things to get through, both emotionally and physically,” Ms. Khan said. “I’m still working on trying to heal and process what happened.”But she felt some closure in a courtroom on Tuesday, she said, when she watched her attacker plead guilty to felony charges related to the attack.The man, Andrey Desmond, 30, of New Britain, Conn., pleaded guilty to attempted third-degree sexual assault, strangulation and risk of injury to a child, according to the clerk’s office at the State Superior Court in Hartford.“He claimed to understand what was happening, and for me, personally, it was helpful to be there and to witness that,” Ms. Khan said.Under the terms of a plea agreement, Mr. Desmond is required to serve five years in prison, register as a sex offender and receive mental health treatment after he is released. His sentencing is scheduled for June 4.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Nebraska Republicans Renew Push for ‘Winner Take All’ Electoral System

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      A renewed push by Nebraska Republicans to move to a “winner-take-all” system in presidential elections has raised the prospect that the 2024 contest could end in an electoral college tie — with the House of Representatives deciding the winner.Nebraska and Maine are the only states that divide their electoral votes according to the presidential winners of congressional districts. In 2020, Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the eastern district around Omaha and its one vote. On Tuesday, Gov. Jim Pillen of Nebraska, a Republican, threw his support behind a G.O.P.-led bill languishing in the state’s unicameral legislature that would end the practice.“It would bring Nebraska in line with 48 of our fellow states, better reflect the founders’ intent, and ensure our state speaks with one unified voice in presidential elections,” Mr. Pillen wrote in a statement.The resurrection of the state bill was sparked this week by Charlie Kirk, the chief executive of Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump conservative advocacy group, who pressed the state legislature to move forward on social media.Former President Donald J. Trump quickly endorsed the governor’s “very smart letter” on his social media site.And for good reason. If Mr. Biden were to hold Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, but lose Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and the one Nebraska vote he took in 2020, the electoral college would be deadlocked at 269 votes each. The House would then decide the victor, not by total votes but by the votes of each state delegation. That would almost certainly give the election to Mr. Trump.But that Sun-Belt-sweep-plus-one scenario still might be out of reach. Democrats in the legislature expressed confidence on Tuesday that they could filibuster the measure, and the state legislative session is set to end on April 18.Conversely, Maine, where Democrats hold the governor’s office and a majority in the legislature, could change its system to take back the electoral vote that Mr. Trump won in 2020. Mr. Biden won Maine by nine percentage points, but Mr. Trump took a vote in the electoral college by winning the state’s rural second district. More

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      Peter Shapiro, Political Groundbreaker in New Jersey, Dies at 71

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      He bucked the Democratic machine to become the youngest member of the state’s General Assembly and reformed government as the first Essex County executive.Peter Shapiro, who as a 23-year-old insurgent was the youngest person ever elected to the New Jersey General Assembly and who later became the first Essex County executive, died on Thursday at his home in South Orange, N.J. He was 71.The cause was respiratory failure after long being treated for lung disease, his wife, Bryna Linett, said.As a young assemblyman, Mr. Shapiro helped streamline the way local government worked after successfully campaigning in 1977 for a charter change that coupled Essex County’s nine-member Board of Chosen Freeholders (now the Board of County Commissioners) with a strong county executive in what was the state’s most populous county, which includes Newark.He ran for the newly created position the next year, defeating a Democratic organization candidate for the nomination and overpowering a Republican rival, Robert F. Notte, by a record margin. As county executive, he reformed the county’s welfare program, decentralized other services to make them more responsive to localities, refinanced the pension system and lowered the county property tax rate.“Peter, what you did for Essex County is precisely what I am attempting at the state level,” Gov. Thomas H. Kean, a Republican, said at the time.Seeking re-election in 1982, and after defeating two rivals in a Democratic primary, Mr. Shapiro said: “We were able to show that it’s possible to take an old urban government like Essex County’s, a government that a lot of people had given up on, and make it more responsive, more efficient, bring down the taxes and make it a model of what’s right with government.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Iowa Passes Bill to Make Returning After Deportation a State Crime

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      Iowa lawmakers passed a bill on Tuesday that would make it a crime to enter the state after being deported or denied entry into the United States. The passage puts the Midwestern state on track to join Texas in enforcing immigration outside the federal system.The Iowa bill, which passed on the same day that the Supreme Court allowed Texas to enforce a new law empowering police officers to arrest unauthorized migrants, now goes to the desk of Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, who said she planned to sign it.“President Biden and his administration have failed to enforce our immigration laws and, in doing so, have compromised the sovereignty of our nation and the safety of its people,” Ms. Reynolds said Tuesday evening in a statement. “States have stepped in to secure the border, preventing illegal migrants from entering our country and protecting our citizens.”Iowa Democrats, who have lost power over the last decade and are vastly outnumbered in the Legislature, mostly opposed the legislation but were powerless to stop it.“This bill is a political stunt and a false promise that doesn’t contain the needed resources,” State Senator Janice Weiner, a Democrat from the Iowa City area, said when her chamber debated the measure. “It’s a gotcha bill.”The bill would make it a misdemeanor for someone to enter Iowa if they were previously deported, denied entry to the United States or had left the country while facing a deportation order. In some cases, including if the person had certain prior convictions, the state crime would become a felony. Iowa police officers would not be allowed to make arrests under this legislation at schools, places of worship or health care facilities.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Albany Should Pass Parole Reforms

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      Scientists have found that most cells in our bodies regenerate every seven to 10 years on average. This includes certain cells in the heart and brain. Can we assume, then, that our moral and emotional compasses are also capable of transforming over time?As a New York State parole commissioner for 12 years, I evaluated the readiness for release and risk to public safety of more than 75,000 incarcerated people. I saw these changes in people every day.Yet in spite of those transformations, the number of aging long-termers warehoused in prisons has only increased in recent years.Two bills in the New York State Legislature could challenge that trend. Both would give people in prison fairer shots at parole. Versions of this legislation have been introduced since 2018 but were never put to a vote. This year, lawmakers should pass them.Many long-termers languish in cells or in substandard prison infirmaries, or even in so-called long-term care units. With labored breathing, they limp to the mess hall and miss their chance to eat, sink deeper into dementia, fall and get seriously injured, and navigate hearing and vision impairment. At the same time, they are under the supervision of guards who lack the training and often the empathy to properly manage the diminished capacity of many older people to follow often senseless prison rules.When I was a commissioner, from 1984 to 1996, it was unusual for me to meet a parole candidate over the age of 50. Now there are more than 7,500 incarcerated people ages 50 and older in New York, or about 25 percent of the entire state prison population. In fact, between 2008 and 2021, the overall prison population declined by half, yet the population age 50 and older increased, with ballooning health care costs crowding out other budget priorities. The state spends between $100,000 and $240,000 on incarcerated people who are 55 or older, according to one of the reform measures before the State Legislature; for others, the figure is about $60,000.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More