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      Why is Joe Biden campaigning for Donald Trump? | Moustafa Bayoumi

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      The question sounds ludicrous, but how else would you characterize Biden’s latest pronouncement to build 20 new miles of Trump’s border wall along the southern border? This is like throwing red meat to Trump’s base, who will chomp and salivate over what they will portray as an admission of defeat by the Democrats on securing the border.And why wouldn’t they? Back when he was campaigning for president, Joe Biden promised “not another foot” of Trump’s border wall would be built. He halted construction of the wall on his first day in office with a proclamation stating that “building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution. It is a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security.”Now, the government is poised to spend nearly $200m on 20 miles of border wall in the Rio Grande Valley. The administration says it has been forced into this situation because Congress appropriated $1.375bn for such border barriers in 2019, and the funds that remain must be disbursed by the end of the fiscal year. But Democrats had control over Congress for the first two years of the Biden administration. They could have reallocated those funds. Instead, this Democratic administration is now sounding very Trump-like. “There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries,” reads the notice in the Federal Register.This is a political failure by the Democrats on one of the most important issues of the looming 2024 election. And it’s a massive policy failure as well.For one thing, the border wall – what Trump called the “Rolls-Royce” of barriers – doesn’t even work. According to the Washington Post, the US Customs and Border Protection’s own records show that the wall has been breached more than 3,000 times, as it is easily hacked open by common power tools. And you know what else can breach a 30ft wall? A ladder. Smugglers also routinely hoist people over the wall and lower them down the other side with ropes. The Democratic Texas congressman Henry Cuellar was right when he said: “A border wall is a 14th-century solution to a 21st-century problem.”This newly announced policy by the Biden administration promises to be a devastating environmental failure as well. Why, exactly, has the administration waived 26 federal laws that include protections for the environment, clean air, safe drinking water and endangered species when building this policy failure? Who forced them to adopt that position? The ability to waive these protections, called the Secure Fence Act, was passed by Congress in 2006, but Biden will be the first Democratic president to use the law. And the effects could be unrecoverable.Starr county, Texas, the area designated for the new wall, is part of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Refuge, home to endangered ocelots and at least two types of endangered plants, the Zapata bladderpod and prostrate milkweed. And while the steel barriers of the wall may be permeable to human smugglers, larger mammals will have their migration routes blocked by the barrier.Laiken Jordahl, south-west conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, stated that this new wall construction “will stop wildlife migrations dead in their tracks. It will destroy a huge amount of wildlife refuge land. And it’s a horrific step backwards for the borderlands.” Just last month, the US Government Accountability Office released a report detailing legions of harmful effects of the existing wall, from destruction of Indigenous burial grounds to damage to endangered wildlife and much more.This terrible new wall also represents a humanitarian failure from this administration. No serious person disputes that the numbers of people seeking refuge at the border is immense and that solving this issue constitutes a significant challenge to the government. But if we want to consider ourselves as a fair, just and humane society, the solution to this issue must also be fair, just and humane. What most people don’t realize is that so much of our larger border policy – including border walls, fast-track deportation flights, private immigration jails, keeping most asylum seekers from working and more – often enables smuggling and abuse more than curtails it.Greater attention must be paid to addressing root causes of human migration. Venezuelans now account for the second largest nationality group (after Mexicans) to cross the southern border, but rather than lifting punitive economic sanctions that the US has imposed on Venezuela since 2006, the administration has instead announced that it will resume deportation flights to Venezuela. But lifting sanctions would clearly help alleviate at least one important reason for migration while quickly deporting people, at best, merely treats a symptom.The Biden administration cannot have it both ways. It can’t be against the wall while arguing for its construction at the same time. This is not just bad policy. It’s bad politics, needlessly self-destructive at a time when the Republicans are willfully self-destructive. Such a policy certainly won’t win them more votes or get them re-elected. Rather, it’s like the Democrats are feeding their own flesh to Trump and his supporters, and asking us to watch the feast, proving that sometimes we truly are our own worst enemies.
      Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of the award-winning books How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror. He is professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. He is a contributing opinion writer at Guardian US More

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      Biden criticized for waiving 26 laws in Texas to allow border wall construction

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      Joe Biden faced intense criticism from environmental advocates, political opponents and his fellow Democrats after the president’s administration waived 26 federal laws to allow border wall construction in south Texas, its first use of a sweeping executive power that was often employed under Donald Trump.“A border wall is a 14th-century solution to a 21st-century problem,” the Democratic Texas congressman Henry Cuellar said. “It will not bolster border security in Starr county.“I continue to stand against the wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars on an ineffective border wall.”Environmental advocates said the new wall would run through public lands, habitats of endangered plants and species such as the ocelot, a spotted wild cat.“A plan to build a wall will bulldoze an impermeable barrier straight through the heart of that habitat,” said Laiken Jordahl, a south-west conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity.“It will stop wildlife migrations dead in their tracks. It will destroy a huge amount of wildlife refuge land. And it’s a horrific step backwards for the borderlands.”During the Trump presidency, about 450 miles of barriers were built along the south-west border. The Biden administration halted such efforts, though the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, resumed them.A federal proclamation issued on 20 January 2021 said: “Building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution.”On Wednesday, border officials claimed the new project was consistent with that proclamation.“Congress appropriated fiscal year 2019 funds for the construction of border barrier in the Rio Grande Valley, and [homeland security] is required to use those funds for their appropriated purpose,” a statement said.The statement also said officials were “committed to protecting the nation’s cultural and natural resources and will implement sound environmental practices as part of the project covered by this waiver”.Observers were not convinced. Referring to a famous (and much-mocked) Trump campaign promise, Matt Stoller, research director at the American Economic Liberties Project, said: “Well Mexico didn’t pay for the wall, but Biden did.”Pointing to a campaign promise by Biden – “There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration” – Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, said: “Biden’s flip-flop here is not only a validation of President Trump’s border and immigration policies, but also a validation of President Trump’s entire 2024 America First campaign!”Polling shows Trump leads Biden when voters are asked who would handle border security better.On Wednesday, homeland security officials posted the announcement on the US federal registry. Few details were provided about construction in Starr county, Texas, which is part of a busy border patrol sector currently seeing “high illegal entry” by undocumented migrants via Central and South America.According to government data, about 245,000 such entries have been recorded this fiscal year in the Rio Grande Valley sector.“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas,” the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, said in the federal registry notice.The Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and Endangered Species Act were among federal laws waived to make way for construction. The waivers avoid reviews and lawsuits challenging violation of environmental laws.Starr county, between Zapata, Mexico, and McAllen, Texas, is home to about 65,000 people in 1,200 sq miles, part of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.Federal officials announced the project in June and began gathering public comments in August, sharing a map of construction that could add up to 20 miles to existing border barriers. The Starr county judge, Eloy Vera, said the new wall would start south of the Falcon Dam and go past Salineño, Texas.“The other concern that we have is that area is highly erosive,” the county judge said, pointing to creeks cutting through ranchland. “There’s a lot of arroyos.”The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Nueva ley de votación en Texas: lo que ha sucedido en el juicio

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      Los críticos han expresado su preocupación por la posibilidad de que la ley impida la participación de los votantes con discapacidades, los de edad avanzada y los que no hablan inglés.Durante años, Stella Guerrero Mata, de 73 años, una conductora de autobús escolar jubilada que vive cerca de Houston, había podido votar por correo sin ningún problema. Guerrero, que usa un bastón para caminar y tiene una larga lista de padecimientos, entre ellos diabetes, deterioro de la vista y dolor de espalda, esperaba volver a sufragar de la misma manera en las elecciones de medio mandato de 2022.No obstante, poco tiempo después de enviar su boleta por correo, recibió una carta que la dejó enojada y confundida. Su boleta no fue aceptada porque no incluyó el número de su licencia de conducir ni los últimos cuatro dígitos de su número de seguridad social, un requisito de una nueva y polémica ley de votación que se aprobó en 2021.“Mi voto fue rechazado”, denunció Guerrero Mata y agregó que se había dado cuenta de que era demasiado tarde para corregir el error. “Estaba enojada, porque mi voz no se iba a escuchar”.Guerrero Mata forma parte de un grupo de votantes que testificaron en un juicio que se está realizando en San Antonio sobre la extensa reforma electoral del estado, conocida como SB 1. La ley se aprobó por una mayoría republicana incluso después de que los legisladores demócratas abandonaron el recinto durante 38 días, lo que puso al estado en una lucha infructuosa para impedir que el proyecto de ley llegara a votación.Desde que entró en vigor, los críticos han expresado su preocupación por la posibilidad de que la ley impida la participación de los votantes con discapacidades, los de edad avanzada y los que no hablan inglés. El juicio federal, que ahora inicia su segunda semana, brinda una oportunidad inusual para escuchar directamente a los electores que querían votar pero no pudieron hacerlo.Una coalición de grupos defensores del derecho al voto, entre ellos el Fondo Educativo de Defensa Legal Mexicoestadounidense (MALDEF, por su sigla en inglés) y la Unión Estadounidense de Libertades Civiles (ACLU, por su sigla en inglés) de Texas, afirma en su demanda que la ley afecta a las personas que votan por correo, aquellas que se apoyan en ayudantes conocidos como asistentes para votar y quienes dependen de organizaciones comunitarias para saber dónde y cómo votar.La ley agregó nuevos requisitos de identificación para votar por correo, dificultó el uso de asistentes para sufragar, estableció sanciones penales para los trabajadores electorales si son demasiado enérgicos a la hora de controlar a las personas en los centros de votación y prohibió la votación disponible 24 horas, así como la votación desde un vehículo, medidas que se utilizaron, en particular, en el condado de Harris durante la pandemia.Los abogados que representan al estado han dicho que las nuevas reglas previenen un posible fraude electoral y que los votantes parecen adaptarse mejor con cada elección. Ryan Kercher, abogado del estado, opinó que la integridad electoral significa que los votantes “van a tener confianza en el proceso”. Además, Kercher añadió que la ley permite ampliar el horario de votación anticipada para alentar una mayor participación de los electores.Durante el contrainterrogatorio, otro abogado del estado, Will Wassdorf, le dijo a Guerrero Mata que había ingresado la información requerida en el formulario en el que solicitó una boleta por correo, pero que no lo hizo cuando envió por correo la boleta electoral. Luego, Wassdorf le mostró en una pantalla los espacios que había dejado en blanco.“¿Entiende que por eso se rechazó su boleta?”, le preguntó Wassdorf. Y Guerrero Mata respondió: “Ahora lo entiendo. En este momento, sí”.Un ejemplo de los nuevos requisitos para votar como el número de la licencia de conducir y los cuatro últimos dígitos del número de Seguridad Social del votante.Sergio Flores/ReutersCuando Fátima Menéndez, una de las abogadas demandantes, le preguntó si tendría la confianza de votar por correo en 2024, Guerrero Mata respondió que no estaba segura. “Siento que no se contaría”, mencionó.Un desfile de funcionarios electorales de Dallas, Austin, El Paso y el valle del Río Grande también testificaron que consideran confusas y vagas muchas de las nuevas regulaciones y que a menudo tuvieron dificultades para explicárselas a otros votantes que también estaban confundidos.“No sabía qué decirles a los votantes”, dijo Dana DeBeauvoir, secretaria del condado de Travis, en Austin, que supervisó varias elecciones antes de jubilarse. DeBeauvoir describió el supuesto problema del fraude electoral como “un unicornio”, en el mejor de los casos, “muy pocos entre millones de votos y, en la mayoría de los casos, no fueron intencionados”.Kercher insistió en eso durante el contrainterrogatorio. “Aunque el fraude electoral sea un unicornio, tenemos que estar alerta”, dijo.“Yo siempre lo he estado”, replicó ella.Se espera que el juez a cargo de este caso, Xavier Rodriguez, del Distrito Oeste de Texas, escuche los testimonios durante las próximas semanas antes de emitir una orden.Previamente, Rodriguez consideró que una parte de la ley era ilegal: el requisito de que los votantes escriban los últimos cuatro dígitos de su número de seguridad social o el número de su licencia de conducir cuando soliciten votar por correo y que los trabajadores electorales puedan emparejar uno de los números con los datos de registro del elector.Rodriguez, designado por el expresidente George W. Bush, determinó que el requisito violaba la Ley de Derechos Civiles porque cabe la posibilidad de que los funcionarios electorales rechacen a votantes que de otro modo calificarían para votar por correo pero que tengan dificultad para proporcionar esa información adicional.La ACLU de Texas asegura que alrededor de 40.000 solicitudes de boletas de votación por correo han sido rechazadas por errores relacionados con este requisito.Nina Perales, una abogada de MALDEF, argumentó durante su discurso inicial que los votantes con discapacidades están entre los más afectados.“Añadir más pasos al proceso de votación y exigir más formularios dificulta la votación y reduce el número de boletas emitidas”, dijo Perales. “Esto impone más y más obstáculos a los votantes discapacitados y provocará la privación de sus derechos”.La nueva ley de votación se convirtió en una prioridad para el gobernador Greg Abbott después de que el expresidente Donald Trump afirmó haber perdido las elecciones de 2020 debido a un fraude electoral, una aseveración que ha sido descartada por jueces de todo Estados Unidos. Sin embargo, Abbott amenazó con convocar una sesión especial de la legislatura hasta que los legisladores le enviaran el proyecto de ley de votación para que lo firmara.Después de la legislación, hubo una serie de cambios electorales adoptados en varias áreas urbanas de Texas, lugares en gran parte dominados por demócratas, los cuales fueron diseñados para facilitar que los votantes que cumplan con los requisitos emitan su voto. Por ejemplo, Houston atrajo la atención nacional al permitir que se sufragara desde los vehículos, las 24 horas del día, en el punto álgido de la pandemia.La defensa aún está por presentar su caso. Gran parte de la primera semana estuvo dedicada a votantes y funcionarios electorales, llamados por los demandantes, quienes detallaron sus dificultades con las nuevas reglas.Toby Cole, un abogado que perdió el uso de sus brazos y piernas tras un accidente cuando tenía 18 años y que vota con la ayuda de un asistente, testificó que se sentía incómodo compartiendo su información médica con los trabajadores electorales cuando votaba en persona, la forma de votación que prefiere, para que un asistente le ayude a emitir su voto.Cole dijo que conoce a muchos otros votantes con discapacidades que pueden optar por no votar en persona o simplemente no sufragar porque no se sienten cómodos compartiendo las razones por las que tienen derecho a recibir ayuda adicional.Él dice que ha podido votar porque es muy “persistente”.Kirsten Noyes More

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      DeSantis Slams Biden Climate Policy: ‘An Agenda to Control You’

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      The Florida governor delivered an address in Texas that favored oil and gas development over climate agreements and electric vehicles.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Wednesday unveiled an energy plan in the heart of oil country, criticizing electric vehicles and global climate agreements, promising lower fuel prices and pushing for more oil and gas development.In a policy rollout at an oil rig site in Midland — a West Texas city that derives much of its economy from oil production — Mr. DeSantis seemed to make a general-election argument, promising to roll back several of the Biden administration’s climate initiatives, calling them “part of an agenda to control you and to control our behavior.”“They’re trying to circumscribe your ambitions. They are even telling our younger generations to have fewer children, or not to even have children, on the grounds that somehow children are going to make our climate and planet unlivable — and that’s wrong to say,” he told a crowd of a few dozen rig workers and reporters.Mr. DeSantis mentioned his chief rival in the Republican primary, former President Donald J. Trump — whom he trails by a wide margin in the polls — only once.That didn’t stop Mr. Trump’s campaign from taking a shot at the governor for his remarks. Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, used expletives in calling Mr. DeSantis a “candidate that just steals from President Trump’s policy book” in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, during the governor’s remarks.In a lengthy, six-pronged policy outline, Mr. DeSantis promised to remove subsidies for electric vehicles, take the U.S. out of global climate agreements — including the Paris accords — and cancel net-zero emission promises. He also vowed to increase American oil and natural gas production and “replace the phrase climate change with energy dominance” in policy guidance.Mr. DeSantis spoke from behind a lectern that read “$2 in 2025,” a nod to his campaign’s promise to lower gas to $2 in the first year of his administration (a number not seen consistently since the George W. Bush administration). His remarks — delivered above the sounds of heavy machinery — paired standard Republican energy policy, blasting foreign energy dependence and blue state regulations, with criticism of the Biden administration’s focus on reducing carbon emissions and incentivizing clean energy.The Biden campaign criticized Mr. DeSantis’s plan.“This is a deeply unserious and impractical plan that won’t actually lower gas prices to $2 per gallon and is chock-full of the climate denialism that defines the MAGA Republican Party,” Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, said in a statement. “Voters need look no further than DeSantis’s own state — where his agenda is leading to skyrocketing energy costs for his constituents and natural disasters are causing tens of billions of dollars in damages — to know what DeSantis’s plan would mean for the country.”Mr. DeSantis calls his plan “Freedom to Fuel,” and it includes a segment on automobiles, an industry segment that has also put Mr. Biden under scrutiny by Republicans, with autoworkers on strike. The United Auto Workers began targeted strikes last week over contract talks. In a recent op-ed piece in The Des Moines Register, Mr. DeSantis promised to “stand with our farmers” by opposing electric vehicles and supporting biofuel usage, a nod to the state’s large agricultural industry.But asked Wednesday if he believed that fossil fuels contributed to climate change, Mr. DeSantis deflected — which he has done repeatedly, most notably on the Republican debate stage last month.“The climate clearly has changed — you can judge that, I think, objectively. I think the question is, is what policy posture are we going to take from that?” he said, pointing to his own proposal as the “most practical way to reduce global emissions.”During his visit to Texas, Mr. DeSantis is also attending several high-dollar fund-raising events across the state over the next few days. But while he has had fund-raising success among Texas donors in the oil and real estate industries, some large donors nationally have expressed hesitation. And his fund-raising in the state has not necessarily translated to grass-roots support: The Oil and Gas Workers Association, based out of nearby Odessa, Texas, announced Wednesday that it would endorse Mr. Trump.Jimmy Gray, a Midland oil rig worker since 1979 who supported Mr. Trump in the last election, said after the event that he was impressed by Mr. DeSantis but remained undecided in the Republican presidential contest. “I’ve seen a lot of policies in a lot of administrations, and a lot of things change throughout that time, but one thing that hasn’t really changed is that in order for us to decrease costs across the country, energy — in whatever form that is — has to be done right,” he said.“Ron DeSantis made some good points — he’s got me interested,” he added. “I just would like to see a different direction than what we’ve got now.” More

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      Texas teacher fired for showing Anne Frank graphic novel to eighth-graders

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      A Texas teacher was fired after assigning an illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary to her middle school class, in a move that some are calling “a political attack on truth”.The eighth-grade school teacher was released after officials with Hamshire-Fannett independent school district said the teacher presented the “inappropriate” book to students, reported KFDM.The graphic novel, written by Ari Folman and illustrated by David Polonsky, adapts the diary of 13-year-old Anne Frank, who wrote while hiding in an annexe in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.The district sent an email to parents on Tuesday, notifying them that the book, which district officials say was not approved, would no longer be read.“The reading of that content will cease immediately. Your student’s teacher will communicate her apologies to you and your students soon, as she has expressed those apologies to us,” read the email, reported KFDM.By Wednesday, district officials had emailed parents, informing them that the teacher had been fired following an investigation into the incident.“As you may be aware, following concerns regarding curricular selections in your student’s reading class, a substitute teacher has been facilitating the class since Wednesday, September 13, 2023,” said the district to parents, adding that a search for a new instructor was under way.District officials have not released details about the incident, including which school the teacher taught in.Eighth-grade students were reportedly shown a section of the graphic novel where Frank reflected on her own genitals and wanted to see a female friend’s breasts, according to KFDM.Discussions of sexuality were included in the original written version of Anne Frank’s diary, but were edited out in subsequent reprints.A spokesperson for Hamshire-Fannett ISD declined to comment on the incident during a phone call with the Guardian.Notably, this particular graphic novel has been subject to book bans before.A Florida high school removed the graphic novel after a chapter of Moms for Liberty, an extremist advocacy group, objected to the book’s sexual contents and claimed it did not teach the Holocaust accurately, the Associated Press reported.The graphic novel was also removed from Texas’s Dallas-Fort Worth’s Keller independent school district.The latest firing in Texas comes as education laws restricting teaching of race, sexuality and other topics are being implemented in classrooms across the US.The Republican governor, Greg Abbott, signed legislation in 2021 severely limiting how educators can teach topics of race and gender. Texas has also banned more books than any other state, with more than 430 books banned in Texas schools.Clay Robison, a spokesperson with the Texas State Teachers Association, called the latest incident “troubling” to the Guardian.“No teacher should be fired for teaching the Diary of Anne Frank to middle school students,” Robison said. “Teachers are dedicated to teaching the truth, the whole truth,” he said, emphasizing the diary’s importance.Robison added that many Texas teachers are experiencing fear, anger and anxiety about navigating restrictions in the classroom.“It’s a political attack on truth,” Robison said of legislative attempts to limit education. “It’s not a woke agenda. It’s not a liberal agenda. It’s a truth agenda.” More

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      ‘My Vote Was Rejected’: Trial Underway in Texas Over New Voting Law

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      Voting rights advocates say the law, intended to curb fraud, is impeding people with disabilities, older voters and non-English speakers.For years, Stella Guerrero Mata, a 73-year-old retired school bus driver who lives near Houston, has been able to cast her vote through the mail with little hassle. Ms. Mata, who uses a cane to walk and suffers from a long list of ailments, including diabetes, worsening eyesight and back pain, expected the 2022 midterm elections to be no different.But sometime after she placed her ballot in the mail, she received a letter with news that left her angry and confused. Her ballot was not accepted because she had failed to include her driver’s license number and the last four digits of her Social Security number, a requirement of a contested new voting law that was approved in 2021.“My vote was rejected,” Ms. Mata said, adding that she had realized it was too late for her to correct her mistake. “It made me feel angry, because my voice was not being heard.”Ms. Mata was one of several voters to testify in a trial, now underway in San Antonio, over the state’s sweeping election overhaul, known as S.B. 1. The law was passed by a Republican majority even after Democratic lawmakers staged a 38-day walkout, leaving the state in an unsuccessful effort to prevent the bill from coming to a vote.Since it went into effect, critics have raised concerns that the law would impede voters with disabilities, elderly voters and voters who do not speak English. The federal trial, now entering its second week, is providing an unusual opportunity to hear directly from voters who wanted to cast a vote but were not able to do so.A coalition of voting rights groups, including MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, claim in their lawsuit that the law hurts people who vote by mail, those who use the help of aides known as assisters to vote and those who rely on community organizations to learn about where and how to vote.The law added new voter identification requirements for voting by mail; made it harder to use voter assisters; set criminal penalties for poll workers if they are too forceful in reining in people at polling places; and banned 24-hour voting and drive-through voting, measures that were notably used in Harris County during the pandemic.Lawyers representing the state countered that the new rules prevent potential voter fraud and that voters seem to be adapting better with every passing election. Election integrity means that voters “are going to have confidence in the process,” said Ryan Kercher, a lawyer for the state. In addition, Mr. Kercher said, the law allows for expanded early-voting hours to encourage more voter participation.During cross-examination, another lawyer for the state, Will Wassdorf, pointed out to Ms. Mata that she had entered the required information in an application for a mail ballot, but that she did not do so when she mailed the actual ballot. Mr. Wassdorf then directed her attention to a video screen that showed the entries she had left blank.“Do you understand that that’s why your ballot was rejected?” he asked her.“Now I do. At this time, yes,” she replied.An example of a new mail-in ballot request requiring a driver’s license number and the last four digits of the voter’s Social Security number.Sergio Flores/ReutersAsked by one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Fátima Menéndez, if she would have the confidence to cast a vote by mail in 2024, Ms. Mata replied that she was not sure. “I feel like it would not be counted at all,” she said.A parade of election officials from Dallas, Austin, El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley also testified that they found many of the new regulations confusing and vague and that they often struggled to explain them to equally confused voters.“I did not know what to tell voters,” said Dana DeBeauvoir, a county clerk in Travis County, home to Austin, who oversaw several elections before she retired. Ms. DeBeauvoir described the purported problem of voter fraud as “a unicorn,” at best, “ones and twos out of millions of votes, and in most cases unintentional.”Mr. Kercher seized on that during cross-examination. “Even though voter fraud is a unicorn, we still have to be vigilant,” he said.“I always was,” she replied.The judge in the case, Xavier Rodriguez, of the Western District of Texas, is expected to listen to testimony for the next few weeks before issuing an order.Judge Rodriguez previously found one part of the law to be unlawful: its requirement that voters write down either the last four digits of their Social Security number or a driver’s license’s number when requesting to vote by mail and that election workers be able to match one of the numbers with the voter’s registration records.Judge Rodriguez, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, ruled that the requirement violated the Civil Rights Act because elections officials may be turning away voters who otherwise qualify to vote by mail but have a hard time providing the extra information.The A.C.L.U. of Texas said that about 40,000 submissions for mail-in voting ballots have been rejected for errors connected to this requirement.Nina Perales, a lawyer with MALDEF, argued during her opening statement that voters with disabilities are among the most affected.“Adding more steps to the voting process and requiring more forms makes voting more difficult, and it reduces the number of ballots cast,” Ms. Perales said. “This imposes significant and more obstacles for disabled voters and will cause disabled voters to be disenfranchised.”The new voting law became a priority for Gov. Greg Abbott after former President Donald J. Trump claimed he lost the 2020 election because of election fraud, a claim that has been discounted by judges around the country. Nevertheless, Mr. Abbott threatened to call a special session of the Legislature until lawmakers sent him the voting bill to sign.The legislation followed a series of voting changes adopted in several urban areas across Texas, places largely dominated by Democrats, that were designed to make it easier for eligible voters to cast ballots. Houston, for example, drew national attention by offering 24-hour drive-through voting at the height of the pandemic.The defense has not yet begun presenting a case. Much of the first week was taken up by voters and election officials, called by the plaintiffs, who detailed their struggles with the new rules.Toby Cole, a lawyer who lost the use of his arms and legs after an accident when he was 18 and votes with the help of an aide, testified that he felt uncomfortable sharing his medical information with poll workers when voting in person, a method he prefers, in order to have an aide assist in casting his ballot.Mr. Cole said he knows of many fellow voters with disabilities who may choose not to vote in person or at all because they do not feel comfortable sharing why they qualify for extra assistance.He has been able to vote, he said, only “because I’m persistent.”Kirsten Noyes More

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      Anti-choice states aren’t satisfied. Now they want to punish traveling for abortions | Moira Donegan

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      How free can any woman be in a country where her right to control her body and family depends on the jurisdiction where she happens to live? Republicans are looking to find out. Over the past few weeks, as Republican officials in anti-choice states seek to make their abortion bans enforceable and compel women into childbirth, a new front has opened up in the abortion wars: roads. The anti-choice movement, through a series of inventive legal theories and cynical legislative maneuvers, is now attacking women’s right to travel.In a court filing last month, the Alabama attorney general, Steve Marshall, wrote that he believed his office had a right to prosecute those who help women travel across state lines in search of an abortion. The filing comes in a lawsuit from two women’s health clinics and an abortion fund, which sued Marshall after he publicly stated his intention to criminally investigate organizations like theirs, which provide financial and logistical help to pregnant patients seeking to leave the state. In his response, Marshall unequivocally stated that Alabama, which bans all abortions with no rape or incest exemption, views any effort to help women cross state lines as a “criminal conspiracy”.“An elected abortion performed in Alabama would be a criminal offense,” Marshall’s office writes. “Thus, a conspiracy formed in the state to have that same act performed outside the state is illegal.” The filing goes on to dismiss the free speech, expression and association claims of the fund and the two clinics.Meanwhile in Texas, two counties and two cities have passed laws banning so-called “abortion trafficking” – that is, the transport or assistance of anyone seeking an abortion – on the roads that pass through their territories. The “trafficking” in this moniker refers to the fetus: “The unborn child is always taken against their will,” Mark Lee Dickson, the architect of these bills, told the Washington Post. Like Texas’s SB 8, the bounty-hunter ban that outlawed abortions in Texas at six weeks before the fall of Roe, these travel bans are also enforced via lawsuits by private citizens – the law is designed to allow those who are displeased by an abortion to sue the friends, feminists and allies of the pregnant patient who helped her to get one.Dickson and his political partner, the SB 8 architect Jonathan Mitchell, are pushing the provision in border cities and towns along major interstate highways. And like SB 8, the law is less likely to be used by strangers to prevent abortions than by abusers to punish ones that already happened. As an example of the ideal use of his bill, Dickson told the Washington Post that a husband who did not want his wife to get an abortion could use it to sue the friend who offered to drive her – thus somewhat giving away the game that the goal of such a provision is to ensure that men’s private domination and abuse of women is recognized as a right enforceable by civil law.Texas and Alabama are not alone. Earlier this year, Idaho became the first state to criminalize abortion-related travel when it enacted a law making it a felony to help a minor cross state lines for an abortion. Meanwhile, Missouri made headlines last year when Republicans introduced bills that would criminalize anyone helping state residents to obtain abortions elsewhere.Is any of this constitutional? No. But that doesn’t mean the laws will be struck down. The novel enforcement mechanism of the Texas laws, in particular, which are enforceable not by the state or municipality but only by the lawsuits of private citizens, make it hard for any pro-choice group to get standing to challenge them. That’s the point: the bills are constructed to evade judicial review. And though Justice Brett Kavanaugh, for one, has said that he would disapprove of anti-choice states’ attempts to prevent women’s travel, the supreme court, including Kavanaugh, has already blessed abortion ban by civil suit with its sanction of SB 8.But the point of these laws is not, exactly, to enforce them, except perhaps in the event when they are used by domestic abusers to further their control and torment of the women they’ve imprisoned – as is already happening. The real point is to chill legal conduct, and to prevent the people, mostly women – the sisters, friends, abortion fund staffers, colleagues and local feminists who any abortion patient might turn to for help – from acting on their own moral convictions.The law is punitive, not preventive: it is designed not to intervene in abortions before they happen so much as to punish them after the fact. It is designed, too, to frighten: the very vagueness of these laws, and the fear of punishments for violating them, will inevitably keep those who would assist an abortion from doing so. The point is to threaten with humiliating, ruinous lawsuits and life-altering criminal prosecutions any woman who might act on her conviction that another woman deserves to control her own body. The point is to punish and declare illegal women’s friendship, confidences and feminist solidarity itself.In their attempts to keep women walled inside anti-choice states, and to criminalize both friendship and flight, the abortion travel bans have been compared to the 19th century’s fugitive slave law. I for one believe that American chattel slavery does not make a good comparison; its horrors fail as metaphor. But one does not need to draw any moral equivalence to see the parallels of the emerging political divide. An untenable conflict is arising between states where women are free to control their bodies and states where they are not, and the latter group is not respecting the laws of the former.The nation cannot sustain this division, and it will not: either abortion will soon become legal nationwide, or it will soon be banned nationwide. For their part, the anti-choice movement seems very confident which direction we’re heading.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      in Elections

      The Contagious Corruption of Ken Paxton

      by

      Let’s talk about leadership again. Last week, I wrote about Vivek Ramaswamy and the power of unprincipled leaders to exploit civic ignorance. This week, I want to address the power of leadership to shape character and the problem of corruption in the era of Trump. And for this discussion, we’ll turn to Texas.A very good thing is belatedly happening in the Lone Star State. Republicans are on the verge not merely of expelling one of their own from office, but of expelling someone with the most impeccable of MAGA credentials. The suspended Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, is facing an impeachment trial in the Texas Senate, and if the early votes are any indication, it’s not going well for him. He’s already lost a number of motions to dismiss the case by margins approximating the two-thirds majority that will be necessary to convict him — and this is an upper chamber that Republicans control 19 to 12.Paxton faces impeachment in large part because seven of his top deputies blew the whistle on him in 2020, claiming that he had engaged in bribery and abuse of office. The charges against Paxton, to which he pleads not guilty, center primarily on his relationship with an investor named Nate Paul. Paxton is accused of providing favors to Paul, including using the power of his office in an attempt to stop foreclosure sales of Paul’s properties, ordering employees not to assist law enforcement investigating Paul and even providing Paul with “highly sensitive information” about an F.B.I. raid on his home.And what did Paxton get in return? Paul reportedly helped Paxton remodel his home and employed Paxton’s mistress. (Paxton’s wife, Angela Paxton, is a Republican state senator who is attending the hearings but is barred from voting on the charges against her husband.)But that’s hardly the complete list of Paxton’s misdeeds. He’s still facing criminal charges — which I’ve long considered questionable — stemming from a 2015 state indictment for securities fraud, and his treatment of the whistle-blowers is also under public scrutiny. Soon after coming forward, every whistle-blower either resigned, was fired or was placed on leave. When they sued for retaliation and improper firing, Paxton attempted to use $3.3 million in taxpayer funds to settle the lawsuit.In addition, following the 2020 election, Paxton filed one of the most outrageous lawsuits in the entire Republican effort to overturn the presidential result. He sued Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, seeking an order preventing those states from voting in the Electoral College. The suit was so transparently specious that Texas’ respected then-solicitor general, Kyle Hawkins — who was appointed to the post by Paxton — refused to add his name to the complaint. The Supreme Court dismissed the case without even granting it a hearing.Naturally, none of these scandals truly hurt Paxton with Texas Republican voters. He won his 2022 primary runoff against George P. Bush by 36 points. He defeated Democrat Rochelle Garza in the general election by 10 points. Texas primary voters — like Republican primary voters in many other states — decided once again that character is irrelevant so long as their candidate fights the right enemies.But that’s not the end of the story. What’s happening now is a Texas-size version of the civil war that rages across the right. Is it possible for Republicans to police their own, or does Paxton’s devotion to Donald Trump and his zealous commitment to the culture wars excuse his misconduct, however egregious? Is it possible for Republicans to potentially start the slow and painful process of healing the G.O.P.?I date my interest in the moral power of leadership back to 1998, when I was shocked that a number of my progressive friends could shrug their shoulders not just at Bill Clinton’s affair with a White House intern (though I could see their argument that his adultery was a personal matter) but also at his dishonesty under oath. The country was at peace and prosperous, they noted. Besides, weren’t Republicans hypocrites? Newt Gingrich was an adulterer. Bob Livingston, the Louisiana Republican and speaker-designate to succeed Gingrich, also confessed to extramarital affairs and stepped down.In the midst of these revelations, the Southern Baptist Convention — the nation’s largest Protestant denomination — gathered at its annual convention in Salt Lake City and tried to make the simple case to the American people that character counts. It passed a resolution on the moral character of public officials containing this memorable line: “Tolerance of serious wrong by leaders sears the conscience of the culture, spawns unrestrained immorality and lawlessness in the society, and surely results in God’s judgment.”Putting aside the words about God’s judgment, I suspect that a broad range of Americans, regardless of faith, would agree with the basic premise: Corruption is contagious.But why? Consider the relationship between leadership and our own self-interest. Most of us belong to organizations of some type, and unless we’re leading the organization, our income, our power and even our respect within the community can depend a great deal on the good will of the men and women who lead us. In very tangible ways, their character creates our path through our careers, our churches and our civic organizations.Thus, if a leader exhibits moral courage and values integrity, then the flawed people in his or her orbit will strive to be the best versions of themselves.But if a leader exhibits cruelty and dishonesty, then those same flawed people will be more apt to yield to their worst temptations. They’ll mimic the values of the people who lead them.Let me use an analogy I’ve used before: Think of a leader as setting the course of a river. It’s always easier to swim with the current. Yes, you can swim against the current for a while, but eventually you’ll exhaust yourself, and you’ll either yield to the current or leave the stream altogether.And what is the moral current of Trumpism? For Donald Trump’s supporters, tactics that would normally be utterly unacceptable on moral grounds instead become urgent priorities. In this moral calculus, Paxton’s absurd lawsuit against Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin isn’t a mark of shame, but rather a badge of honor.Paxton’s aggressive loyalty to Trump, in other words, acts as a form of indulgence that grants him license in his personal and professional life. Paxton’s acknowledged sins, including his affair, are cheap and tawdry. Yet a constellation of Republican stars are rallying to his side, led by Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ted Cruz and Steve Bannon. Because he’s a fighter. He goes to war against the left, and if the age of Trump teaches us anything, it’s that the current of his leadership flows eternally toward conflict and self-interest, consequences be damned.It’s hard to overstate how much this ethos contradicts the Christianity that Paxton purports to proclaim. In fact, scriptures teach that the role of the godly man or woman isn’t to yield to power, but to confront power when that power is corrupt. The mission is to swim against the cultural current. That brings me to one of the most grievous abuses of scripture during the Trump presidency — the constant comparison of Trump to King David.Trump is flawed, his supporters acknowledge. But so was David, they argue, and God blessed David. Scripture calls him a man after God’s own heart. But David’s virtues did not excuse his vices. In one of scripture’s most memorable passages, the prophet Nathan not only directly confronted the king but also declared a harsh judgment for David’s sins. And what was David’s response? Repentance. “I have sinned against the Lord,” he said. He then penned a poignant, penitent psalm. “God, create a clean heart for me,” he begs. “Do not banish me from your presence,” he pleads.Does any of that sound like Donald Trump? Does that bear any resemblance to the religious right in the age of Trump? Of course not. The contagious corruption of a broken president and a broken party has turned the hearts of millions of Christians away from scripture’s clear moral commands. They have chosen not to swim against the tide.But the battle is not lost, not entirely. In Ken Paxton’s office there were people who had the courage to confront their leader. They put their careers on the line to confront Texas’ legal king. And even if Paxton himself doesn’t have the integrity to repent and accept the consequences, there are other Republican leaders who can impose consequences themselves. They can start the process of altering the current of the Republican river, away from corruption and deception and back toward integrity and respect for the rule of law.The trial of Ken Paxton may well be the most important political trial of the year. It is in Austin that the G.O.P. directly confronts the enduring legacy of Donald Trump and asks itself, will we completely remake ourselves in his malign image? Or do we possess enough lingering moral fortitude to resist his leadership and at least begin respecting the truth once again?America needs two healthy political parties, and not just because healthy parties create better policies. Healthy parties create better leaders, and better leaders can help repair the fabric of a party, a nation and a culture that has been torn and frayed by a man who told America that the road to power was paved with mendacity, self-indulgence and conflict. Defeating Trump and his imitators is the first step onto a better path. More