Tracking Anti-Trans Bills | Erin Reed | TMR

Snips And Bits

(Just under an hour, so more than a snip or a bit, but it’s not only necessary, it’s fascinating. Or else I’m just that big a geek.)

How Angela Davis Predicted The Modern Face Of Fascism in 1971

Fifty years prior to rumors of fascism circling President Trump, activist and philosopher Angela Davis made a spooky prediction about dictatorship in the U.S.

By Phenix S Halley

President Donald Trump’s administration continues to stand on shaky ground amid bombshell resignations and rumors of a dictatorship brewing. But in the midst of these unprecedented times, one Black political activist’s warning could offer a shocking reality for Americans… even if the message came 55 years earlier.

Trump’s return to the White House was met with fierce criticism from leaders like former Vice President Kamala Harris and his own former chief of staff, John Kelly, who explicitly declared that Trump fits “into the general definition of fascist.” But while terms like “fascist” and “dictator” have found a comfortable place in American politics today, activists like Angela Davis were among the loudest opponents of fascism nearly six decades ago.

By the 1970s, the Cold War against the Soviet Union revamped fears of a possible fascist regime in the States– notably from many Black Panthers. While awaiting trial for murder, Davis spoke with filmmaker Peter Davis about the likelihood that America would be ruled by a dictator.

“We are closer to fascism than we’ve ever been before,” Davis said from a California prison in 1971. But while the political activist stopped short of declaring fascism had officially made its mark in the U.S. then, her scary prediction has arguably taken a new light in 2026. (SNIP-click the title to read the rest; it’s not at all long)

Peace & Justice History On Elton John’s Birthday

I made a big production on Elton’s birthday last year, and it sort of fell flat. So just know that March 25th is Elton’s birthday, and he’s still standing. Click the links and enjoy. And now some Peace & Justice History.

From My DPA Email, Info On Anti-Execution Hunger Striking in Iran

No bombs, no warships, no solid food on Tuesdays before executions on Wednesdays. Even while being bombed and threatened with warships.

113th Week of the “No to Execution Tuesdays” Campaign in 56 Prisons Across Iran

March 24, 2026

Political prisoners in 56 different prisons across the country continued their hunger strike in the 113th week of the “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign. Members of this campaign, while condemning the widespread and arbitrary executions, particularly the execution of several protesters on the eve of Nowruz, called these actions an attempt by the regime to instill fear and terror in society. The striking prisoners, warning about the dire conditions of the prisons and the risk of execution for recent detainees in the shadow of communication blackouts, called upon the international community and human rights organizations to increase pressure on the Iranian regime to halt these sentences and secure the release of political prisoners.

Please find the full text of the statement by the “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign below:

Continuation of the “No to Execution Tuesdays” Campaign in its 113th Week in 56 Different Prisons

The “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign congratulates the general public of Iran, and especially the families of those who lost their lives in the Dey [January] 1404 uprising and all the executed individuals of the past year who were massacred by the despotic and repressive “Velayat-e Faqih” regime, on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr and Nowruz 1405. We express our utmost thanks and appreciation to all individuals, teachers’ trade syndicates, retirees, workers, and families of those sentenced to death, as well as independent media and all those who served as the voice for death row inmates, and we hope that the year 1405 will be the year of Iran’s freedom—an Iran without torture and executions.

The execution regime has hanged over 2,650 of our compatriots in various parts of the country over the past year. Cruelly, on the eve of Nowruz, it executed three brave youths named Mehdi Ghasemi, Saeed Davoudi, and Saleh Mohammadi, who had been arrested during the Dey [January] protests, in Qom, and hanged another prisoner named Kourosh Keyvani on charges of espionage in Karaj Central Prison.

We, the members of the “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign, while condemning the arbitrary and brutal executions carried out with the aim of creating fear and terror in society, call upon the United Nations, various countries, and human rights organizations to exert pressure on the Iranian regime so that the minimum rights of prisoners are respected. This is particularly crucial for those prisoners who have been arrested in recent months and are enduring torture in the midst of media silence and internet blackouts, facing the risk of death sentences; we also demand the release of political prisoners. Especially under the conditions of bombardments, the lives of prisoners are exposed to a double threat, and many prisoners are suffering from a lack of food and medical care. In the past week, dozens of prisoners in Chabahar Prison were killed and wounded by prison guards due to their protests against the lack of food supplies.

It should be noted that over the past two weeks, the statement of this campaign (Weeks 111 and 112) was not published due to communication blackouts.

The “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign in its 113th week is on hunger strike in the following 56 prisons:

Evin Prison (Women’s and Men’s Wards), Ghezel Hesar Prison (Units 2, 3, and 4), Karaj Central Prison, Karaj Fardis Prison, Greater Tehran Prison, Qarchak Prison, Khorin Prison of Varamin, Choubindar Prison of Qazvin, Ahar Prison, Arak Prison, Langarud Prison of Qom, Khorramabad Prison, Borujerd Prison, Yasuj Prison, Asadabad Prison of Isfahan, Dastgerd Prison of Isfahan, Sheiban Prison of Ahvaz, Sepidar Prison of Ahvaz (Women’s and Men’s Wards), Nezam Prison of Shiraz, Adelabad Prison of Shiraz (Women’s and Men’s Wards), Firuzabad Prison of Fars, Dehdasht Prison, Zahedan Prison (Women’s and Men’s Wards), Borazjan Prison, Ramhormoz Prison, Behbahan Prison, Bam Prison, Yazd Prison (Women’s and Men’s Wards), Kahnuj Prison, Tabas Prison, Birjand Central Prison, Mashhad Prison, Gorgan Prison, Sabzevar Prison, Gonbad-e Kavus Prison, Qaemshahr Prison, Rasht Prison (Men’s and Women’s Wards), Rudsar Prison, Haviq Prison of Talesh, Azbaram Prison of Lahijan, Dizelabad Prison of Kermanshah, Ardabil Prison, Tabriz Prison, Urmia Prison, Salmas Prison, Khoy Prison, Naqadeh Prison, Miandoab Prison, Mahabad Prison, Bukan Prison, Saqqez Prison, Baneh Prison, Marivan Prison, Sanandaj Prison, Kamyaran Prison, and Ilam Prison.

Week 113

Tuesday, 4 Farvardin 1404

#No_to_Execution_Tuesdays_Campaign

Some clips from The Majority Report. A personal note. And grateful thanks.

Hi Everyone. Sorry for no posts except from my phone and later from my tablet which I have to carry a backup power supply and cord with me now to doctors appointments as my old pad has a battery life of less than 10 minutes. A new Ipad is not a priority for our money right now even the cheapest one. Ron needs heart surgery, Ron needs cataract surgery, I need both new glasses and cataract surgery, and the van still has an oil leak. Plus Kamyk has basicly given up and slipped into depression. He had an apartment open up that he needed first/ last / and security for which came to $900 a month. It was government-subsidized housing. But because he is in long term care now the nursing home took all his SSI, leaving him with no money. Plus he no longer gets physcial therapy so he is slowly losing the ability to walk again. His sister started a go fund me but he forbade her to tell me about it. He felt we had all done too much for him and did not want me or you people to think he was trying to milk us or be greedy.

In a way I am glad he did not tell me until it was too late because I worry that as he can’t walk well, doesn’t drive, and did not know how long it will take to get his SSI back, that he wouldn’t be able to care for himself and so would be homeless in two months. The nursing home he is in is really nice compared to the last one which was abusing him emotionally, physically, and even sexually because the nurses decided he needed Jesus in his life and he rejected that being forced on him. So they were going to abuse him until he relented and came to their Jesus. This one gives him his medications on time, changes his ostomy bag or helps him do it, and they have been nice / kind to him. I understand his frustrations having to share a room with another person and basicly having no privacy but… the US government / wealthy don’t care about people in a land where profit is king.

I got up at 4:20 to feed the cat who when he thinks he needs food howls to get one of us up. I decided to stay up and watch the recorded news that I did not get to watch yesterday. I was not well at all yesterday, highly stressed which has been the situation for a while. My doctors were clear and Ron reminded me that my body breaks down under stress, and I am to be under as little stress as possible. That is not possible and has not been for a while. When I woke yesterday it was already much later than normal for me. Ron said he could tell I was having a bad night, I was highly agitated. I had gotten up at 2 am with a huge contracture, a “cramp” in the large side muscle in the upper part of the leg. I managed to get out of bed but couldn’t straighten out my leg. I spent 30 minutes moving around the bed holding on to the dresser and the end of the bed, leaning over to put weight on the leg, then removing it. Eventally I got it to touch the floor and hold some weight so I limped to my office and got a cane, then went to the bathroom which was a critical need by then. Ron never woke up and was upset I did not wake him. Not much he could do that I did not know to do myself.

When I got up with Ron at 7 I still couldn’t move or use the leg which was being electrified from the knee down, I couldn’t bend the leg due to the muscle still hurting from the cramp. I was swinging the leg forward and walking “peg legged” with a cane. Ron realized something was wrong and had me take my blood pressure and pulse. My blood pressure was extremely high. My pulse was also far too high. So high he asked me to take another dose of my blood pressure and heart rate medications. Ron had me sitting and checking it every ten minutes. It was not coming down and the first news show I started watching made it worse. So as I as them recorded I went back to bed until noon.

The reason for so much stress is Ron. He had his new medication Saturday that opens the arteries so he was better Sunday, but all day friday and Saturday I had to watch him and deal with him. He was exstrememly forgetful, unable to work his computer, he would sit in his recliner and fall asleep even during a conversation. He has bad sleep apnea and so he has to have his CPAP machine anytime he goes to sleep. But even in the bed he was forgetting to put it on until reminded. I offered to move it out to his chair but he would promise not to fall asleep as he just wanted to watch a few things on TV, 2 minutes later he was asleep. I would make him go to bed and I stay there until he had his CPAP on. I don’t dare let him drive like this so I am doing all the driving and shopping now. I am doing the dishes so he doesn’t exsert himself and the last time he washed the dishes he put everything away in the worng drawers not even realizing he was doing it. So yesterday afternoon while he slept I did the dishes. He cooked a porkloin last night so I have a bunch of dishes to do when I get home. I did pick everything up and rinsed everything off / out so it should be easier than it could have been.

I have a doctor’s appointment this morning and I have to go with Ron as you can see to his new heart surgeon on Wednesday morning, which I have to look up and see where he is. I am tired people. I went to bed at 5 yesterday but kept getting up to check on Ron as he was in his recliner and I wanted to make sure he was not sleeping. Care of the cat has totally fallen to me now. I asked him if he could clean the cat litter box before he came to bed. He assured me he would so I went to bed. And he did not do it as he forgot. I did it when I woke up. Randy is sick after just having surgery, his parents are both sick / ill. Ron is teetering with the same thing that killed his brother-in-law. And I am worried and scared.

When I get the dishes done today I will try to get to the wonderful comments and reply to somethings Ali posted which I appreciate. Ali has really stepped up and is posting more to give everyone something on the blog to read and engage in. I can’t say how much I am grateful for that. Got to go. Hugs

Joyce Vance Takes Us Into

The Week Ahead

March 22, 2026

Joyce Vance

On Monday, March 23, 2026, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Watson v. Republican National Committee. It’s one of, if not the most important, cases in front of the Court this term.

Conservatives have long maintained that federal laws that refer to an election “day” trump state laws that permit mail-in ballots to count, even if they are received later, so long as they are postmarked by election day. They rely on provisions like 2 U.S.C. § 7 that provide that “The Tuesday next after the 1st Monday in November, in every even numbered year, is established as the day for the election, in each of the States and Territories of the United States.” Mississippi is one of the states that allows ballots cast and postmarked by election day but received by election officials shortly thereafter to count.

Mississippi is, oddly enough, defending its law, which allows a five-day grace period for ballots to arrive, against the attack from the Republican Party. The district court ruled in the state’s favor, holding that the election “day” established by Congress was intended to prevent elections from spanning several days, which would be cumbersome to administer and could result in undue influence from early results. The Judge held that allowing time for the Post Office to deliver ballots postmarked by Election Day does not implicate those concerns.

The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed. They held that Congress established an election “day,” and all ballots must be cast and received then. They relied on the Constitution’s Elections Clause, Article I, Section 4, Clause 1. It reads: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” The appellate court reasoned that a ballot is “cast” when the state “takes custody of it.” Five judges dissented from the en banc decision.

In defending its position, the state argues that federal law only requires that voters cast their ballots by Election Day; it does not require that election officials receive them that same day. The National Council for State Legislatures, a nonpartisan organization, reports that “Mississippi is one of 16 states, plus Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Washington, D.C., that currently accept and count mailed ballots from any voter received after Election Day but postmarked on or before (sometimes only before) Election Day.” In addition, 29 states, including Mississippi, accept ballots from military and overseas voters sent before or on Election Day but received after, under certain circumstances.” Members of the military who are stationed away from their homes are among those whose ballots take advantage of the safe harbor.

Then on Tuesday, the Court takes up Noem v. Al Otro Lado, where the issue is whether the government can systematically turn back asylum seekers before they arrive at the border and make their asylum requests. Immigrants can request asylum when they arrive at or are physically present in the U.S. That request triggers asylum proceedings. In 2017, the Trump administration began using CBP officers to turn away immigrants who did not have valid travel documents before they reached the border and could apply for asylum.

When the case made its way to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the court rejected the government’s efforts to circumvent asylum proceedings. The three-judge panel held that people who were turned away from entering the country before they could present themselves to apply for asylum had “arrived in” the country once officials, on either side of that border, made contact with them. The full court declined the government’s request to reconsider that decision en banc; there was a 12-judge dissent from that denial of en banc, arguing for 126 pages that U.S. law could not be applied outside of the United States and that “aliens in Mexico” were not in the U.S.

The Solicitor General has asked the Supreme Court to adopt the dissent’s view. He also relies on a case called Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, where the Court ruled 27 years ago that Haitian refugees trying to reach the U.S. were not protected by immigration law when they were intercepted at sea before reaching the U.S. The Court held that the President had the power to deploy the Coast Guard to repatriate “undocumented aliens” intercepted on the high seas.

The case is in an unusual posture because DHS has discontinued “metering,” as the practice of intercepting asylum seekers before they reach the U.S. border with Mexico is called, during the Biden administration. But the Solicitor General is arguing that the government “seeks to retain the option of reviving the practice” if it is needed in the future, a rare move by the Trump administration to ask for permission first. The rule the government is advocating for could lead to desperate scrambles to cross the border in dangerous conditions by people who would otherwise be denied their lawful right to seek asylum. On Tuesday, we’ll learn how many votes there are on the Court to permit that.

Other developments to watch for this week include:

A hearing on Anthropic’s request for a preliminary injunction, in its lawsuit against the Department of Defense’s sudden rejection of the AI company when it drew a red line prohibiting the use of its models for fully autonomous weapons or domestic mass surveillance. We discussed the lawsuit when it was filed.
Following a delay from last week, former Venezuelan president Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are expected in court on Thursday in the Southern District of New York. As we discussed a week ago, prosecutors say Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela and hasn’t been considered by the U.S. to be so for several years, and therefore may not use Venezuelan government monies to fund their defense. Maduro and Flores’ lawyers argue that the laws and traditions of the country permit it.
Friday, federal district Judge J.P. Boulee will hold a hearing in Atlanta in the election records seizure case. We discussed that here last week, when he set the date.
Also on Friday, legal papers are due for Epstein survivors’ proposed settlement with Bank of America. Reuters reports that “Lawyers for both sides are scheduled to submit legal papers about the ⁠settlement by March 27, and the judge scheduled a court hearing for April 2 to consider approving the deal.”

It’s going to be a busy week.

We’re in this together,

Joyce

A Little MidAfternoon Sumpin’-

Clown Show

Ronald McDonald, Jr.

Frosty McGillicuddy

The madman whose first name is Donald

Wants to dress up like Ronald McDonald

But he’s too fat to fit

An obese monstrous twit

For this we can blame Mitch McConnell.

McConnell, he should have impeached

And the fat fetid douche would be beached

But Mitch, he’s so bad

A coward, a cad

And the rest of us now have been leeched!

A Princeton Boycott:

Op-Ed: Princeton Kicked a Trans Runner Off the Track. Now Athletes Are Organizing A Boycott

The alleged targeting of transgender runners at non-professional events marks an alarming escalation.

Lavender Sound (Max Freedman)

Editors Note: The following article is an Op-Ed submitted by Max Freedman. Max Freedman is a journalist covering LGBTQ+ topics, primarily but not entirely politics and music, from Philadelphia, PA.

When transgender runner Sadie Schreiner was allegedly removed from the heat sheet at Princeton University’s May 3, 2025 Larry Ellis Invitational track meet simply for being transgender, she sued the university and accused it of discrimination—and she’s not the only transgender runner taking action. Winter Parts, a well-known transgender running advocate, is organizing a boycott of Princeton’s two spring 2026 track meets, the Sam Howell Invitational on April 4 and the Larry Ellis Invitational on May 1.

“I want to see [the Larry Ellis Invitational organizers] face visible consequences for excluding someone from their meet,” Parts said. “My hope is that a lot of [athletes boycott]. I think it would send a strong financial and visual message to the Princeton officials if they’re going through the effort of trying to put on this meet, and nobody wants to show up because everyone’s upset with how they treated Sadie.” Notably, Parts doesn’t personally know Schreiner—who ran as “unattached” at the 2025 Larry Ellis Invitational, meaning unaffiliated with a running club or university track and field team but eligible to participate based on prior official race times—but was moved to take action nonetheless.

Although excluding transgender runners is, unacceptably and despicably, par for the course these days at professional running events—current NCAA and USA Track & Field policies ban transgender women from competing with other women—the two Princeton track meets aren’t professional events, making their alleged transgender exclusion an alarming escalation. Just as potentially concerning is that, whereas both track meets have previously been open to unattached runners and runners from clubs, Parts said that a coach from a prominent running club told them that, for the 2026 meets, only runners on university track and field teams are eligible to participate. It is unclear if or how this newly restricted eligibility is related to Schreiner’s pending litigation against Princeton athletic director John Mack and Princeton director of track operations Kimberly Keenan-Kirkpatrick. Mack, Keenan-Kirkpatrick, and a representative for the third defendant in Schreiner’s lawsuit, Leone Timing & Results Services, did not respond to multiple requests for comment, and Schreiner was unable to comment due to her litigation.

Parts has emailed the track and field coaching staff at just under three dozen prominent colleges and universities, including Rutgers University, Temple University, and Columbia University, to demand that they and their runners boycott the 2026 meets. They have also contacted Mack and Keenan-Kirkpatrick to inform them of the boycotts, and some of their friends have joined their boycotting efforts and contacted their alma maters to encourage non-participation.

Avery Prizzi, a non-binary runner who has encouraged eligible runners not to attend the events, said that it feels like an escalation of transphobic rhetoric that a mere track meet, rather than a professional race, has excluded transgender runners. “[The events are] an experience [where] there’s no qualification, there’s no prizes, no first-place trophy,” Prizzi said. “People go to run fast and get a time for themselves. It’s all post-collegiate stuff. There’s no incentive besides running fast. To know that [the event organizers are] just gonna be garbage toward what, effectively, is just a place for people to go and better themselves or race a clock seems completely pointless or outside the mission I figured they were touting.”

Non-binary runner Will Vedder said that “the whole issue that’s been raised on a national level around trans inclusion or exclusion in sports is this, pun intended, trumped-up issue.” Vedder is a 2025-2026 board member of Philadelphia Runner Track Club (PRTC), and although PRTC members are ineligible to participate and the organization does not endorse boycotts, Vedder has told people about the boycotts to nevertheless support transgender runners, saying that excluding transgender people from sports is “based on misinformation. As we know, trans women don’t have any advantage over cis women when it comes to competitiveness in sports. Studies have shown that again and again. The fact that people are acting against what science says and excluding people who just want to run and compete, it’s infuriating.”

A 2023 Frontiers in Sports and Active Living study acknowledges a lack of evidence that transgender athletes are superior in performance and concludes, “Individuals should not have to make a choice between being their authentic selves or being athletes.” Only one transgender person, Quinn—a non-binary Canadian soccer player who uses a mononym in place of a traditional first and last name—has won a gold medal at the Olympics. Additionally, some transgender women runners, including Schreiner herself, have noticed that their performance permanently decreases after starting hormone replacement therapy (HRT). As made clear by the lack of scientific evidence about transgender runners’ supposed athletic advantages, transgender participation in not just running but all sports harms absolutely nobody. It’s the exclusion of transgender athletes that causes harm, and the consequences of this maltreatment reach far beyond the field.

“In the context of the things going on with trans people,” Parts said, “small actions like kicking a trans person out of a track meet build up to the general public thinking lowly of trans people, thinking it’s okay for laws to be passed affecting our lives, demonizing us, trying to eventually result in us being jailed or killed. Trying to push back against that will, hopefully, help increase acceptance of trans people in the public eye.” And with that, the chances of anti-transgender laws being passed — or even proposed — could decrease. A boycott might feel small, but it could help reverse the tides in a big way, and if you know runners on college and university track and field teams, you too can demand that they not participate in the 2026 Sam Howell and Larry Ellis Invitationals.

DOGE Bro’s Humiliating Deposition Is MUST SEE

This is very interesting. The doge guy is under oath so can’t lie. But he realizes he is going to have to admit to be antisemectic. He works for a nazi and it is well known a lot of the doge people were Nazis themselves. He suddenly realizes he will have to say it was the Jews people who were discriminating during the Holocaust. First he tries to say it is DEI due to focusing on women which is gender so the grant had to be slashed. But then he says women were discriminating against the males. Finially when the lawyer asks how, he just gives up and admits it was the jewish people / Jewish women. He probably thinks women discriminate against men because he can’t get a girl to date him or have sex he doesn’t have to pay for. I think Brandon who is the black gentleman on the far right of the screen has the best and correct take on why the doge man / kid simply did not want to or couldn’t honestly answer the question. Hugs

Some Things To Watch, From Joyce Vance

The Week Ahead

March 15, 2026

Joyce Vance Mar 15, 2026

It’s another week full of legal proceedings. And a little politics, too.

Tuesday: Maduro and Flores hearing

The U.S.-ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured by U.S. forces on January 3 at their Caracas home. They were arrested pursuant to an indictment federal prosecutors had obtained and taken to the U.S. to face those charges. Both pled guilty and are currently detained pending trial. The superseding indictment can be found here. We discussed it at length here.

There was supposed to be a status conference on the case this Tuesday. But the government wrote the Judge, Alvin Hellerstein in the Southern District of New York, requesting a “brief continuance.” The stated reason was to permit discovery to proceed before the parties returned to court, a reasonable request given the likely amount of evidence the government will be turning over to the defense and the time it takes to review it with defendants who remain in custody.

But the government has been busy on the case already, opposing the defendants’ efforts to use Venezuelan government monies to fund their defense. Prosecutors say Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela and hasn’t been considered by the U.S. to be so for several years. Madura and Flores’ lawyers argue the laws and traditions of the country permit it to fund their defense. A Venezuelan official has said they are prepared to do so.

The defendants argue that their inability to access certain third-party funds to pay for their legal fees violates their Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights to due process and effective assistance of counsel. The parties have filed their briefs, and Judge Hellerstein is expected to consider the legal fees dispute during the March 26 hearing.

Tuesday: Illinois Primary

Illinois voters head to the polls Tuesday to choose their Democratic and Republican nominees for the open Senate seat being vacated by Dick Durbin, who is retiring after almost three decades. Two members of the House, Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly, have thrown their hats into the ring, leaving their seats up for grabs. Three additional Illinois representatives are retiring: Danny Davis, Jan Schakowsky, and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.

That means the Illinois delegation will look different, possibly younger, heading into 2027, and we will have new names to learn. Kamala Harris won the state with 54.8% of the vote in 2024, and it’s unlikely Democrats will lose any seats. In Kelly’s district, former representative Jesse Jackson Jr, who pled guilty to misusing campaign funds in 2013 and was sentenced to 30 months in prison (he served a little under two years), is trying to make a comeback, but he is one of 10 Democrats running for the seat. Jackson, who represented the district for over 20 years before going to prison, is up by double digits in two polls.

Everyone expects Governor JB Pritzker to handily win reelection. But as a potential 2028 presidential contender, there will be heavy scrutiny of how he handles himself during the campaign and how well he performs and leads the Democratic ticket. So there’s a lot to see here.

Under Illinois law, only poll workers and poll watchers can be at the polls on election day, and other people may not mill around outside as voters go about their business. Nonetheless, there have been concerns that ICE might show up to intimidate people. But DHS’s Assistant Secretary for Election Integrity, Heather Honey, issued a statement in late February, saying “Any suggestion that ICE is going to be present at polling places is simply disinformation.” She committed that there would “be no ICE presence at polling locations” during a call with voting officials from across the country.

That makes sense and I’m inclined to believe it. But only because doing it now would trigger legal challenges that would likely be decided against the administration. If they’re going to do this, we’ll likely see it for the first time when voters go to the polls in November.

Wednesday: Fulton County.

As you may recall from our earlier discussion, Judge J.P. Boulee sent the Justice Department and Fulton County to mediation in the case filed by the latter over the government’s seizure of voting records. Wednesday is the date by which the parties must let the Judge know whether they’ve been able to resolve the matter voluntarily. If mediation failed, it will be up to the Judge to decide whether the records are due to be returned, which they almost certainly are (the government gets to keep copies), but the administration could face some messy, revelatory testimony in court if the County goes into the unusual decision to have a U.S. Attorney from Missouri take over the matter, rather than the local U.S. Attorney.

The Rest of the Mess

Pam Bondi wants to deprive state bar associations of their ability to consider ethics challenges to federal prosecutors’ behavior.

DOJ has posted a proposed new regulation in the Federal Register that would prohibit state bars from proceeding while DOJ is conducting an internal review. Nothing in the rule would preclude DOJ from engaging in endless delay and short-circuiting state investigations.

In practice, state bar associations have routinely deferred to DOJ to conduct internal ethics proceedings before they act against a Justice Department lawyer. But that was under the old rules, where DOJ took ethics seriously. And as a practical matter, state bars, not Pam Bondi or Donald Trump, decide whether to give a specific lawyer a license to practice law in their state, so it’s difficult to see how the government has a legal leg to stand on here. It would be like Donald Trump deciding who can be a barber in Oklahoma or a cosmetologist in Arizona.

There is a 30-day comment period for the proposed regulations that will close on April 6. Comments will be public. Expect a wide variety of members of the legal profession to weigh in against the administration’s transparent effort to prevent state bar action against DOJ officials who are in ethical trouble. Congress made it clear in a law called the McDade Amendment that government attorneys “shall be subject to State laws and rules … governing attorneys in each State where such attorney engages in that attorney’s duties, to the same extent and in the same manner as other attorneys in that State.” The measure was passed in 1998 amid concerns about overzealous prosecutors. Pennsylvania Republican Representative Joseph McDade (R-PA) championed the measure after he was acquitted on bribery and racketeering charges.

The SAVE Act heads to the Senate for a vote this week.

We’ve been talking about it for months. This appears to be the week the Senate will vote on the SAVE Act. It has already passed in the House. In our conversation at Big Tent last week, Marc Elias opined it would not pass. The Senate would have to abandon the filibuster rule to get it across the finish line. That would be a last-ditch measure that Republican Senators have long argued against, but some seemed to waffle on the issue last week.

Trump tried to get Republican Senators to abandon the filibuster last November. He made that pitch with visiting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at his side. Orban heads what he has called an “illiberal democracy” in that country. It was quite an image.

The issue last year was the pending government shutdown. Trump called on Senate Republicans to scrap the filibuster rule and allow simple majority votes to prevail on that issue and for most other legislation. They declined, even though, or perhaps because, Trump promised his party that if they did, the GOP would “never lose the midterms and we will never lose a general election” for the foreseeable future. It will be interesting to see if that pitch reemerges this week as Trump tries to pass a measure designed to suppress Democratic votes in the upcoming election.

Senators on both sides of the aisle have long understood the power that honoring the filibuster gives both sides; it’s a form of mutually assured retention of power. But Texas Senator John Cornyn, long a proponent of the filibuster, put out an op ed in the New York Post arguing that the SAVE America Act is more important than it is.

“For many years, I believed that if the US Senate scrapped the filibuster, Texas and our nation would stand to lose more than we would gain … My fellow conservatives and I have proudly used the 60-vote threshold to protect the country from all sorts of bad ideas and dangerous policies. But when the reality on the ground changes, leaders must take stock and adapt…Today, Democrats are weaponizing the Senate’s rules to block the SAVE America Act, defund the Department of Homeland Security and hurt the American people — all to spite President Donald Trump.”

It was quite a reversal of long-held principles in service of Trump from the Texas Republican, who is facing an uphill battle to hold onto his Senate seat. He faced a primary challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Neither candidate reached the 50% threshold necessary for an outright win, so there will be a runoff, which is scheduled for May 26, although there have been whispers of a voluntary resolution. How we are about to find out if other Republican senators want to hold onto any of their institutional power or are willing to throw it away on Trump and a law that has strong arguments against its constitutionality.

Finally, Julie Le, the former government lawyer in Minneapolis who we met in this piece, when she begged a judge to hold her in contempt so she could get a good night’s sleep, has launched a Congressional campaign website. “This job sucks,” she told the judge. Now, it appears she might be looking for a new one, since she was ultimately removed after her outburst in court.

We’re in this together,

Joyce