Voter ID News

Yes, we lived through this. We do not advise it. If your state legislature starts in this direction, show them this.

Kansas once required voters to prove citizenship. That didn’t work out so well

By JOHN HANNAUpdated 10:44 AM CST, December 29, 2024Share

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republicans made claims about illegal voting by noncitizens a centerpiece of their 2024 campaign messaging and plan to push legislation in the new Congress requiring voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship. Yet there’s one place with a GOP supermajority where linking voting to citizenship appears to be a nonstarter: Kansas.

That’s because the state has been there, done that, and all but a few Republicans would prefer not to go there again. Kansas imposed a proof-of-citizenship requirement over a decade ago that grew into one of the biggest political fiascos in the state in recent memory.

The law, passed by the state Legislature in 2011 and implemented two years later, ended up blocking the voter registrations of more than 31,000 U.S. citizens who were otherwise eligible to vote. That was 12% of everyone seeking to register in Kansas for the first time. Federal courts ultimately declared the law an unconstitutional burden on voting rights, and it hasn’t been enforced since 2018.

Kansas provides a cautionary tale about how pursuing an election concern that in fact is extremely rare risks disenfranchising a far greater number of people who are legally entitled to vote. The state’s top elections official, Secretary of State Scott Schwab, championed the idea as a legislator and now says states and the federal government shouldn’t touch it.

“Kansas did that 10 years ago,” said Schwab, a Republican. “It didn’t work out so well.”

Steven Fish, a 45-year-old warehouse worker in eastern Kansas, said he understands the motivation behind the law. In his thinking, the state was like a store owner who fears getting robbed and installs locks. But in 2014, after the birth of his now 11-year-old son inspired him to be “a little more responsible” and follow politics, he didn’t have an acceptable copy of his birth certificate to get registered to vote in Kansas.

“The locks didn’t work,” said Fish, one of nine Kansas residents who sued the state over the law. “You caught a bunch of people who didn’t do anything wrong.”

A small problem, but wide support for a fix

Kansas’ experience appeared to receive little if any attention outside the state as Republicans elsewhere pursued proof-of-citizenship requirements this year.

Arizona enacted a requirement this year, applying it to voting for state and local elections but not for Congress or president. The Republican-led U.S. House passed a proof-of-citizenship requirement in the summer and plans to bring back similar legislation after the GOP won control of the Senate in November.

In Ohio, the Republican secretary of state revised the form that poll workers use for voter eligibility challenges to require those not born in the U.S. to show naturalization papers to cast a regular ballot. A federal judge declined to block the practice days before the election.

Also, sizable majorities of voters in Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina and the presidential swing states of North Carolina and Wisconsin were inspired to amend their state constitutions’ provisions on voting even though the changes were only symbolic. Provisions that previously declared that all U.S. citizens could vote now say that only U.S. citizens can vote — a meaningless distinction with no practical effect on who is eligible.

To be clear, voters already must attest to being U.S. citizens when they register to vote and noncitizens can face fines, prison and deportation if they lie and are caught.

“There is nothing unconstitutional about ensuring that only American citizens can vote in American elections,” U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, of Texas, the leading sponsor of the congressional proposal, said in an email statement to The Associated Press.

Why the courts rejected the Kansas citizenship rule

After Kansas residents challenged their state’s law, both a federal judge and federal appeals court concluded that it violated a law limiting states to collecting only the minimum information needed to determine whether someone is eligible to vote. That’s an issue Congress could resolve.

The courts ruled that with “scant” evidence of an actual problem, Kansas couldn’t justify a law that kept hundreds of eligible citizens from registering for every noncitizen who was improperly registered. A federal judge concluded that the state’s evidence showed that only 39 noncitizens had registered to vote from 1999 through 2012 — an average of just three a year.

In 2013, then-Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican who had built a national reputation advocating tough immigration laws, described the possibility of voting by immigrants living in the U.S. illegally as a serious threat. He was elected attorney general in 2022 and still strongly backs the idea, arguing that federal court rulings in the Kansas case “almost certainly got it wrong.”

Kobach also said a key issue in the legal challenge — people being unable to fix problems with their registrations within a 90-day window — has probably been solved.

“The technological challenge of how quickly can you verify someone’s citizenship is getting easier,” Kobach said. “As time goes on, it will get even easier.”

Would the Kansas law stand today?

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the Kansas case in 2020. But in August, it split 5-4 in allowing Arizona to continue enforcing its law for voting in state and local elections while a legal challenge goes forward.

Seeing the possibility of a different Supreme Court decision in the future, U.S. Rep.-elect Derek Schmidt says states and Congress should pursue proof-of-citizenship requirements. Schmidt was the Kansas attorney general when his state’s law was challenged.

“If the same matter arose now and was litigated, the facts would be different,” he said in an interview.

But voting rights advocates dismiss the idea that a legal challenge would turn out differently. Mark Johnson, one of the attorneys who fought the Kansas law, said opponents now have a template for a successful court fight.

“We know the people we can call,” Johnson said. “We know that we’ve got the expert witnesses. We know how to try things like this.” He predicted “a flurry — a landslide — of litigation against this.”

Born in Illinois but unable to register in Kansas

Initially, the Kansas requirement’s impacts seemed to fall most heavily on politically unaffiliated and young voters. As of fall 2013, 57% of the voters blocked from registering were unaffiliated and 40% were under 30.

But Fish was in his mid-30s, and six of the nine residents who sued over the Kansas law were 35 or older. Three even produced citizenship documents and still didn’t get registered, according to court documents.

“There wasn’t a single one of us that was actually an illegal or had misinterpreted or misrepresented any information or had done anything wrong,” Fish said.

He was supposed to produce his birth certificate when he sought to register in 2014 while renewing his Kansas driver’s license at an office in a strip mall in Lawrence. A clerk wouldn’t accept the copy Fish had of his birth certificate. He still doesn’t know where to find the original, having been born on an Air Force base in Illinois that closed in the 1990s.

Several of the people joining Fish in the lawsuit were veterans, all born in the U.S., and Fish said he was stunned that they could be prevented from registering.

Liz Azore, a senior adviser to the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab, said millions of Americans haven’t traveled outside the U.S. and don’t have passports that might act as proof of citizenship, or don’t have ready access to their birth certificates.

She and other voting rights advocates are skeptical that there are administrative fixes that will make a proof-of-citizenship law run more smoothly today than it did in Kansas a decade ago.

“It’s going to cover a lot of people from all walks of life,” Avore said. “It’s going to be disenfranchising large swaths of the country.”

___

Associated Press writer Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

Colorado Man Accused Of Attacking Reporter, Saying ‘This Is Trump’s America Now’

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/colorado-man-accused-attacking-tv-reporter-trump-america_n_676f8133e4b03f311afdc4bd

The Colorado TV reporter told police that he believed he had been followed by the man because he is Pacific Islander.

Colleen Slevin

A Colorado man is facing possible bias-motivated charges for allegedly attacking a television news reporter after demanding to know whether he was a citizen, saying “This is Trump’s America now,” according to court documents.

Patrick Thomas Egan, 39, was arrested Dec. 18 in Grand Junction, Colorado, after police say he followed KKCO/KJCT reporter Ja’Ronn Alex’s vehicle for around 40 miles (64 kilometers) from the Delta area. Alex told police that he believed he had been followed and attacked because he is Pacific Islander.

After arriving in Grand Junction, Egan, who was driving a taxi, pulled up next to Alex at a stoplight and, according to an arrest affidavit, said something to the effect of: “Are you even a U.S. citizen? This is Trump’s America now! I’m a Marine and I took an oath to protect this country from people like you!”

Alex, who had been out reporting, then drove back to his news station in the city. After he got out of his vehicle, Egan chased Alex as he ran toward the station’s door and demanded to see his identification, according to the document laying out police’s evidence in the case. Egan then tackled Alex, put him in a headlock and “began to strangle him,” the affidavit said. Coworkers who ran out to help and witnesses told police that Alex appeared to be losing his ability to breathe during the attack, which was partially captured on surveillance video, according to the document.

According to the station’s website, Alex is a native of Detroit. KKCO/KJCT reported that he was driving a news vehicle at the time.

Egan was arrested on suspicion of bias-motivated crimes, second degree assault and harassment. He is scheduled to appear in court Thursday to learn whether prosecutors have filed formal charges against him.

Egan’s lawyer, Ruth Swift, was out of the office Friday and did not return a telephone message seeking comment.

We Did Get Some Stuff Done

because we did the work.

It wasn’t all bad: Despite election defeat, progressives scored big wins in 2024

Organizers tell Salon how they pulled off major victories in a year marked by the rise of the far-right

By Tatyana Tandanpolie Staff Writer

Snippet:

For many on the political left, 2024 was disappointing.

Even as inflation ebbed, Americans still struggled with housing costs and necessary expenses. The U.S. role in enabling Israel’s war in Gaza sparked protests in the streets and on college campuses. The far-right continued to target marginalized groups, most notably immigrants, transgender people and women. To top it off, the mid-summer excitement at Vice President Kamala Harris’ entry into the presidential race following President Joe Biden’s eleventh-hour exit petered out with the election of President-elect Donald Trump — again.

But even as the political landscape appeared to grow bleaker, Americans still fended off at least some of the efforts to encroach upon their rights. At times, they even helped pass policies that not only protected core freedoms but could genuinely improve quality of life.

As they reflected on 2024 and looked ahead to 2025, when the Trump administration’s ultraconservative agenda is poised to make their work harder, advocates behind wins in LGBTQ+, labor and reproductive rights shared with Salon how they successfully organized against legislative efforts to roll their rights back and planted hope for a better future.

Abortion rights enshrined in seven states

Ballot measures seeking to establish or protect abortion rights were on 10 states’ ballots this year as organizers fought to protect access and reverse bans enacted in the wake of the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade. Seven of those states — Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and New York — would indeed pass measures to enshrine a right to abortion access in their respective constitutions.

Proposition 139 in Arizona provided a legal means to upend the state’s 15-week abortion restriction and established state constitutional rights to abortion access until viability and afterward if a healthcare professional deems it necessary for the pregnant person’s physical or mental health. The proposition also barred the state from penalizing any individual or entity “for aiding or assisting a pregnant individual in exercising the individual’s right to abortion.”

Arizona for Abortion Access, a seven-group coalition of reproductive health, rights and justice organizations, including Reproductive Freedom for All and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, led the campaign supporting the proposed amendment, which took effect almost immediately on Nov. 25.

“The passing of Proposition 139 speaks to the broad support — across the entire state, across all political parties, and across voters of all different backgrounds — for reproductive freedom,” Erika Mach, Planned Parenthood Arizona’s chief external affairs officer, told Salon. “People want the freedom to make medical decisions with their doctor and family, without government involvement.”

To place a constitutional amendment on the state’s ballot, the coalition had to obtain signatures from 15% of registered voters in the state — just under 384,000 signatures — and file the petition by early July, according to the Arizona Secretary of State’s website. (snip-MORE)

Diminished People Holding Elected Office

There’s a discussion on another post, and I think all of us have brought it up here at one time or another, and I know I’m too soft-hearted and worry about elder abuse, and now finally others are calling it out for the abuse of people that it is. I used to say it often before Trump finally left the White House, that he was being abused for nefarious reasons; he’s so disliked that few cared about him being abused. Here’s a story from a publication that’s been around for generations, always bringing me important info, first on recycled newsprint paper, now online. And I’m still pleased I spent 6 hours phone banking for Annie Kuster* a few years back, even though I’d hoped for her more liberal primary oppo. She’s been a fine US Rep. (I also phone banked for Marcy Kaptur under the same condition-different election, and it was time well spent. But Annie Kuster is one subject of this story, so I had to fix that. It was late when I scheduled this, my apologies.)

Elder Abuse Is No Way to Run a Government

The corridors of power increasingly resemble a nursing home—if not a hospice.

Jeet Heer

This year, two veteran members of Congress, Republican Representative Kay Granger from Texas and Democratic Representative Annie M. Kuster of New Hampshire, announced that they were retiring from public service, but the story of their last days played out very differently, illustrating the dangers of a political system that enables both gerontocracy and elder abuse.

In March, Granger, age 81, announced that she was stepping down from her powerful post as chair of the House Appropriation Committee and would not seek reelection, even though she would finish out her term. She cast her last vote on July 24, and has appeared in Washington only once since. For all intents and purposes, Granger had disappeared from public visibility.

On December 20, The Dallas Express, a conservative online publication, revealed that Granger had been living in an independent living facility. Prior to that discovery, Granger’s office was not returning phone calls to the Express or anyone else. Visiting her office, reporter Carl Turcios found “the door locked, the front door glass window covered, no one inside, and no sign of the office continuing to be occupied.”

Responding to these reports, the congresswoman’s son, Brandon Granger, stated that his mother suffered from “dementia,” a condition he claimed was diagnosed in September. Granger’s office shared a statement where she purportedly said that “since early September, my health challenges have progressed, making frequent travel to Washington both difficult and unpredictable. During this time, my staff has remained steadfast, continuing to deliver exceptional constituent services, as they have for the past 27 years.”

This version of Granger’s story, which places the onset of dementia in September, makes little sense, since, as Ken Klippenstein reports on his Substack, there is evidence that as early as March she had difficulty reading even from a prepared statement without painful effort. Further, she sold her home in early July, which indicates that her move to the independent living facility was already in the works at that time.

Granger eventually resigned her seat—but too late. If she had left public service a few years ago, she’d be remembered as a pioneer, the first Republican woman to lead the House Appropriations Committee. Now, there is a pall on her legacy since, as The New York Times reports, she has “brought renewed attention to how Capitol Hill is powered by a crop of septuagenarians and octogenarians, including some who refuse to relinquish power even far past their primes.”

Granger’s fellow congresswoman Annie M. Kuster, age 68, offers a telling contrast. In an interview with The Boston Globe, Kuster made clear that she is leaving Washington not just for personal reasons but also to show that lawmakers do in fact have the ability to reject gerontocracy. According to Kuster, “I’m trying to set a better example. I think there are colleagues—and some of whom are still very successful and very productive—but others who just stay forever.”

The Granger case, along with new reporting making clear that Joe Biden has served as a diminished president, is forcing gerontocracy onto the agenda in Washington. Aside from Biden and Granger, there are now increasing expressions of concerns about the advanced age and healthcare struggles of former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and outgoing Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (both of whom, despite formally giving up powerful posts, remain kingmakers in Washington). Questions have also been raised about Democratic Representative David Scott of Georgia, with even fellow Democrats expressing skepticism about his ability to serve. The decision to sideline young congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the House Oversight Committee on behalf of Gerry Connolly, who is 74 and suffers from cancer, has been criticized even by centrist Democrats such as Jen Psaki as proof of entrenched gerontocracy.

This is a major shift from recent years, when a bipartisan code of silence protected elected officials and judges from being criticized even though there was ample evidence that age had made them incapable of serving.

Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky responded to the Granger story by tweeting, “I’m more concerned about the congressmen who have dementia and are still voting.”

Democratic Representative Ro Khanna of California tweeted:

Kay Granger’s long absence reveals the problem with a Congress that rewards seniority & relationships more than merit & ideas. We have a sclerotic gerontocracy. We need term limits. We need to get big money out of politics so a new generation of Americans can run and serve.

Khanna’s statement has the virtue of moving the discussion beyond just the individual choices of lawmakers and into the wider system that has made gerontocracy possible. Republican firebrand Kerri Lake, who rarely agrees with Khanna on anything—and is seldom a voice of reason—also offered a systemic analysis, tweeting, “Washington D.C. shouldn’t be a retirement home, but the entrenched forces there are so desperate to hold on to power that they will reject fresh voices while pulling stunts like this.”

Khanna and Lake are accurate in seeing the problem as entrenched systems. The rules of Congress reward seniority with more power, which also makes it logical for voters to keep voting for longtime lawmakers even past the decline in their capacity. Those lawmakers have staff who can make sure that the perks of power are still shared with constituents.

Peace & Justice History for 12/26

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december26

Let’s talk about the case of the missing congressperson, Kay Granger….

Well, just how about this:

Sunday, December 22, 2024

Ever Wonder Why Your Never Trump Allies Are So Friendly and Deferential…

…to the same legacy media institutions that have fucked us over so badly?

Well, perhaps it’s because outfits like The Bulwark are sponsored by outfits like Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post.

Yeah, that Washington Post. From NPR:

Over 200,000 subscribers flee ‘Washington Post’ after Bezos blocks Harris endorsement

The Washington Post has been rocked by a tidal wave of cancellations from digital subscribers and a series of resignations from columnists, as the paper grapples with the fallout of owner Jeff Bezos’s decision to block an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president…

From the transcript of live ad read in the middle of the above-referenced podcast.

Tim Miller: Hey guys, if you listen to this podcast you care about what’s going on in the world. And you know we’re doing our best here at the Bulwark as we grow, to expand out, reporting, reported commentary no bullshit insight. But, like all of this stuff is based on people doing shoe leather reporting. People going out there and gathering sources and going around the world an… and educating us about what’s happening in the world. And… and one of the places that’s out there still doing that is the Washington Post. Uh, and this podcast is sp… sponsored by The Washington Post. When you go to Washington Post.com slash The Bulwark, our listeners can get an exclusive deal to subscribe for just 50 cents per week for your first year. Uh…if you listen to us you know the great work the Washington Post does on a bunch of topics…

It goes on. And on. And on. Bezos is definitely getting his money’s worth.

Because, as we have discussed on this blog several hundred times before…

(snip)

“Thank You, Pramila Jayapal”

After Building Progressive Power Among House Democrats, Jayapal Passes the Torch

By Jessica Corbett — December 21, 2024

After six years at the helm of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, dedicated to “building the infrastructure” necessary to effectively fight for key policies on Capitol Hill, term-limited Rep. Pramila Jayapal is determined to ensure that the CPC’s incoming leaders “are as successful as possible.”

Jayapal (D-Wash.) spoke with Common Dreams on Wednesday about her time leading the caucus of nearly 100 lawmakers whose legislative priorities include “comprehensive immigration reform, good-paying jobs, fair trade, universal healthcare, debt-free college, climate action, and a just foreign policy.”

She was elected first vice chair of the CPC in June 2017, just months into her freshman term in Congress. Explaining her foray into leadership, Jayapal affectionately said, “I blamed it all on Keith Ellison,” a Minnesota Democrat who was then a congressman and caucus leader and is now his state’s attorney general.

“He was very encouraging,” she said of Ellison. “He knew that the whole reason I was running, because he had heard me talk about it on the campaign trail… was because I wanted to strengthen the power of the progressive movement inside Congress and figure out how we could be more effective working on the inside and the outside, which I was coming from.”

Jayapal, who was born in India and came to the United States as a teenager for college, founded the immigrant advocacy group Hate Free Zone—which later became OneAmerica—after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Residents of the Seattle area elected her to Congress in 2016, during her first term in the Washington State Senate.

In politics, Jayapal has shared stories from her own life with the world, publicly writing and speaking about her experiences as an immigrant woman of color, a woman who had an abortion, and a mother to her trans daughter. She has welcomed the mentorship of Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), the first woman of color to co-chair the CPC and, as Jayapal put it on Instagram earlier this week, “one of the most courageous and effective progressive leaders I have had the privilege to know.”

U.S. Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), and Cori Bush (D-Mo.) talk with reporters in Washington, D.C. on May 31, 2023. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

Backed by leaders like Ellison and Lee—who is leaving Congress after this session—Jayapal jumped into the CPC hoping to transform it into “a caucus that could really have the power to stand up for working people and deliver.” In 2018, she was elected co-chair with Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), and following 2020 caucus rule changes, she became a solo chair.

“What I realized when I came in is that we didn’t really have the infrastructure we needed to support us to be powerful as a bloc of votes,” said Jayapal, who utilized the skills and connections she developed as an organizer in the role she is now preparing to leave.

“I was able to come in and not only think about how you build power on the inside, but also how you coordinate with the outside,” she said. “And that inside-outside strategy, and the trust I had, and the relationships I had, were really critical to my success in building the infrastructure here in Congress and sort of coalescing the movement around a set of priorities that we were then able to fight for and stand up for.”

Jayapal recognized the need to hire staff and reform CPC rules to boost meeting attendance and caucus cohesion. She explained that “I felt very strongly about leadership transition to build the bench, and so I put in term limits for the CPC chair as well.”

Thanks to that policy, she will pass the torch to Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) early next month. Jayapal, who will be chair emeritus, told Common Dreams, “I’m just really proud to have built an infrastructure that I can pass on to the next chair that just wasn’t there before and will continue to get better, of course, with new leadership.”

The 35-year-old incoming chair will be joined by Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) as deputy chair and Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.) as whip. They will face a Republican-controlled Congress and the second administration of President-elect Donald Trump.

“I’m honored to build on the legacy of Chair Jayapal,” Casar said after the caucus election earlier this month. “I’ve fought back against extremist, egocentric autocrats in Texas for my entire adult life. The Democratic Party must directly take on Trump, and it’ll be CPC members boldly leading the way and putting working people first.”

Trump won his first presidential contest the same day Jayapal was initially elected to Congress. On that night in November 2016, before the White House race was called, Jayapal described her victory as “a light in the darkness” and told supporters that “if our worst fears are realized, we will be on the defense as of tomorrow,” according toThe Seattle Times.

After four years of fighting the first Trump administration, CPC members kicked off 2021 with a fresh opportunity to advance progressive policies: Although the Senate was divided, Democrats controlled the House of Representatives and President Joe Biden was sworn in—despite Trump contesting his 2020 loss and inciting an insurrection.

During Biden’s term, which ends next month, the Jayapal-led caucus has successfully encouraged the Democratic president to pursue various executive actions promoting access to contraception, climate action, corporate accountability, higher wages, lower costs for essentials, and relief for immigrants from countries in crisis, among other priorities.

The caucus also played a significant role in enacting major pieces of Democrats’ Build Back Better agenda. In the summer of 2021, Jayapal made clear to Congress and the president that House progressives would withhold votes from what became the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act—unless they also passed legislation on the climate emergency and social issues.

Biden signed the infrastructure bill in November 2021—followed by the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022. The delay was largely due to obstructionist then-Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who ditched the party in the aftermath and are both leaving Congress at the end of this session.

Although Jayapal wishes the second bill would have passed sooner, and tackled the country’s childcare and housing crises, she said that she is still “particularly proud” of what the caucus was able to accomplish with that battle. As she told Common Dreams, “There would be no Inflation Reduction Act without Build Back Better, and there would’ve been no Build Back Better without the CPC.”

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) speaks at a “Go Bigger on Climate, Care, and Justice” rally on July 20, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Shannon Finney/Getty Images for Green New Deal Network)

Those two legislative packages were “about changing the way that we thought of government’s ability to fight for working people,” she continued. They “were about delivering results to people that would matter, whether it was in terms of great jobs, whether it was in terms of taking on climate change, whether it was in terms of driving down the cost of prescription drugs, [or] unrigging the tax system so that the wealthier began to pay their fair share.”

“All of those things were kind of fundamental and core to an economic agenda that worked for working people and poor people,” said Jayapal, who has personally championed legislation including the College for All Act, Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, Housing Is a Human Right Act, Medicare for All Act, Transgender Bill of Rights, and Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act—partnering with Senate progressives such as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the founding chair of the CPC.

While the Congressional Progressive Caucus will have new leadership next year, Jayapal plans to remain engaged by providing advice and support as chair emeritus and by co-chairing the CPC Political Action Committee with Casar and Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.). Under the PAC’s current heads—Jayapal, Pocan, and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.)—it “has grown from a $300,000 budget in the 2016 election cycle to raising $12 million over the past three election cycles,” the group said Wednesday.

Jayapal told Common Dreams that she is “really proud of the fact that we’ve had an incredible record” for CPC PAC endorsements. Over the past decade, a majority of pre-primary backed candidates have won their general election races—often “pushing back on big money that came in, dark money that came in, sometimes in the millions,” she said, pointing to Reps. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) as examples.

Lee, Ramirez, and Jayapal were all reelected last month, but overall it was a devastating cycle for Democrats, who failed to win control of the White House and both chambers of Congress. The outgoing CPC chair is among those who have responded to the results by urging the Democratic Party to reject super PACs and uplift working-class voters going forward.

In a memo earlier this month, Jayapal, Casar, Frost and fellow CPC member Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) called on the next Democratic National Committee chair, whoever it is, to “create an authentic… brand that offers a clear alternative and inclusive vision for how we will make life better for the 90% who are struggling in this economy, take on the biggest corporations and wealthiest individuals who have rigged the system, expose Trump’s corporate favoritism, and create a clear contrast with Republicans.”

Noting Republicans’ aim to use their forthcoming federal trifecta to pass another round of tax cuts for the rich, Jayapal said that “when we fight against the tax cuts, the Trump tax scam 2.0, we should tie it to this: The Democratic Party is not beholden to corporate PACs and dark money. We are fighting for the people.”

“There’s a clear contrast between Trump and his billionaires… and Democrats who are fighting for the vast majority of Americans, the 99% of Americans who are out there struggling every day,” she added. “That’s the contrast we need to be able to draw.”

(snip-embedded tweet)

In her final days as CPC chair, Jayapal is highlighting that contrast by slamming Trump and the billionaires who have his ear, like Elon Musk, for risking a government shutdown—which could begin Saturday—by derailing a bipartisan spending bill this week.

“The past 24 hours is the clearest demonstration yet of what Trump 2.0 will entail: The president of the United States allowing his unelected billionaire friends to control the government and enrich themselves at the expense of working people,” she said in a Thursday statement. “We cannot succumb to a government by billionaires, for billionaires.”

Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Topics: House Progressive Caucus, House Progressives, Pramilla

In Yesterday’s Democracy Docket

(I tried all day yesterday to post this, but didn’t get it done, so here it is this morning.)

Democracy Docket’s 2023 Litigation Report

Since 2020, Democracy Docket has extensively covered and tracked important litigation related to voting rights, elections and redistricting and now has a database of over 660 cases. As in previous years, we are providing a comprehensive year-end report on all the democracy-related cases filed and decided in 2023 that directly impacted voters.

Considering it was not a federal election year, 2023 was quite busy for democracy in the courts. While there were not as many new lawsuits filed this past year relative to 2022, there was a notable influx of consequential outcomes stemming from democracy-related cases that directly impacted voters.

Between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2023, we tracked:

73 new democracy-related lawsuits filed across 31 states.
146 court orders that impacted voters across 34 states.
83 victories for voters across 26 states.

The statistics in this report are based on the lawsuits in our case database as of Dec. 31, 2023. For the purposes of this report, we excluded the 57 active redistricting lawsuits and the small number of criminal cases we are tracking.

Despite not being a federal election year, 2023 nevertheless saw over 70 democracy-related lawsuits spanning dozens of states. By comparison, in 2021 — another off-cycle year — Democracy Docket tracked 57 new democracy-related lawsuits across 18 states.

As expected, the number of new lawsuits filed in 2023 was lower than the 175 new democracy-related lawsuits filed in 2022 both before and after the midterm elections. In anticipation of the upcoming 2024 presidential election, we expect the number of new lawsuits to once again drastically increase this year.

In 2023, we tracked more pro-voting than anti-voting lawsuits and saw a nearly even split amongst lawsuits filed in federal and state courts. Lawsuits that centered around election administration — especially relating to direct democracy and the ballot initiative process — were most prominent among democracy-related litigation filed this past year. We observed how Republicans are doubling down on their anti-voting efforts in court, with GOP litigants bringing 68% of anti-voting lawsuits in 2023. Meanwhile, lawsuits filed by nonpartisan organizations — such as the NAACP or League of Women Voters — accounted for the vast majority of pro-voting litigation.

Below, we break down our comprehensive database of lawsuits that were filed in 2023 and provide analysis of the broader trends that characterized the past year’s litigation landscape.

Unlike in 2022, there were more pro-voting than anti-voting lawsuits filed in 2023.

Democracy Docket categorized the 73 new lawsuits filed in 2023 as either “pro-voting” or “anti-voting.” In total, we tracked 51 pro-voting lawsuits and 22 anti-voting lawsuits filed in 2023.

While this past year’s breakdown is a departure from the trend we saw in 2022 — in which there were more anti-voting lawsuits (93) than pro-voting lawsuits (82) — it is more in line with what we saw in 2021, when there were 49 pro-voting lawsuits and 8 anti-voting lawsuits.

Between 2022 and 2023, we noticed a distinct shift in who was behind new democracy-related litigation, with pro-voting parties bringing the bulk of all new lawsuits in 2023. While anti-voting parties brought 53% of the total lawsuits filed in 2022, they only brought 30% of new lawsuits filed in 2023. Inversely, pro-voting parties brought 47% of the total lawsuits filed in 2022, but nearly 70% of new lawsuits filed in 2023.

This is likely explained by the fact that most off-year election litigation focuses on pro-voting challenges to new voter suppression laws. In both 2021 and 2023, we saw waves of new anti-voting laws enacted by Republican-controlled legislatures. On the other hand, in even-numbered years, litigation tends to focus on how elections are administered and votes are counted — two areas where the anti-voting parties are particularly litigious. (snip-graphics and much More Info on the page)