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Michigan has been the biggest redistricting battleground this decade.
Michigan GOP fails again to stop new redistricting panel
Jul 07 2020
Another Republican attempt to block Michigan's independent redistricting commission was dismissed Monday by a federal judge.
The state Republican Party's lawsuit argued that restrictions on who may serve on the new panel violated the free speech and free association rights of potential GOP commissioners — the same argument a federal appeals court rebuffed just three months ago.
Battleground Michigan has been at the heart of the gerrymandering debate since the start of the decade, when Republicans took control of Lansing and drew some of the most assertively partisan legislative and congressional maps in the country. In response, 61 percent in a grassroots-driven 2018 referendum decided to turn the next decade's line-setting over to a panel outside the control of politicians.
<p>Judge Janet Neff ruled in favor of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson — signaling that the new lawsuit was ultimately no different, constitutionally speaking, from a remarkably similar lawsuit from the state party that was <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/redistricting/court-upholds-michigan-redistricting" target="_self">dismissed this spring</a> by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.</p>
<p>"The parties have not identified any intervening change in facts or law, and the 6th Circuit's rulings are clearly stated and mirror this court's own assessment of the legal sufficiency of plaintiffs' claims," she wrote.</p>
<p>Michiganders who have in the last six years been a candidate, elected official, party officer, political consultant, lobbyist or legislative employee may not serve on the commission — nor may members of their immediate families. </p>
<p>Republicans argued these restrictions disqualify too many people from applying and that the commission's rules violate their freedom of association, as applicants for the commission are required to disclose which party they are affiliated with without needing consent from said party.</p>
<p>The 13-member commission will consist of four Democrats, four Republicans and five independents. </p>
<p>Nancy Wang, executive director of <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/opinion/voters-not-politicians" target="_self">Voters Not Politicians</a>, the group that advocated for the ballot measure, celebrated the win: "Michigan's Constitution begins with, 'All political power is inherent in the people.' The courts have vindicated the people's right to use our political power to take back our redistricting process and unrig our elections."</p>
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The suit echoes the president's unfounded claims that mail-in voting makes life easy for 'fraudsters.'
Trump campaign sues Pennsylvania over easier absentee voting
Jun 30 2020
President Trump is taking his crusade against voting by mail to a new level: His campaign has gone to court for the first time to combat liberalized absentee ballot rules — in Pennsylvania, a state central to his prospects for re-election.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Pittsburgh, seeks to make the sixth most populous state abandon for November several of the ways it collected and counted mail-in ballots in the primary, alleging the procedures were both unconstitutional and against state law.
Although the Republican Party sued last month in an unsuccessful effort to limit the delivery of mail ballots to everyone in California, and is vowing to spend $20 million or more defending restrictive voting laws that Democrats are challenging in 18 states, Pennsylvania is the first place where the president's campaign has gone on litigious offense.
<p>The "hazardous, hurried and illegal" vote-by-mail system the state instituted for this month's primaries, <a href="https://cdn.donaldjtrump.com/public-files/press_assets/complaint_trump-campaign-v-boockvar.pdf" target="_blank">the lawsuit</a> argues, gives "fraudsters an easy opportunity to engage in ballot harvesting, manipulate or destroy ballots, manufacture duplicitous votes and sow chaos."<br/></p><p>The language emulates a barrage of tweets and public comments the president has made in recent weeks, but neither Trump nor his campaign's lawyers have offered any supporting evidence for the claim. His unfounded accusations have made the debate over easing the use of mail ballot rules during the coronavirus highly partisan, even though research shows the practice gives neither side an advantage.</p><p>The lawsuit argues that when officials in about 20 counties decided to provide drop boxes for absentee ballots, they were improperly asserting power belonging to the Legislature and violating the state and federal constitutions. State law says mail ballots must be returned directly to county elections offices. The drop boxes were installed because lawsuits have been unsuccessful in striking down a state law that says ballots must be received by the time the polls close — not just postmarked by then, as in a growing number of states.</p><p>The suit also alleges some counties violated state law by counting some mail ballots that did not arrive inside a secrecy envelope or had inappropriate writing on them. </p><p>The suit wants the drop boxes abandoned and the envelope rules enforced — and to make the state permit poll watchers to monitor vote counting (including of mailed ballots) outside the counties where they live.</p><p>The other plaintiffs are the Republican National Committee, four of the state's GOP members of Congress and a pair of Republicans who want to be poll watchers in November. </p><p>The defendants are Kathy Boockvar, the Democratic secretary of state, and all 67 counties' boards of elections.</p><p>Pennsylvania's June 2 primary was chaotic, with local media <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/pa-mail-ballots-deadline-2020-primary-election-20200610.html" target="_blank">reporting</a> tens of thousands of mail ballots arrived at election offices the week after the primary. Also, thousands more who applied to vote by mail showed up at polls to use provisional ballots because their mail-in ballots did not arrive in time. This prompted Democrtatic Gov. Tom Wolf to issue an <a href="https://www.governor.pa.gov/newsroom/gov-wolf-signs-executive-order-extending-mail-ballot-deadline-in-six-counties-to-june-9/" target="_blank">executive order</a> extending by a week the deadline for receiving and counting ballots in a handful of urban and suburban counties. </p><p>The head of the state Democratic Party called the suit an effort to suppress votes as a campaign tactic, noting her party far outpaced the GOP in getting voters to apply for mail-in primary ballots. </p><p>This is the first year Pennsylvanians may vote absentee without providing a specific excuse, part of an extensive rewrite of election law <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/deal-would-ease-voting-next-year-but-not-all-the-way-in-a-big-bellwether-state" target="_self">enacted with bipartisan support</a> in Harrisburg last fall. The result was that more than 1.8 million voters asked for a remote ballot and six out of every seven of those people returned them in time. The numbers suggest the share of votes cast by mail statewide in November may go up by an order of magnitude from 2016, when it was just 5 percent.</p><p>Trump carried the state's 20 electoral votes last time by 44,000 votes, or less than 1 percent of the votes cast. Recent statewide polling suggests he's in trouble now in the state, which the Democratic nominee won the six previous times.</p><p>The president has continuously attacked efforts to expand voting by mail, raising unfounded claims of voter fraud. Some argue the attacks could <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/big-picture/trump-vote" target="_self">benefit</a> his campaign by potentially prompting Americans to decline to vote because they believe the system is corrupt. </p><p>The Pennsylvania suit is the latest in a multimillion-dollar partisan legal battle over voting rules. Recent decisions in Texas, Arizona and Iowa were <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/voting/voting-rights-lawsuits-2646290991" target="_self">a loss for voting rights advocates</a>, while decisions in Virginia and Nevada made <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/voting/absentee-ballot-virginia" target="_self">mail-in voting easier</a>. The GOP lawsuit in California, which argued Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom overstepped his bounds with his mail-in voting plans, was essentially nullified when the Legislature wrote a law doing just what he wanted.</p>
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The 10 states where patriotism is the most (and least) measurable
Jun 22 2020
New Hampshire is the most patriotic place in the country, based on its residents' strong measure of civic engagement and decently high rate of military service. And New Jersey, just four hours by car to the south, is the least flag-waving state.
These results come from the latest rankings of the states from the personal financial services website Wallet Hub, which churns out a steady diet of reports assessing the "best" and "worst" states on all sorts of social, economic and behavioral scales.
The new report was released Monday in plenty of time to be digested before July Fourth, but also in light of the unusual combination of stresses likely limiting patriotic fervor this summer. The coronavirus pandemic, and the nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism, are magnifying an incredibly divisive political landscape already getting heightened in an election year.
<p><br/></p><div class="rm-embed embed-media"><iframe frameborder="0" height="347" scrolling="no" src="//cdn.wallethub.com/wallethub/embed/13680/patriotic-geochart.html" width="556"></iframe><div style="width:556px;font-size:12px;color:#888;">Source: <a href="https://wallethub.com/edu/most-patriotic-states/13680/">WalletHub</a></div></div><p><br/></p><p>"Many people may find it hard to celebrate a country in which racist incidents persist," Wallet Hub noted, and the customary array of parades, fireworks displays and cookouts will likely be limited by social distancing requirements in many parts of the county. But it's important to note that there are plenty of ways Americans can express patriotism year-round," the company said, Include thanking our servicemembers, remaining politically active, buying U.S.-made goods, taking time to learn about our history or volunteering to help your fellow Americans."</p><p>The study compared the states across 13 key indicators of patriotism, ranging from the number of military enlistees and veterans in each state to the share of adults who voted in the 2016 presidential and primary elections and the number of AmeriCorps and Peace Corps volunteers per capita. Three-quarters of the points were awarded for civic engagement and the rest for commitment to military service.</p><p>The top possible score was 100, but New Hampshire came in at No. 1 with a 64 — while New Jersey's 22 was the lowest red-white-and-blue tally. </p><p>Delaware, the home of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, came in 31st. But New York, which President Trump has called home his whole life, came in 49th — for a variety of reasons. It has only 54 veterans for every thousand residents, for example, a small fraction of the 127 per 1,000 veteran population of Alaska, the highest share of any state.</p><p>Maine, the 15th most patriotic state, had the highest share of adults who voted in the 2016 presidential election: 73 percent. Hawaii had the lowest turnout, at 47 percent, one reason its patriotism ranking was 38th place.</p><p>While stressing the virtues of patriotism even in a highly partisan time, Wallet Hub also concluded that states that vote reliably Republican for president are generally more patriotic than those on which the Democratic nominee can count</p><p>And, of the top 10 highest scorers, six can be counted on to be colored red in November while only Maryland will be blue. (New Hampshire, Minnesota and Wisconsin are purple for now.)</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">1. New Hampshire (64 points)<br/>2. Wyoming (62)<br/>3. Idaho (62)<br/>4. Alaska (61)<br/>5. Maryland (61)<br/>6. Utah (61)<br/>7. North Dakota (60)<br/>8. Wisconsin (60)<br/>9. Minnesota (57)<br/>10. South Carolina (57)</p><p>Al the other end of the list is something of a mirror image: Six blue states, solidly red West Virginia and three of the biggest battlegrounds: Florida, Texas and Michigan</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">41. Illinois (32)<br/>42. Michigan (32)<br/>43. Connecticut (31)<br/>44. New Mexico (31)<br/>45. Florida (30)<br/>46. West Virginia (28)<br/>47. Texas (28)<br/>48. California (24)<br/>49. New York (23)<br/>50. New Jersey (22 points)</p>
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