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GOP plans to compete on ballot-harvesting in California

Republicans continue to suspect they lost several close House races in California last fall because a new state law permits campaigns to collect mail ballots directly from voters, suggesting the system is ripe for fraudulent abuse. But now the GOP is quietly working on plans to improve their own ballot-harvesting operations in the nation's most populous state, hoping that helps grow their portion of delegation in 2020 from only seven of the 53 seats.

"We got our clocks cleaned," Minnesota's Tom Emmer, the new chairman of the House GOP campaign operation told GOP donors in a private conference call last month, according to a recording obtained by The Washington Post. "While the Democrats had an operation on the ground that was actually doing the ballot-harvesting, we did not have a corresponding organization that was doing that," Emmer said, promising: "That won't happen again."


That GOP vow to fight back is complicated by a significant public relations problem – the exposure of an illegal 2018 ballot-harvesting scheme on behalf of a Republican candidate that has prompted North Carolina to keep one House seat vacant until a special election this fall.

The suspicions about what happened in California centers on the potential for nefarious behavior when ballots completed and sealed in envelopes by voters are then put in the hands of partisan operatives with the promise of a safe delivery to election centers. The alleged ballot tampering in North Carolina includes filling out, or forging, ballots without the voters' knowledge or consent.

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The Sanctuary City Debate: Understanding Federal-Local Divide in Immigration Enforcement
Police car lights.
Getty Images / Oliver Helbig

The Sanctuary City Debate: Understanding Federal-Local Divide in Immigration Enforcement

Immigration is governed by a patchwork of federal laws. Within the patchwork, one notable thread of law lies in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. The Act authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) programs, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to work in tandem with local agencies and law enforcement on deterrence and enforcement efforts. Like the now-discontinued Secure Communities program that encouraged information sharing between local police agencies and ICE, the law specifically authorizes ICE to work with local and federal partners to detain and deport removal-eligible immigrants from the country.

What are Sanctuary Policies?

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Trump Slams Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians Over Name Changes

President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he departs the White House in Washington, DC.

(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Trump Slams Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians Over Name Changes

Washington, D.C. — President Donald Trump has reignited controversy surrounding the Washington Commanders football team, demanding the franchise revert to its former name, the “Redskins,” a term widely condemned as a racial slur against Native Americans.

In a series of posts on Truth Social this past weekend, Trump declared, “The Washington 'Whatever's' should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team.” He went further, threatening to block the team’s $3.7 billion stadium deal in Washington, D.C., unless the name change is reversed.

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Media criticism
News media's vital to democracy, Americans say; then a partisan divide yawns
Tero Vesalainen/Getty Images

Public Media Under Fire: Why Project 2025 Is Reshaping NPR and PBS

This past spring and summer, The Fulcrum published a 30-part, nonpartisan series examining Project 2025—a sweeping policy blueprint for a potential second Trump administration. Our analysis explored the proposed reforms and their far-reaching implications across government. Now, as the 2025 administration begins to take shape, it’s time to move from speculation to reality.

In this follow-up, we turn our focus to one of the most consequential—and quietly unfolding—chapters of that blueprint: Funding cuts from NPR and PBS.

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Person voting

New York City’s election has gotten a lot of attention over the last few weeks, and ranked choice voting is a big part of the reason why.

Hill Street Studios/Getty Images

New York City’s Ranked Choice Voting: Democracy That’s Accountable to Voters

New York City’s election has gotten a lot of attention over the last few weeks, and ranked choice voting is a big part of the reason why.

Heads turned when 33-year-old state legislator Zohran Mamdani knocked off Andrew Cuomo, a former governor from one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent families. The earliest polls for the mayoral primary this winter found Mamdani struggling to reach even 1 percent.

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