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      The Republican party is abandoning democracy. There can be no ‘politics as usual’ | Thomas Zimmer

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      The Republican party is abandoning democracy. There can be no ‘politics as usual’Thomas ZimmerRepublicans could not be clearer about their cynicism, yet some establishment Democrats act as if politics as usual is still an option Over the past few weeks, President Joe Biden has repeatedly emphasized his friendship with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. At the National Prayer Breakfast in early February, for instance, he praised McConnell as “a man of your word. And you’re a man of honor. Thank you for being my friend.”Biden’s publicly professed affinity is weirdly at odds with the political situation. Going back to the Obama era, McConnell has led the Republican Party in a strategy of near-total obstruction which he has pursued with ruthless cynicism. It is true that he has, at times, signaled distance to Donald Trump and condemned the January 6 insurrection. But McConnell is also sabotaging any effort to counter the Republican party’s ongoing authoritarian assault on the political system.The distinct asymmetry in the way the two sides treat each other extends well beyond Biden and McConnell. Republicans immediately derided Biden’s pledge to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court – while Democratic leaders are hoping for bipartisan support; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insists the nation needs a strong Republican party – meanwhile radicals like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, who fantasize about committing acts of violence against Democrats, are embraced by fellow Republicans, proving they are not just a extremist fringe that has “hijacked” the Party, as Pelosi suggested. And when Texas senator Ted Cruz recently intimated that Republicans would impeach Biden if they were to retake the House “whether it’s justified or not,” the White House responded by calling on Cruz to “work with us on getting something done.” Republicans could not be clearer about the fact that they consider Democratic governance fundamentally illegitimate, yet some establishment Democrats act as if politics as usual is still an option and a return to “normalcy” imminent.There is certainly an element of political strategy in all of this. Democrats are eager to present themselves as a force of moderation and unity. But Biden’s longing for understanding across party lines seems sincere. He has been reluctant to make the fight against the Republican party’s assault on democracy the center piece of his agenda; Democratic leadership has proved mostly unwilling to focus the public’s attention on the Republican party’s authoritarian turn.One important explanatory factor is that many Democratic leaders are old. They came up in a very different political environment, when there was indeed a great deal of bipartisan cooperation in Congress. There is no reason to be nostalgic about this – the politics of bipartisan consensus more often than not stifled racial and social progress. But there was certainly an established norm of intra-party cooperation until quite recently. When California senator Dianne Feinstein hugged South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham at the end of the Amy Coney Barrett hearings in 2020, it was a bizarre throwback to those days of amity across party lines in the midst of a naked Republican power grab.Beyond institutional tradition and personal familiarity, this inability to grapple in earnest with the post-Obama reality in which Democratic politicians are almost universally considered members of an “Un-American” faction by most Republicans has deeper ideological roots. The way some establishment Democrats have acted suggests they feel a kinship with their Republican opponents grounded in a worldview of white elite centrism. Their perspective on the prospect of a white reactionary regime is influenced by the fact that, consciously or not, they understand that their elite status wouldn’t necessarily be affected all that much. The Republican dogma – that the world works best if it’s run by prosperous white folks – has a certain appeal to wealthy white elites, regardless of party.From that vantage point, it is rational to believe that the bigger immediate threat is coming from the “Left”: an agenda seeking to transform America from a restricted, white men’s democracy that largely preserved existing hierarchies to a functioning multiracial, pluralistic, social democracy is indeed a losing proposition for people who have traditionally been at the top. When Biden insists that “I’m not Bernie Sanders. I’m not a socialist”, and instead emphasizes his friendship with Mitch McConnell, he offers more than strategic rhetoric. Many establishment Democrats seem to believe that it is high time to push back against the “radical” forces of leftism and “wokeism.”The constant attempts to normalize a radicalizing Republican Party also have a lot to do with two foundational myths that shape the collective imaginary: the myth of American exceptionalism and the myth of white innocence. We may be decades removed from the heyday of the so-called “liberal consensus” of the postwar era, but much of the country’s Democratic elite still subscribes to an exceptionalist understanding that America is fundamentally good and the US inexorably on its way to overcoming whatever vestigial problems there might still be. This often goes hand in hand with a mythical tale of America’s past, describing democracy as being exceptionally stable. Never mind that genuine multiracial democracy has actually existed for less than 60 years in this country. What could possibly threaten America’s supposedly “old, consolidated” democracy? Acknowledging what the Republican party has become goes against the pillars of that worldview.Finally, the American political discourse is still significantly shaped by the paradigm of white innocence. Economic anxiety, anti-elite backlash, or just liberals being mean – whatever animates white people’s extremism, it must not be racism, and they cannot be blamed for their actions. The dogma of white innocence leads to elite opinion instinctively sanitizing the reasons behind the rise of rightwing demagogues, a common tendency in the commentary surrounding the success of George Wallace in the late 1960s, David Duke in early 1990s, or Donald Trump in 2016. The idea of white innocence also clouds Democratic elites’ perspective on Republican elites: Since they cannot possibly be animated by reactionary white nationalism, they must be motivated by more benign forces, fear of the Trumpian base perhaps, or maybe they are being seduced by the dangerous demagogue.“I actually like Mitch McConnell,” Biden said during a press conference a few weeks ago, providing a window into what he sees in Republicans: No matter what they do, underneath they’re good guys, they’ll snap out of it. Promise. It’s the manifestation of a specific worldview that makes it nearly impossible to acknowledge the depths of Republican radicalization – a perspective that severely hampers the fight for the survival of American democracy.
      Thomas Zimmer is a visiting professor at Georgetown University, focused on the history of democracy and its discontents in the United States, and a Guardian US contributing opinion writer
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionDemocratsRepublicansJoe BidenUS SenateUS CongressHouse of RepresentativescommentReuse this content More

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      Money unites: Republicans and Democrats find rare bipartisanship over trading stocks

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      Money unites: Republicans and Democrats find rare bipartisanship over trading stocksDespite wide public support for banning lawmakers from trading stocks, members of both parties have expressed anxiety about the idea Nancy Pelosi probably did not expect to set off such a firestorm with her use of three words: free market economy.When the House speaker was asked in December whether she supports proposals to ban members and their spouses from trading individual stocks, she said no. “We’re a free market economy,” Pelosi said. “They should be able to participate in that.”But Pelosi’s comment sparked ire among government ethics experts and editorial boards, who argued that lawmakers’ ability to glean information from classified briefings and stakeholder meetings raised the possibility of insider trading.Some critics also noted that Pelosi’s husband, Paul, recently netted a gain of more than $5m from trading stocks of Alphabet, Google’s parent company.In the face of backlash, Pelosi has changed her tune on the stock-trading issue, but her hesitation highlighted an uncomfortable truth about how Congresshas responded to the proposal.Despite wide public support for banning lawmakers from trading stocks, members of both parties have expressed anxiety about the idea: a rare moment of bipartisanship in a divided America, but one whose subject – stock-trading politicians – is unlikely to please many voters.Government watchdog groups warn that if Congress fails to act on this issue, it will only intensify many Americans’ concern over how money has tainted their country’s political institutions.The debate over banning members’ stock-trading has been reinvigorated in recent months, after a string of high-profile controversies at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. In February 2020, Republican senator Richard Burr sold hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stock before the market suffered a severe setback the next month. While he was overseeing those valuable stock trades, Burr was also publicly downplaying the threat of the virus. The justice department investigated Burr and three of his Senate colleagues – Republicans Kelly Loeffler and James Inhofe and Democrat Dianne Feinstein – for possible insider trading, but ultimately no charges were filed.In response to the outcry over those controversies, both Democrats and Republicans have proposed bills to crack down on members’ stock-trading. One bill, introduced by Democratic senators Jon Ossoff and Mark Kelly, would require members, their spouses and their dependent children to place their stock portfolios in a blind trust controlled by an outside party. Republican senator Josh Hawley has proposed a similar bill, although his legislation does not cover dependent children and would not fine members’ salaries for violations, as the Ossoff-Kelly bill would.Over in the House, Democrat Abigail Spanberger and Republican Chip Roy have introduced a similar bill to the Ossoff-Kelly proposal, and more than 50 members have signed on as co-sponsors to the separate Ban Conflicted Trading Act. That bill, which was first introduced by Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi, would ban members and senior congressional staffers from trading individual stocks.“It has really gotten to a point where it’s getting a little bit too difficult for the rest of Congress to ignore,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a co-sponsor of Krishnamoorthi’s bill, said at a town hall on Tuesday. “The fact of the matter is, we shouldn’t be able to day-trade the companies whose regulation and whose hearings and whose industries and business is before Congress.”A majority of Americans agree with her. According to a January poll from the progressive firm Data for Progress, 67% of US voters say lawmakers should be banned from trading stocks. Another recent survey, conducted by the conservative advocacy group Convention of States Action, found that 76% of voters believe lawmakers and their spouses have an “unfair advantage” in the stock market.It is illegal for members of Congress, or any American, to engage in insider trading. However, insider trading is very difficult to prove, so in 2012, Congress passed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (Stock) Act to address concerns about lawmakers’ financial activities. The law prohibits members from using information gained through work for their own personal profit, and it requires them to disclose stock trades within 45 days.Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have pointed to the existing legislation to argue against banning members from trading stocks. Republican congressman Pete Sessions has described a ban as unnecessary, while one of his Democratic colleagues, Elaine Luria, attacked the proposal as “bullshit”.“Why would you assume that members of Congress are going to be inherently bad or corrupt? We already have the Stock Act that requires people to report stock trades,” Luria told Punchbowl News earlier this month. “So I’m very strongly opposed to any legislation like that.”Advocates for a stock-trading ban were quick to note that Luria and her husband own millions of dollars worth of stocks in Facebook, Netflix and Apple, among other companies.“Honestly, the stock trades by members of Congress just smell bad … Regardless of which party is doing it, it just doesn’t look good,” said RL Miller, the political director of Climate Hawks Vote. Responding to Luria’s comments specifically, Miller added: “Members of Congress expecting that they don’t prioritize companies in which they’re invested is bullshit.”Miller’s group was one of 18 progressive organizations that signed on to a letter urging Congress to hold a hearing on banning stock trades, arguing that the Stock Act and other existing laws “have not served as a sufficient deterrent to this problem”.Enforcement of the Stock Act also appears to have been spotty at best over the past 10 years. No one has ever been prosecuted under the law, and an investigation by Business Insider found that at least 55 members of Congress and 182 senior congressional staffers were late in filing their stock trades in 2020 and 2021. A late filing is supposed to be punished with a $200 fine that increases with subsequent offenses, but Congress does not keep any public record of such fines, and it’s unclear how often they are collected.“The teeth behind the Stock Act are basically non-existent,” said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, government affairs manager at the Project on Government Oversight. “We’re seeing that reporting and disclosure do not actually act as any kind of a deterrent to doing things that look, at the very least, pretty sketchy.”Government watchdog groups also argue that the Stock Act is now somewhat outdated. They say the legislation does not properly account for how lawmakers can use the 24-hour news cycle and social media platforms to affect markets and specific companies’ share prices.“We have seen countless examples of how members – not just as a body but individual members – can influence the stock market with a range of tools at their disposal,” said Donald Sherman, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “Now we’re at a place in history and on the Hill where an individual member of Congress can influence the stock price with a tweet.”Groups like Crew are hopeful that the momentum for passing a stock-trading ban will soon translate into congressional action. Despite her initial reluctance, Pelosi has now adopted a more open-minded tone about the proposals, and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, has said the upper chamber should address the issue.“I think this is sort of an easy win that will have a very positive impact on policy-making and on public-facing democracy,” Sherman said.The enactment of a stock-trading ban could have the additional benefit of boosting the public’s opinion of Congress, which has suffered in recent years. According to Gallup’s January polling, only 18% of Americans approve of how Congress is handling its job. Advocates for the proposed stock-trading ban say the policy would bolster public confidence in one of America’s most important political institutions.“Anything that can restore Americans’ trust in Congress is a good thing,” Miller said. “This would help rebut that appearance of double-dealing and go a long way toward restoring Americans’ trust in their leadership.”For those members who are hesitant to give up their stocks, Hedtler-Gaudette suggested they should reconsider their chosen career.“To become a member of Congress is an extraordinarily prestigious thing. But it is not compulsory,” Hedtler-Gaudette said. “There are a number of sacrifices that you have to make to run for office … If this is a problem, then you are not required to run for Congress.”TopicsUS politicsUS CongressDemocratsRepublicansNancy PelosiStock marketsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Campaigning AOC electrifies crowds as Democrats fear brutal midterms

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      Campaigning AOC electrifies crowds as Democrats fear brutal midterms Congresswoman has been a boon to progressive candidates in Texas while party grapples with rift in WashingtonHolding a gold microphone and wearing a seafoam-green pantsuit, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez energized the San Antonio crowd with her vision for flipping the state of Texas to Democratic control.“It will happen,” Ocasio-Cortez said at a rally earlier this month. “The only question is when, Texas.”As the crowd cheered, she added: “The work that you put in today, the work that you put in tomorrow, the work that you put in on Monday – when you go one more door when you’re tired, when you make one more call when you feel exhausted, you’re bringing that day one day sooner.”The progressives in the audience roared in response, hanging on to her every word.“Texas will turn blue,” @AOC says to the crowd as they cheer her on. “It’s inevitable!” pic.twitter.com/YZBJHCbx1n— Priscilla Aguirre (@CillaAguirre) February 12, 2022
      Four years after bursting on to the national political stage with a shocking primary victory over a long-serving House Democrat, Ocasio-Cortez is using her substantial political influence to promote progressive candidates and policies. Ocasio-Cortez’s first campaign in 2018 was largely dismissed as a pipe dream, but the leftwing New York congresswoman is now impossible to ignore.Just this month, the New Yorker interviewed Ocasio-Cortez about the fight for voting rights and her role as a progressive icon, while the editors of New York magazine are releasing a book documenting her rapid rise in Democratic politics. As she makes headlines, Ocasio-Cortez has continued to use her massive social media following and her significant campaign war chest to advance her leftist policy agenda.AOC calls Tucker Carlson ‘trash’ for saying she is not a woman of colourRead moreWith Democrats bracing for a potentially disastrous midterm season, the congresswoman’s actions on the campaign trail and on Capitol Hill make it clear that she will continue to be a dominant force for the progressive movement. There seems to be no question now: AOC is here to stay.On the trailOcasio-Cortez travelled to Texas this month to campaign for two of the progressive candidates she has endorsed this election cycle, Jessica Cisneros and Greg Casar. Since her first victory in 2018, Ocasio-Cortez has used her celebrity status to help other progressives attract voters and raise money, which she has a unique talent for. During the 2020 cycle, her campaign committee raised more than $20m.“Having her there on stage with you, it just is an amazing experience,” said James Thompson, a former congressional candidate who held a 2018 rally with Ocasio-Cortez in Wichita, Kansas. “The immediate impact on my campaign was fundraising. We raised a substantial amount of money off of the rally that we had here. It really energized the people.”An endorsement from Ocasio-Cortez has the ability to immediately elevate a progressive candidate’s campaign, and the congresswoman does not limit herself to open-seat races. In the four years since she won her own primary against the then congressman Joe Crowley, Ocasio-Cortez has endorsed a number of candidates who are challenging sitting lawmakers. Cisneros, for example, is attempting to defeat Henry Cuellar, a Democrat who has served in the House since 2005.“AOC endorses more primary challengers to incumbents than pretty much anyone who is a current incumbent in Congress,” said Waleed Shahid, a spokesperson for Justice Democrats, which backed Ocasio-Cortez’s first campaign. “I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that she was the primary challenger to an incumbent, so she knows personally how difficult it is to get support for something that requires that level of courage.”But Ocasio-Cortez’s willingness to openly oppose Democratic incumbents has rankled some of her House colleagues who have been on the receiving end of her criticism.“This election is taking place in the 28th congressional District of Texas – not New York City,” Cuellar’s campaign said in a statement ahead of Ocasio-Cortez’s rallies in San Antonio and Austin. “The voters will decide this election, not far-left celebrities who stand for defunding the police, open borders, eliminating oil & gas jobs, and raising taxes on hard working Texans. Members should take care of their own district before taking failed ideas to South Texas.”Ocasio-Cortez’s rallies in Texas also displayed her singular ability to enrage her Republican critics, who swiftly denounced her suggestion that the traditionally conservative state would inevitably move to the left.“If AOC thinks for a moment that Texans will fall for her whacked-out, woke, socialist idiocy, she doesn’t know Texas,” said Dan Patrick, the state’s lieutenant governor. But to Ocasio-Cortez’s many admirers, her frequent clashes with Democrats and Republicans alike have set an example for a new kind of politics.“She’s been an inspiration, I think, to a lot of people,” Thompson said. “Now, I think that scares the hell out of the Democratic party though, too, because we’re bucking the establishment and saying, ‘Look, we want you to represent the people, not just party interest.’”In the halls of CongressOcasio-Cortez’s willingness to clash with members of her party extends beyond the campaign trail to her work in Congress.Earlier this month, she pursued the bold strategy of trying to force a vote on a bill to ban members of Congress from trading stocks. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, had voiced opposition to the proposed ban, and Ocasio-Cortez’s tactics seemed aimed at forcing the hand of Democratic leadership. (Pelosi has since struck a more open-minded tone about the ban on members’ stock-trading.)Ocasio-Cortez has also been unafraid to criticize some of her centrist colleagues who have attacked progressive policy proposals. On Friday, after Axios published a report suggesting moderate Democrats blamed the party’s falling polling numbers on progressives and their support for the “defund the police” movement, Ocasio-Cortez hit back over Twitter.She argued the real reason behind Democrats’ bleak prospects in the midterm elections was the party’s failure to pass the Build Back Better Act, the $1.75tn spending package at the heart of Joe Biden’s economic agenda. Ocasio-Cortez accused her centrist colleagues of tanking the legislation by allowing the bipartisan infrastructure bill to pass on its own, leaving Democrats with nothing to campaign on.“They don’t know how to accept responsibility so are lazily blaming the same folks they always do,” Ocasio-Cortez said.Rahna Epting, the executive director of the progressive group MoveOn, similarly dismissed claims that Ocasio-Cortez and her allies are dragging down Democrats’ electoral prospects as “utter nonsense”.“Members of Congress of the progressive flank have raised expectations on Democrats broadly to deliver and prioritize people over profits. There is nothing wrong with that,” Epting said. “What Democrats need to do is to stop the infighting.”Epting, whose group was one of the only progressive organizations to endorse Ocasio-Cortez during her 2018 primary battle, praised the congresswoman for using her platform to advocate for important issues including student debt relief and the climate crisis.“AOC’s superpower is to expose and shed light on corruption and injustices that have been longstanding,” Epting said. “I think she has been one of the most electrifying members of Congress, probably in the history of the United States. And she’s a true champion for people.”But Ocasio-Cortez will be the first to admit that her hopes of enacting meaningful progressive policies have suffered setbacks in recent months. Build Back Better remains stalled in the Senate because of Democrat Joe Manchin’s opposition, and the party has failed to enact national voting rights legislation.Instead of bemoaning congressional inaction, though, Ocasio-Cortez has urged patience.“We have a culture of immediate gratification where if you do something and it doesn’t pay off right away, we think it’s pointless,” she told the New Yorker. “There is no movement, there is no effort, there is no unionizing, there is no fight for the vote, there is no resistance to draconian abortion laws, if people think that the future is baked in and nothing is possible and that we’re doomed.”Thompson has seen the long-term impact of Ocasio-Cortez’s work for himself. He lost his 2018 race, but since then, the politics of Wichita have shifted. Democrats now make up a majority of the Wichita city council, when they previously only held one of seven seats.“Even though I didn’t win, her coming really energized our local Democrats in our community,” Thompson said. “It made us realize that look, we’re not alone. And we can do something when we come together.”TopicsAlexandria Ocasio-CortezDemocratsUS politicsUS CongressfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Britney Spears invited to US Congress to discuss conservatorship legal battle

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      Britney Spears invited to US Congress to discuss conservatorship legal battleSinger shares letter from Congressmen Charlie Crist and Eric Swalwell on Instagram, saying she was ‘immediately flattered’ The singer Britney Spears has shared a letter she received from two members of the US House of Representatives inviting her to Congress to talk about her long-running legal battle over her conservatorship that ended with victory in November.“I was immediately flattered and at the time I wasn’t nearly at the healing stage I’m in now,” Spears, 41, said in the Instagram post about the letter she received in December from Congressmen Charlie Crist of Florida and Eric Swalwell of California.Britney Spears reveals conservatorship has left her scared of music businessRead more“I’m grateful that my story was acknowledged. Because of the letter, I felt heard and like I mattered for the first time in my life!!! In a world where your own family goes against you, it’s actually hard to find people that get it and show empathy.”The letter conveyed Crist and Swalwell’s congratulations to Spears and her attorney Mathew Rosengart for winning the case that ended the conservatorship of the singer’s affairs, which lasted for almost 14 years and was mostly under the direction of her father, Jamie.In an interview following her courtroom victory in December, Spears said the entire affair had left her “scared” of the music business.The House representatives said they were troubled that “for years you were unable to hire your own counsel to represent your personal and financial interests”, among other issues, and invited Spears to Congress to speak about her “empowering” story and for them to learn more of “the emotional and financial turmoil you faced within the conservatorship system”.In her post, Spears thanked the congressmen for the invitation but did not indicate if she intended to take it up.“I want to help others in vulnerable situations, take life by the balls and be brave. I wish I would have been,” she said.“Nothing is worse than your own family doing what they did to me. I’m lucky to have a small circle of adorable friends who I can count on. In the meantime thank you to Congress for inviting me to the White House [sic].”An apparently starstruck Crist responded to Spears’ post in a short video clip of his own, released on Thursday morning.“I wanted to thank Britney Spears for sharing on social media about the conservatorship and the letter that I and Eric Swalwell wrote to her to make sure she understood what was going on,” Crist said.“I’m so happy for her, glad that her conservatorship was resolved. God bless her.”Despite winning back control of her affairs, Spears is still embroiled in disputes with her family.She has threatened legal action against her sister Jamie Lynn for a tell-all book she claims contains “misleading or outrageous claims” and is “potentially unlawful and defamatory”. And in January she made new allegations of financial impropriety against her father in response to his insistence she pay his legal bills.TopicsBritney SpearsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Thanks to new congressional maps, most Americans’ votes won’t matter

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      Thanks to new congressional maps, most Americans’ votes won’t matterAs many as 94% of representatives may be running in safe districts, fueling polarization as candidates play to their bases Hello and happy Thursday,The most fundamental concept in American government is that all politicians are accountable to the people. Constituents accept laws shaped by the people they vote for, knowing that they have the power to eventually vote them out of office if they disagree.But when it comes to the US House of Representatives, this pillar of democracy is crumbling. An overwhelming majority of seats in the US House are becoming non-competitive. That means that when voters show up at the polls in November to vote for their candidates, the contests will already be decided. Their votes won’t matter.It felt strange writing that as the opening to a story we published last weekend exploring the decline of competitive congressional seats. How could voters’ choices not matter in an American election? But academics, analysts and other experts say the trend is undeniable.America faces greater division as parties draw safe seats for congressional districtsRead moreJust 27 of the 335 congressional districts that have been drawn so far as part of the redistricting process are considered competitive – meaning either party has less than a five-point advantage – according to FiveThirtyEight. Dave Wasserman, an elections expert for the non-partisan Cook Political Report, told me he expects there to be 30 to 35 competitive seats in total once states finish drawing all 435 district boundaries. That means that as many as 94% of representatives would be running in relatively safe seats – a figure that astonished me.Why is this happening? Some of the decline in competitive seats is due to natural geographic clustering of likeminded voters. That clumping means that when states draw new lines, it’s harder to draw competitive districts. In 2012, there were 66 competitive districts, Wasserman noted. By 2020, under the same set of lines, there were 51.But politicians are undoubtedly accelerating the decline in competition by distorting district lines to their advantage. As redistricting has unfolded this year, elected officials made aggressive efforts to change district lines to shore up incumbents, locking in their seats for several more years. The clearest example of this happened in Texas, where Republicans, who have complete control over the redistricting process, reduced the number of competitive districts from 12 to one .The decline in competition has huge consequences. No longer worried about a general election, politicians become more worried about fending off challengers in a party primary. That disincentivizes bipartisan compromise and incentivizes playing to their party’s base.“This will further increase polarization … it’s also a reflection of polarization, but it’ll also entrench polarization more deeply,” Richard Pildes, a law professor at New York University, told me. “They will do even more of what we know they already do, which is tack to the more extreme wings in order to try and fight off potential primary challengers to protect themselves on that flank.”The lack of competition can have consequences beyond congressional races, said Amanda Litman, the co-founder and executive director of Run for Something, which focuses on down-ballot contests. She noted that the Democratic party focuses its resources in battleground states where there are competitive congressional districts. Fewer competitive districts, she said, would mean fewer resources.“The fewer competitive elections there are, the fewer places that will be able to have concentrated effort and intentionality around [races],” she told me.Thinking about competitive districts also caused me to rethink what constituted a “fair” electoral map. A state that is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans – with 10 congressional districts, for example – could draw five safe Republican districts and five safe Democratic ones. Would that map be fair? Would it be fairer than one that has three safe districts for each party and four competitive districts?I posed this question to Pildes. He said that politicians tended to favor the former approach.“One reason parties don’t like competitive seats is that if the districts are all 3% to 4% predicted to go in one particular direction, they can all flip in a single election. Whereas if they’re plus-nine for one party, a three-point shift isn’t gonna do anything,” he said.“The value of competitive districts gets sort of short shrift in the political process because there’s not a lot of political self-interest in creating competitive districts.”Also worth watching …
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      Amy Weirich, a Tennessee prosecutor, defended a six-year prison sentence for Pamela Moses, who tried to register to vote while ineligible.
      A federal judge blocked a portion of a new Texas law that made it a crime for election officials to solicit mail-in ballots. Texas is appealing the ruling.
      Florida Republicans are considering adopting a new measure that would make it harder to vote by mail, potentially causing headaches for at least 400,000 voters in the state.
      TopicsUS CongressFight to voteUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More