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      States Push for New Voting Laws With an Eye Toward 2024

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      Republicans are focused on voter ID rules and making it harder to cast mail ballots, while Democrats are seeking to expand access through automatic voter registration.The tug of war over voting rights and rules is playing out with fresh urgency at the state level, as Republicans and Democrats fight to get new laws on the books before the 2024 presidential election.Republicans have pushed to tighten voting laws with renewed vigor since former President Donald J. Trump made baseless claims of fraud after losing the 2020 election, while Democrats coming off midterm successes are trying to channel their momentum to expand voting access and thwart efforts to undermine elections.States like Florida, Texas and Georgia, where Republicans control the levers of state government, have already passed sweeping voting restrictions that include criminal oversight initiatives, limits on drop boxes, new identification requirements and more.While President Biden and Democrats in Congress were unable to pass federal legislation last year that would protect voting access and restore elements of the landmark Voting Rights Act stripped away by the Supreme Court in 2013, not all reform efforts have floundered.In December, Congress updated the Electoral Count Act, closing a loophole that Mr. Trump’s supporters had sought to exploit to try to get Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election results on the day of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.Now the focus has returned to the state level. Here are some of the key voting measures in play this year:Ohio Republicans approve new restrictions.Ohioans must now present a driver’s license, passport or other official photo ID to vote in person under a G.O.P. measure that was signed into law on Jan. 6 by Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican.The law also set tighter deadlines for voters to return mail-in ballots and provide missing information on them. Absentee ballot requests must be received earlier as well.Republicans, who control the Legislature in Ohio, contend that the new rules will bolster election integrity, yet they have acknowledged that the issue has not presented a problem in the state. Overall, voter fraud is exceedingly rare.Several voting rights groups were quick to file a federal lawsuit challenging the changes, which they said would disenfranchise Black people, younger and older voters, as well as those serving in the military and living abroad.Texas G.O.P. targets election crimes and ballot initiatives.Despite enacting sweeping restrictions on voting in 2021 that were condemned by civil rights groups and the Justice Department in several lawsuits, Republican lawmakers in Texas are seeking to push the envelope further.Politics Across the United StatesFrom the halls of government to the campaign trail, here’s a look at the political landscape in America.2023 Races: Governors’ contests in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi and mayoral elections in Chicago and Philadelphia are among the races to watch this year.Democrats’ New Power: After winning trifectas in four state governments in the midterms, Democrats have a level of control in statehouses not seen since 2009.G.O.P. Debates: The Republican National Committee has asked several major TV networks to consider sponsoring debates, an intriguing show of détente toward the mainstream media and an early sign that the party is making plans for a contested 2024 presidential primary.An Important Election: The winner of a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in April will determine who holds a 4-to-3 majority in a critical presidential battleground state.Dozens of bills related to voting rules and election administration were filed for the legislative session that began this month. While many are from Democrats seeking to ease barriers to voting, Republicans control both chambers of the Texas Legislature and the governor’s office. It is not clear which bills will gain the necessary support to become laws.Some G.O.P. proposals focus on election crimes, including one that would authorize the secretary of state to designate an election marshal responsible for investigating potential election violations.“Similar bills have passed in Florida and in Georgia,” said Jasleen Singh, a counsel in the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “We should be concerned about whether this will happen in Texas as well.”Under another bill, a voter could request that the secretary of state review local election orders and language on ballot propositions and reject any that are found to be “misleading, inaccurate or prejudicial,” part of a push by Republicans in several states to make it harder to pass ballot measures after years of progressive victories.One proposal appears to target heavily populated, Democratic-controlled counties, giving the state attorney general the power to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate voter fraud allegations if local officials decline to do so. Another bill goes further, allowing the attorney general to seek an injunction against local prosecutors who don’t investigate claims of voter fraud and pursue civil penalties against them.A 19-year-old registering to vote in Minnesota, where Democrats introduced a bill that would allow applicants who are at least 16 years old to preregister to vote. Tim Gruber for The New York TimesDemocrats in Minnesota and Michigan go on offense.Democrats are seeking to harness their momentum from the midterm elections to expand voting access in Minnesota and Michigan, where they swept the governors’ races and legislative control.In Minnesota, the party introduced legislation in early January that would create an automatic voter registration system and allow applicants who are at least 16 years old to preregister to vote. The measure would also automatically restore the voting rights of convicted felons upon their release from prison and for those who do not receive prison time as part of a sentence.In Michigan, voters approved a constitutional amendment in November that creates a nine-day early voting period and requires the state to fund absentee ballot drop boxes. Top Democrats in the state are also weighing automatic voter registration and have discussed criminalizing election misinformation.Pennsylvania Republicans want to expand a voter ID law.Because of the veto power of the governor, an office the Democrats held in the November election, Republicans in Pennsylvania have resorted to trying to amend the state constitution in order to pass a voter ID bill.The complex amendment process, which ultimately requires putting the question to voters, is the subject of pending litigation.Both chambers of the Legislature need to pass the bill this session in order to place it on the ballot, but Democrats narrowly flipped control of the House in the midterms — and they will seek to bolster their majority with three special elections next month.“If the chips fall in a certain way, it is unlikely that this will move forward and it might quite possibly be dead,” said Susan Gobreski, a board member of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania. “But it ain’t dead yet.”Gov. Josh Shapiro has indicated an openness to compromise with Republicans on some voting rules.“I’m certainly willing to have an honest conversation about voter I.D., as long as that is something that is not used as a hindrance to voting,” Mr. Shapiro said in an interview in December.First-time voters and those applying for absentee ballots are currently required to present identification in Pennsylvania, but Republicans want to expand the requirement to all voters in every election and have proposed issuing voter ID cards. Critics say the proposal would make it harder to vote and could compromise privacy.Mr. Shapiro has separately said he hoped that Republicans in the legislature would agree to change the state’s law that forbids the processing of absentee ballots and early votes before Election Day. The ballot procedures, which can drag out the counting, have been a flash point in a series of election lawsuits filed by Republicans.Georgia’s top election official, a Republican, calls to end runoff system.Early voting fell precipitously in Georgia’s nationally watched Senate runoff in December after Republicans, who control of state government, cut in half the number of days for casting ballots before Election Day.Long lines at some early-voting sites, especially in the Atlanta area, during the runoff led to complaints of voter suppression.But the G.O.P. lost the contest, after a set of runoff defeats a year earlier that gave Democrats control of the Senate.Now Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who is Georgia’s secretary of state and its top election official, wants to abandon the runoff system altogether, saying that the condensed timeline had put added strain on poll workers.Critics of ranked-choice voting cited the system as being instrumental to the re-election last year of Senator Lisa Murkowski, a centrist Republican.Ash Adams for The New York TimesRepublicans in Alaska want to undo some voting changes approved in 2020.After a special election last year and the midterms, when Alaska employed a novel election system for the first time, some conservatives reeling from losses at the polls have directed their ire at a common target: ranked-choice voting.At least three Republican lawmakers have introduced bills seeking to repeal some of the electoral changes that were narrowly approved by voters in 2020, which introduced a “top-four” open primary and ranked-choice voting in general elections. In addition to deciding winners based on the candidate who receives the most votes, the bills also seek to return to a closed primary system, in which only registered party members can participate.Supporters of the new system contend that it sets a higher bar to get elected than to simply earn a plurality of votes.But critics have called the format confusing. Some have blamed it for the defeat of Sarah Palin, the Republican former governor and 2008 vice-presidential nominee, in a special House election in August and again in November for the same office.They also cited the system as being instrumental to the re-election last year of Senator Lisa Murkowski, a centrist Republican who angered some members of her party when she voted to convict Mr. Trump at his impeachment trial after the Jan. 6 attack.Still, Republican foes of ranked-choice elections could face hurdles within their own party. According to The Anchorage Daily News, the incoming Senate president, a Republican, favors keeping the system in place.Nebraska Republicans aim to sharply curb mail voting.Nebraska does not require voters to provide a reason to vote early by mail, but two Republican state senators want to make wholesale changes that would mostly require in-person voting on Election Day.Under a bill proposed by Steve Halloran and Steve Erdman, G.O.P. senators in the unicameral legislature, only members of the U.S. military and residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities could vote by mail.The measure would further require all ballots to be counted on Election Day, which would become a state holiday in Nebraska, along with the day of the statewide primary.The League of Women Voters of Nebraska opposes the bill and noted that 11 of the state’s 93 counties vote entirely by mail under a provision that gives officials in counties with under 10,000 people the option to do so.“This is an extreme bill and would be very unpopular,” MaryLee Mouton, the league’s president, said in an email. “When most states are moving to expand voting by mail, a bill to restrict vote by mail would negatively impact both our rural and urban communities.”In the November election, Nebraskans overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative that created a statewide photo ID requirement for voting.A Republican bill in Missouri would hunt for election fraud.In Missouri, where Republicans control the governor’s office and Legislature, one G.O.P. bill would create an Office of Election Crimes and Security. The office would report to the secretary of state and would be responsible for reviewing election fraud complaints and conducting investigations.Its investigators would also be authorized to enter poling places or offices of any election authority on Election Day, during absentee voting or the canvass of votes. More

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      The Key Elections Taking Place in 2023

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      Among the races to watch are governors’ contests in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi and mayoral elections in Chicago and Philadelphia.It might be tempting to focus on the 2024 presidential election now that the midterms are in the rearview mirror, but don’t sleep on 2023: key races for governor, mayor and other offices will be decided.Their outcomes will be closely watched for signs of whether Democrats or Republicans have momentum going into next year’s presidential election and congressional races — and for what they signal about the influence of former President Donald J. Trump.Virginia and New Jersey have noteworthy state house elections, and in Wisconsin, a state Supreme Court race will determine the balance of power in a body whose conservative majority routinely sides with Republicans. Here’s what to watch:Kentucky governorOf the three governors’ races this year, only Kentucky features an incumbent Democrat seeking re-election in a state that Mr. Trump won in 2020. The race also appears packed with the most intrigue.Gov. Andy Beshear won by less than 6,000 votes in 2019, ousting Matt Bevin, the Trump-backed Republican incumbent in the cherry-red state that is home to Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate G.O.P. leader.A growing field of Republicans has ambitions of settling the score in 2023, including Daniel Cameron, who in 2019 became the first Black person to be elected as Kentucky’s attorney general, an office previously held by Mr. Beshear. Mr. Cameron, who is seen as a possible successor to Mr. McConnell, drew attention in 2020 when he announced that a grand jury did not indict two Louisville officers who shot Breonna Taylor. Last June, Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Cameron for governor, but there will be competition for the G.O.P. nomination.Attorney General Daniel Cameron, signing the papers for his candidacy last week, is among Republicans seeking to challenge Gov. Andy Beshear this year.Timothy D. Easley/Associated PressKelly Craft, a former ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump, is also running. So are Mike Harmon, the state auditor of public accounts, and Ryan Quarles, the state’s agricultural commissioner, and several other Republicans. The primary will be on May 16.Louisiana governorGov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat who narrowly won a second term in 2019, is not eligible to run again because of term limits. The open-seat race has tantalized some prominent Republicans, including Jeff Landry, the state’s attorney general, who has declared his candidacy.Two other Republicans weighing entering the race are John Schroder, the state treasurer who has told supporters he will run, and Representative Garret Graves.Shawn Wilson, the state’s transportation secretary under Mr. Edwards, is one of the few Democrats who have indicated interest in running in deep-red Louisiana.Electing a New Speaker of the HouseRepresentative Kevin McCarthy won the speakership after a revolt within the Republican Party set off a long stretch of unsuccessful votes.Inside the Speaker Fight: Mr. McCarthy’s speaker bid turned into a rolling disaster. “The Daily” has the inside story of how it went so wrong and what he was forced to give up.A Tenuous Grip: By making concessions to far-right representatives, Mr. McCarthy has effectively given them carte blanche to disrupt the workings of the House — and to hold him hostage to their demands.Looming Consequences: Congressional gridlock brought on by far-right Republicans now seems more likely to lead to government shutdowns or, worse, a default on debt obligations.Roots of the Chaos: How did Mr. McCarthy’s bid become a four-day debacle? The story begins with the zero-sum politics of Newt Gingrich.Mississippi governorGov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, is running for a second term. But the advantage of incumbency and a substantial campaign fund may not be enough to stop a primary challenge, especially with his job approval numbers among the lowest of the nation’s governors.Philip Gunn, Mississippi’s House speaker, has been coy about possible plans to enter the race after announcing in November that he would not seek re-election to the Legislature. Among the other Republicans whose names have been bandied about is Michael Watson, the secretary of state. But Mr. Reeves is the only Republican to have filed so far; the deadline is Feb. 1.A Democrat hasn’t been elected governor of Mississippi in two decades, since a contest was decided by the Legislature because the winning candidate did not receive a majority of votes. Not surprisingly, few Democrats have stepped forward to run. One name to watch is Brandon Presley, a public service commissioner. Mr. Presley is a relative of Elvis Presley, who was from Tupelo, Miss., according to Mississippi Today, a nonprofit news website.U.S. House (Virginia’s Fourth District)The death in late November of Representative A. Donald McEachin, a Democrat from Virginia, prompted Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, to schedule a special election for Feb. 21.In December, Democrats resoundingly nominated Jennifer McClellan, a state senator, to represent the party in the contest for Virginia’s Fourth District, which includes Richmond and leans heavily Democratic. She could become the first Black woman elected to Congress in Virginia, where she would complete the two-year term that Mr. McEachin won by 30 percentage points just weeks before his death.Republicans tapped Leon Benjamin, a Navy veteran and pastor who lost to Mr. McEachin in November and in 2020.Chicago mayorMayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, a Democrat who in 2019 became the first Black woman and first openly gay person to lead the nation’s third-most populous city, faces a gantlet of challengers in her quest for re-election.That test will arrive somewhat early in the year, with the mayoral election set for Feb. 28. If no candidate finishes with a majority of the votes, a runoff will be held on April 4.Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago faces several challengers in her re-election bid.Jim Vondruska/ReutersThe crowded field includes Representative Jesús G. García, a Democrat who is known as Chuy and who was overwhelmingly re-elected to a third term in his Cook County district in November and previously ran unsuccessfully for mayor. In the current race, Ms. Lightfoot has attacked Mr. García over receiving money for his House campaign from Sam Bankman-Fried, the criminally charged founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.Ms. Lightfoot’s other opponents include Kam Buckner, a state legislator; Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner; Sophia King and Roderick T. Sawyer, who both serve on the City Council; Paul Vallas, a former chief executive of Chicago public schools; and Ja’Mal Green, a prominent activist in the city.Philadelphia mayorAn open-seat race for mayor in Pennsylvania’s foremost Democratic bastion has attracted an expansive field of candidates. The office is held by Jim Kenney, a Democrat who is not eligible to run again because of term limits.Five members of the City Council have resigned to enter the race, which city rules require. They are Allan Domb, Derek Green, Helen Gym, Cherelle Parker and Maria Quiñones Sánchez.The field also includes Rebecca Rhynhart, the city’s controller, who has likewise resigned in order to run; Amen Brown, a state legislator; Jeff Brown, a supermarket chain founder; and James DeLeon; a retired judge.Wisconsin Supreme CourtConservatives are clinging to a one-seat majority on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, but a retirement within the court’s conservative ranks could shift the balance of power this year. The court’s justices have increasingly been called on to settle landmark lawsuits involving elections, gerrymandering, abortion and other contentious issues.Two conservative and two liberal candidates have entered what is technically a nonpartisan election to succeed Judge Patience D. Roggensack on the seven-member court.Daniel Kelly, a conservative former justice on the state Supreme Court who lost his seat in the 2020 election, is seeking a comeback. Running against him in the conservative lane is Jennifer Dorow, a circuit court judge in Waukesha County who drew widespread attention when she presided over the trial of Darrell E. Brooks, the man convicted in the killing of six people he struck with his car during a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wis., in 2021.Janet Protasiewicz and Everett Mitchell, judges from Milwaukee County and Dane County, which includes Madison, the capital, are seeking to give liberals a majority on the court.The two candidates who receive the most votes in the nonpartisan primary on Feb. 21 — regardless of their leanings — will face each other in the general election on April 4.Legislature (Virginia and New Jersey)Virginia is emerging as a potential tempest in 2023, with its divided legislature up for re-election and elected officials squarely focused on the issue of abortion — not to mention a Republican governor who is flirting with a run for president.Gov. Glenn Youngkin wants to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, emboldened by the Supreme Court’s repeal last summer of Roe v. Wade, the 50-year-old constitutional right to an abortion.His proposal is expected to resonate with Republican lawmakers, who narrowly control the House of Delegates. But it is likely to run into fierce opposition in the Senate, where Democrats are clinging to a slender majority. All seats in both chambers are up for election.Another Mid-Atlantic state to watch is New Jersey, where Republicans made inroads in 2021 despite being in the minority and are seeking to build on those gains. More

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      Suspect in Shootings at Homes and Offices of New Mexico Democrats Is in Custody

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      The authorities say that a man is being held on unrelated charges, and that a gun tied to at least one of the episodes has been recovered.The authorities in Albuquerque announced Monday that a suspect in the recent shootings at the homes or offices of a half-dozen Democratic elected officials was in custody on unrelated charges and that they had recovered a gun used in at least one of the shootings.Officials did not release information on the suspect other than to say that he is a man under 50; nor would they say what the unrelated charges were.“We are still trying to link and see which cases are related and which cases are not related,” Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said at a news conference on Monday afternoon.Officials have ideas about a possible motive, Chief Medina said, but will not release details for fear of compromising the investigation.The authorities have not definitively tied the shootings to politics or ideology.Police officials asked the courts to seal all paperwork related to the case, Chief Medina said. He said that the authorities had numerous search warrants and were waiting for additional evidence.No one was hurt in the shootings, four of which happened in December and two that took place this month. The shootings involved four homes, a workplace and a campaign office associated with two county commissioners, two state senators and New Mexico’s newly elected attorney general.The police had provided details last week on five of the shootings. On Monday, they said that they were also investigating a shooting that occurred in early December and caused damage to the home of Javier Martínez, a New Mexico state representative set to become the State Legislature’s next speaker of the House.Mr. Martínez said he had heard the gunfire in December, and recently discovered the damage after he heard of the attacks related to the other elected officials. He decided to inspect the outside of his home, KOB reported.In addition to the Albuquerque Police Department, the New Mexico State Police and Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office are investigating the shootings.If a federal crime was committed, the Police Department will pursue those charges, Chief Medina said. “The federal system has much stronger teeth than our state system,” he said.The shootings came at a time when public officials have faced a surge in violent threats, extending from members of Congress to a Supreme Court justice.Mayor Tim Keller of Albuquerque said he hoped the fact that a suspect was in custody would provides some comfort to elected officials, who he said should be able to do their jobs without fear.“These are individuals who participate in democracy, whether we agree with them or not,” Mr. Keller said. “And that’s why this act of violence, I think, has been so rattling for so many people.” More

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      Democrats Face Obstacles in Plan to Reorder Presidential Primary Calendar

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      The party is radically reshuffling the early-state order, but Georgia and New Hampshire present challenges.Democratic efforts to overhaul which states hold the first presidential primaries entered a new and uncertain phase this week, with hurdles to President Biden’s preferred order coming into focus even as several states signaled their abilities to host early contests, a key step in radically reshaping the calendar.But in Georgia, Democrats face logistical problems in moving up their primary. And New Hampshire, the longtime leadoff primary state, has officially indicated that it cannot comply with the early-state lineup endorsed by a D.N.C. panel, under which the state would hold the second primary contest alongside Nevada.That panel backed a sweeping set of changes last month to how the party picks its presidential nominee, in keeping with Mr. Biden’s vision of putting more racially diverse states at the beginning of the process.Democratic nominating contests have for years begun with the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. Under the new proposal, the 2024 Democratic presidential primary calendar would begin in South Carolina on Feb. 3, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada on Feb. 6, Georgia on Feb. 13 and then Michigan on Feb. 27.Those states — several of which played critical roles in Mr. Biden’s 2020 primary victory — had until Thursday to demonstrate progress toward being able to host contests on the selected dates. According to a letter from the co-chairs of the D.N.C.’s Rules and Bylaws Committee, Nevada, South Carolina and Michigan have met the committee’s requirements for holding early primaries.Both Georgia and New Hampshire are more complex cases.In the letter, sent on Thursday, the committee’s co-chairs recommended that the two states be granted extensions to allow for more time to work toward meeting the requirements of the new calendar.“We expected both the New Hampshire and Georgia efforts to be complicated but well worth the effort if we can get them done,” wrote Jim Roosevelt Jr. and Minyon Moore, in a letter obtained by The New York Times. They added, “We are committed to seeing out the calendar that this committee approved last month.”Under the new D.N.C. proposal, Georgia would host the fourth Democratic primary in 2024. A onetime Republican bastion that helped propel Mr. Biden to the presidency, Georgia also played a critical role in cementing the Democratic Senate majority and has become an undeniably critical battleground state. Atlanta has been vying to host the Democratic National Convention and is considered one of the stronger contenders.President Biden, if he seeks re-election, could decide against filing in the New Hampshire primary, a state where he came in fifth place in 2020.David Degner for The New York TimesBut there are challenges in moving up Georgia’s Democratic primary. Republicans have already agreed to their own early-voting calendar, keeping the order of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, and rules from the Republican National Committee are clear: States that jump the order will lose delegates, and party rules have already been set (though the R.N.C. is in a period of tumult as its chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, faces a challenge to her leadership).In Georgia, the primary date is determined by the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican. Officials from his office have stressed that there is no appetite to hold two primaries or to risk losing delegates.“This needs to be equitable to both political parties and held on the same day to save taxpayers’ money,” Jordan Fuchs, Georgia’s deputy secretary of state, said in a statement this week.Georgia Democrats hoping that the money and media attention that come to an early primary state might persuade Gov. Brian P. Kemp, a Republican, to intercede for them may be disappointed, too.“The governor has no role in this process and does not support the idea,” Cody Hall, an adviser to Mr. Kemp, said on Wednesday night.The situation is fraught for different reasons in New Hampshire, which has long held the nation’s first primary as a matter of state law. Neither the state’s Democrats nor its Republicans, who control the governor’s mansion and state legislature, are inclined to buck the law, playing up the state’s discerning voters and famed opportunities for small-scale retail politicking.That tradition puts New Hampshire’s Democrats directly at odds with the D.N.C. mandate to host the second primary in 2024. Officials in the state have signaled their intent to hold the first primary anyway, risking penalties.In a letter to the Rules and Bylaws Committee before the deadline extension, Raymond Buckley, the chairman of the state Democratic Party, wrote that the D.N.C.’s plan was “unrealistic and unattainable, as the New Hampshire Democratic Party cannot dictate to the Republican governor and state legislative leaders what to do, and because it does not have the power to change the primary date unilaterally.”He noted a number of concessions New Hampshire Democrats would seek to make, but urged the committee to “reconsider the requirements that they have placed,” casting them as a “poison pill.”The early-state proposal is the culmination of a long process to reorder and diversify the calendar, and Mr. Roosevelt and Ms. Moore said later Thursday that the tentative calendar “does what is long overdue and brings more voices into the early window process.”D.N.C. rules stipulate consequences for any state that moves to operate ahead of the party’s agreed-upon early window, as well as for candidates who campaign in such states.If New Hampshire jumps the line, Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign, assuming he runs, could decide against filing in the New Hampshire primary, a state where he came in fifth place in 2020.While few prominent Democratic officials expect, as of now, that he would draw a major primary challenge if he runs — making much of the drama around the early-state calendar effectively moot in 2024 — a lesser-known candidate could emerge and camp out in New Hampshire, some in the state have warned.The eventual calendar is not set in stone for future elections: Mr. Biden urged the Rules and Bylaws Committee to review the calendar every four years, and the committee has embraced an amendment to get that process underway.And there are still a number of steps this year.The Rules and Bylaws Committee is expected to meet to vote on the proposed extensions. The D.N.C.’s. winter meeting, where the five-state proposal must be affirmed by the full committee, is scheduled for early February in Philadelphia, and there is certain to be more jockeying ahead of that event.“The first real inflection point is the meeting of the full D.N.C.,” Mr. Roosevelt said in an interview late last month. More

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      Surprise in Pennsylvania: Republicans Back a (Former?) Democrat for Speaker

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      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

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      Should Iowa or South Carolina Go First?

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      More from our inbox:Humans and Wildlife: The Messages Are MixedThe Decades-Long Struggle for Affordable Child Care Antonio Giovanni PinnaTo the Editor:Re “Democrats to Iowa: Get Lost!,” by Art Cullen (Opinion guest essay, Dec. 12):Maybe, just maybe, Mr. Cullen is revealing more about the problem with Iowa than anything about the Democratic Party when he complains that the Democrats’ proposed new primary schedule is set up to “dump the Iowa caucuses into the ditch.”It does no such thing, of course; it merely deprives the Hawkeye State of its guaranteed gatekeeper status at the head of the line. Mr. Cullen’s self-righteous huffing that “discarding Iowa is not a great way to mend fences in rural America” seems to suggest that he feels that somehow his state is read out of the Union if it isn’t allowed to speak first when presidential primary season rolls around.New Hampshire, which holds the first actual primaries, has a similar attitude. Neither state’s position on the electoral calendar was inscribed in stone, but you’d never know it from their champions’ zealotry on this issue.Personally, I’d prefer to see the order of the primaries and caucuses reshuffled before every presidential election. That way, at least Iowa would be at or near the front at least some of the time, but one of the smaller, whitest states in the nation wouldn’t get to fire the race’s starting gun every time. Surely Iowans can find something else about their state to be proud of.Eric B. LippsStaten IslandTo the Editor:Art Cullen’s critique of the Democratic National Committee’s proposal to put South Carolina ahead of Iowa on the nominating calendar is misguided. Democrats haven’t dumped “the Iowa caucuses into a ditch.” Rather, they’re considering leading with a state with voter rolls that better represent Democratic voters and the country as a whole.Mr. Cullen argues that diversity has a chance in Iowa, citing Barack Obama’s victory over Hillary Clinton at the caucus. But an overwhelmingly white electorate choosing a diverse candidate is not the same as a diverse electorate having its say in the process.Rural states like Iowa have challenges, but they don’t need symbolic support like keeping the Iowa caucus first. Instead, they need real solutions, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides subsidies for renewable energy projects that will bring economic vitality to rural areas.John HorschOakland, Calif.To the Editor:Art Cullen’s essay was remarkably self-serving. Iowa goes first by tradition, which gives a rural, largely white state outsized importance.I get that Iowans want to hold onto their position, but why should the rest of the nation take cues from this one state? It is time to hold national primaries, all on the same day. Let everyone in the nation vote, at the same time. This has the side benefit of shortening the ridiculously long primary season.Katherine Jo GlavesSeattleHumans and Wildlife: The Messages Are Mixed Tom KrawczykTo the Editor:Re “My Mother Has Two Sons: Me and a Squirrel” (Op-Doc, nytimes.com, Dec. 5):What a joy to wake up to such a tender video of a woman responding to an abandoned newborn creature in her yard. Her son, Tom Krawczyk, is a gifted videographer whose obvious professionalism captured both his mother’s humanity and her concern for a wild animal’s future.At this time of year, especially this year, it is a balm to witness such a poignant gem as this, reminding me of all that is fresh and good in the world and that this sort of intimate connection, wherever we find it, is the ultimate healing.Marjorie HermanHamilton, N.J.To the Editor:I was frustrated by the mixed messaging in The Times about how to best care for wildlife. The Dec. 5 Op-Doc about a woman raising a newborn squirrel as a family member is heartwarming, but unfortunately has the potential to seriously mislead viewers.It counters the excellent advice found in a piece by Margaret Renkl (“Wildlife Rescue Heals the Human Heart,” Opinion guest essay, Dec. 7) about the importance of wildlife rehabilitation centers.The responsible — and legal — thing to do when encountering orphaned or injured wildlife is to place the animal with a certified wildlife rehabilitator.Home-raised animals can suffer from nutritional deficiencies or simply may not survive a well-meaning amateur’s aid. Animals that become acclimated to humans have been known to attack their caregivers or strangers who don’t understand their natural behaviors.Their instinctual response to potential predators might also be compromised. (In this video, the squirrel was friends with a cat.) The most compassionate response is to put an animal’s care into the hands of someone who has the educational training to best support their survival.Kim BaileyNashvilleThe writer is a retired metro parks naturalist.To the Editor:Re “Wildlife Rescue Heals the Human Heart”:Although it was heartwarming to read about the often heroic efforts of wildlife rehabilitators in helping injured and orphaned animals, I can’t help thinking about all the ways that other, less compassionate humans deliberately inflict harm and torture on our wildlife.The indiscriminate trapping and snaring of wolves, the barbaric wildlife-killing contests that still take place in many states and all forms of recreational trophy hunting reflect an indifference to the suffering of our nonhuman kinfolk, who like us value their lives, strive to take care of their families and have every right to share this earth with us.Mary Anne EricsonPortland, Ore.The Decades-Long Struggle for Affordable Child Care Eleanor DavisTo the Editor:Re “The Child Care Crisis Has Been ‘Urgent’ Since ’86. Just Ask Cosmo,” by Jessica Grose (Opinion, nytimes.com, Dec. 7):I read Ms. Grose’s excellent article with a sense of déjà vu — the more things change, the more they stay the same.In 1982, a group of friends and I started a day care center on the Upper West Side because there were few options for full-time working parents.We managed to receive support from a private foundation to help us set up the little center, secured space in a rundown synagogue, and founded one of the first Jewish all-day child care centers in New York City. We named it Yaldaynu, Hebrew for “our children.” (I am pleased to say it is still operating.)It is sad that 40 years later, my daughter, one of those first children, and now a mother, still does not have quality, affordable day care options for her daughter.When will the U.S. do what most of the rest of the West does and provide quality affordable child care for their citizens? Why is this not even on the agenda of urgent our country is facing?Now is the time for Cosmo, which ran a cover story on this issue in 1986, to put it back on the cover, and for politicians, corporations and nonprofits to take action.Jeanne B. KesAlbuquerque More

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      2022 Review: How Republicans Lost Despite Winning the Popular Vote

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      There were several reasons Republicans struggled to translate votes into seats, including candidate quality and strength in the wrong places.The Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters, backed by Donald Trump, lost his race.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesHere’s a figure about the 2022 midterm elections that might surprise you: Republicans won the national House popular vote by three percentage points — 51 percent to 48 percent. They still won by two points after adjusting for races in which only one major party was on the ballot.Yes, that’s right: Republicans won the popular vote by a clear if modest margin, even as Democrats gained seats in the Senate and came within thousands of votes of holding the House.If you’re looking to make sense of the 2022 election, the Republican lead in the national vote might just be the missing piece that helps fit a few odd puzzle pieces together.The national polls, which showed growing Republican strength over the last month of the campaign, were dead-on. On paper, this ought to have meant a good — if not necessarily great — Republican election year.Imagine, for instance, if the Republicans had run seven points better than Joe Biden’s 2020 showing in every state and district, as they did nationwide. They would have picked up 21 seats in the House, about the number many analysts expected. They also would have easily won the Senate, flipping Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and holding Pennsylvania.Yet for a variety of reasons, Republicans failed to translate their strength into anything like a clear victory.Real Republican strengthThe Republican win in the national House popular vote is not illusion. It is not a result of uncontested races. It is not the result of lopsided turnout, like Californians staying home while Texans showed up to vote. The Republicans would still lead even if every county or state made up the same share of the electorate that it did in 2020.It is not just about one or two Republican shining successes, like Florida or New York, either. Republicans outran Donald J. Trump’s 2020 showing in nearly every state. The exceptions are all very small states with one or two districts, where individual races can be unrepresentative of the broader national picture.Under a lot of circumstances, this Republican showing would be impressive. Consider, for instance, that Republican candidates won the most votes for U.S. House in all four of the crucial Senate states where Republicans fell short: Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. More

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      This Case Should Never Have Made It to the Supreme Court

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      “The most important case for American democracy” in the nation’s history — that’s how the former appeals court judge J. Michael Luttig described Moore v. Harper, an extraordinary lawsuit that the Supreme Court considered in oral arguments Wednesday morning. Judge Luttig, a conservative and a widely respected legal thinker, is not one for overstatement. Yet most Americans aren’t paying attention to the case because it involves some confusing terminology and an arcane legal theory. It is essential that people understand just how dangerous this case is to the fundamental structure of American government, and that enough justices see the legal fallacies and protect our democracy.First, the back story on the case: In 2021, North Carolina lawmakers redrew their congressional maps. The state had 13 districts at the time, and its voters were more or less evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. But the Republicans who are in control of North Carolina’s legislature didn’t want fair maps; they wanted power. In one of the most egregious gerrymanders in the nation, they drew 10 seats intended to favor themselves.The North Carolina courts were not amused. A panel of three trial judges found that the 2021 maps were “intentionally and carefully designed to maximize Republican advantage” — so much so that Republicans could win legislative majorities even when Democrats won more votes statewide. The State Supreme Court struck down the maps, finding they violated the North Carolina Constitution’s guarantees of free elections, free speech, free assembly and equal protection.That should have been the end of it: A state court applying the state Constitution to strike down a state law. But North Carolina’s Republican lawmakers appealed, arguing that the U.S. Constitution does not give state courts authority to rule on their congressional maps — even though the legislature had passed a law authorizing the courts to review redistricting plans like these. Instead, the lawmakers are relying on an untested theory that asserts that state legislatures enjoy nearly unlimited power to set and change rules for federal elections.In 2000 the chief justice at the time, William H. Rehnquist, proposed the idea in his concurring opinion on Bush v. Gore, and the independent state legislature theory has been floating around the fringes of right-wing legal circles ever since.To be clear, this is a political power grab in the guise of a legal theory. Republicans are trying to see if they can turn state legislatures — 30 of which are controlled by Republicans — into omnipotent, unaccountable election bosses with the help of the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court. The theory has no basis in law, history or precedent. The idea that state lawmakers exist free of any constraints imposed by their constitution and state courts makes a mockery of the separation of powers, which is foundational to the American system of government. By the North Carolina lawmakers’ logic, they possess infinite power to gerrymander districts and otherwise control federal elections. It is a Constitution-free zone where no one else in the state — not the governor, not the courts, not the voters through ballot initiatives — has any say.On Wednesday morning, Justice Elena Kagan rejected the theory out of hand, saying it “gets rid of the normal checks and balances on the way big governmental decisions are made in this country. And you might think that it gets rid of all those checks and balances at exactly the time when they are needed most.”In practice, the theory that the petitioners in the case are seeking to use would turn hundreds of state constitutional provisions into dead letters in federal elections. For instance, 48 states affirmatively guarantee a right to vote in their constitutions. (The federal Constitution still does not.) Most state constitutions guarantee free, fair, equal or open elections. Even the secret ballot — so fundamental to American democracy — is a creature of state constitutions. If the justices accept the most aggressive version of the independent state legislature theory that the petitioners want them to and even if they accept a weaker version, provisions like these could become invalid overnight, because the theory holds that state constitutions have no authority to impose any regulations on federal elections. (The Constitution and federal law remain supreme, so challenges to state legislative actions could still be brought in federal courts.)Some of the justices insist that they don’t — they can’t — pay attention to the real-world outcomes of their rulings. They’re just interpreting law. By that logic, this case should be rejected on its merits.First, the theory is based on bad legal interpretation. The Constitution uses the word “legislature” in describing who has the power to regulate federal elections. Because of this word, the theory’s supporters claim, state legislatures have nearly unlimited power in that realm. But as Judge Luttig has noted, the theory has “literally no support” in the Constitution. To the contrary, the framers who wrote the Constitution were concerned that state legislatures had too much power, not too little. The text they wrote makes many references to the powers of those legislatures and of Congress, but it never says or implies that they are immune to review by the judicial branch.Second, the theory is based on bad history. The best evidence its supporters offer is a two-century-old document that has long been known to be fraudulent. Written in 1818 by Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, a founding father, it is purported to be a replica of the plan for government that he introduced three decades earlier at the Constitutional Convention. But what he submitted in 1818 was not the real deal. James Madison suspected this immediately, as have virtually all historians to examine it in the years since.When the theory’s supporters sought to claim that the practices of early state legislatures proved that their side should win, Justice Sonia Sotomayor responded, “Yes. If you rewrite history, it’s very easy to do.”Third, if the Supreme Court accepts this theory, it will create a logistical nightmare in states across the country. That’s because the theory applies only to federal elections, not state elections, in which state courts unquestionably have a role to play. As a result, there would be two sets of rules operating at the same time, one for federal elections and one for state elections. Chaos and confusion would reign.Most important, the Supreme Court has already implicitly rejected the theory many times over. In precedents stretching back decades, the court has made clear that state courts have the power to set limits on what lawmakers can do when it comes to federal elections. As recently as 2019, the court rejected a plea for it to stop the extreme partisan gerrymandering in North Carolina and other states. In doing so, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that this is exactly the role that state courts should play. “Provisions in state statutes and state constitutions can provide standards and guidance for state courts to apply,” he wrote.At Wednesday’s argument, Justice Samuel Alito appeared to reject that premise. He accused elected state court judges, like those in North Carolina, of being political actors themselves. “There’s been a lot of talk about the impact of this decision on democracy,” said Justice Alito, who has given openly partisan speeches to outside groups and voted consistently in alignment with Republican policy priorities. “Do you think that it furthers democracy to transfer the political controversy about districting from the legislature to elected supreme courts where the candidates are permitted by state law to campaign on the issue of districting?”Another way to appreciate the absurdity of the theory is to consider who has come out for and against it. On one side, a large and bipartisan group of judges, government officials, former lawmakers, leading historians and constitutional scholars from across the political spectrum have rejected it. These include a co-founder of the right-wing legal group the Federalist Society, the chief justices of all 50 states, multiple Republican former governors and secretaries of state and civil rights organizations.On the other side, you will find a far smaller and less bipartisan cast of characters — among them, the Republican National Committee, a group of Republican state attorneys general and John Eastman, a former law professor last seen helping Donald Trump plan an illegal and unconstitutional coup to stay in office (an act that has exposed Mr. Eastman to a real risk of criminal prosecution).That so many justices would take the theory seriously is bad enough. Three of them — Justices Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas — appear to favor the independent state legislature theory, as they suggested in an opinion in an earlier stage of the case. Justice Brett Kavanaugh has also indicated his openness to it. It’s worse when the public trust in and approval of the court have fallen to historic lows, thanks largely to aggressively partisan recent opinions, as this board has argued.There’s an old saying that only close cases make it to the Supreme Court. If they weren’t close, they would have been resolved in the lower courts. But Moore v. Harper isn’t a remotely close case. A ruling for the North Carolina lawmakers would flood the federal courts with election litigation that normally plays out in the states, upending the balance of federalism that defines American government. That’s not a conservative result; it’s a dangerously radical one.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