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Quarterly fundraising reports for federal candidates covering the period from Jan. 1 to March 31 were due at the Federal Elections Commission on April 15 by 11:59 PM ET. Below is our chart of fundraising numbers for every Senate incumbent up for reelection this cycle (excluding those who’ve said they’re retiring) and any notable announced or potential candidates.

As always, all numbers are in thousands. The chart, and an explanation of each column, can be found below. You can also view this chart in spreadsheet form. In addition, we’ve put together a companion chart for the House.

This post was originally published on this site

Quarterly fundraising reports for federal candidates covering the period from Jan. 1 to March 31 were due at the Federal Elections Commission on April 15 by 11:59 PM ET. Below is our chart of fundraising numbers for every House incumbent (excluding those who’ve said they’re retiring) and any notable announced or potential candidates.

As always, all numbers are in thousands. The chart, and an explanation of each column, can be found below. You can also view this chart in spreadsheet form. In addition, we’ve put together a companion chart for the Senate.

Note that in states that have completed the congressional redistricting process, we have assigned candidates to the districts they are seeking in November; in states that have not, we have used current district numbers. Where candidates have not yet announced their intentions, we have assigned them to the districts we expect they will run in based on the best information available.

“CA-22” with an asterisk refers to the June 7 special election, which is being held under the old district lines.

Listen and subscribe to Daily Kos Elections’ The Downballot podcast with David Nir and David Beard

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Let’s continue our Black Music Sunday tour of jazz clubs and the music that made them famous, picking up where we left off after visiting The Cotton Club. Just one club in jazz history can boast that over 100 live albums were recorded there—many of which have since gone on to become classics. I’m speaking, of course, of New York’s Village Vanguard, which opened in 1935 and is still going after all these years, even after an 18-month closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Max Gordon, the Vanguard’s founder, opened the club as a Greenwich Village venue for beat poetry and folk music, but by the late 1950s, jazz was the club’s main attraction. The list of musicians who have played the Vanguard reads like a who’s who of jazz: Miles Davis, Horace Silver, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Gerry Mulligan, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Jimmy Giuffre, Sonny Rollins, Cannonball Adderley, Anita O’Day, Charlie Mingus, Bill Evans, Dexter Gordon, Roy Haynes, Betty Carter, Stan Getz, Carmen McRae … I can’t begin to list them all.

Nor can I list all the albums recorded live there, so allow me to introduce you to just a few.

I’ve probably been to every major jazz club in the States, and quite a few in other countries, but I can’t count the number of times I’ve been to the Vanguard. I lived right around the corner for a period of time, making it even easier to just pop in. 

In order to understand what makes the Vanguard so special, it’s important to discuss its ownership. Lorraine Gordon, who took over the Vanguard after the 1989 death of her husband Max, is the only jazz club owner to have been honored as a National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) Jazz Masters Fellow. Lorraine, who passed in 2018, lived to the age of 95; after her death, her daughter Deborah took over running the club.

Lorraine’s NEA honors came in 2013; this short clip of an interview with her at the time details how she got involved in the New York jazz scene, and how the Vanguard’s history as an iconic jazz venue (and her relationship with Max) began.

As noted above, there is no way to squeeze even one-tenth of the music recorded at the Vanguard into just one story. But I’ll start at the beginning, with tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, who recorded the first full-length live album in the club. Rollins’ website offers his bio:

Walter Theodore Rollins was born on September 7, 1930 in New York City. He grew up in Harlem not far from the Savoy Ballroom, the Apollo Theatre, and the doorstep of his idol, Coleman Hawkins. After early discovery of Fats Waller and Louis Armstrong, he started out on alto saxophone, inspired by Louis Jordan. At the age of sixteen, he switched to tenor, trying to emulate Hawkins. He also fell under the spell of the musical revolution that surrounded him, bebop.

He began to follow Charlie Parker, and soon came under the wing of Thelonious Monk, who became his musical mentor and guru. When he was living in Sugar Hill, his neighborhood musical peers included Jackie McLean, Kenny Drew, and Art Taylor, but it was young Sonny who was first out of the pack, working and recording with Babs Gonzales, J.J. Johnson, Bud Powell, and Miles Davis before he turned twenty. “Of course, these people are there to be called on because I think I represent them in a way,” Rollins has said of his peers and mentors. “They’re not here now so I feel like I’m sort of representing all of them, all of the guys. Remember, I’m one of the last guys left, as I’m constantly being told, so I feel a holy obligation sometimes to evoke these people.”

In the early fifties, he established a reputation first among musicians, then the public, as the most brash and creative young tenor on the scene, through his work with Miles, Monk, and the MJQ.

For the 60th anniversary of the recording of Rollins’ Vanguard album, A Night at the Village Vanguard,  jazz critic and author Nate Chinen dove into the history and interviewed the legend—then 87—for NPR in 2017.

“The Vanguard was sort of the premier room at that time,” [Rollins] recalls, speaking by phone from his home in Woodstock, N.Y. “A lot of guys played there, and they all seemed to express the music without any sort of impediment. I felt particularly comfortable.”

In the original liner notes to the LP, released on Blue Note Records in 1958, Leonard Feather notes that it “constitutes a double premiere.” He’s referring to A Night at the Village Vanguard being both the first live documentation of Rollins as a bandleader and the first album recorded the Village Vanguard, a wedge-shaped basement room regarded, then and now, as “one of New York’s foremost havens of contemporary jazz.”

Feather doesn’t make much of it, but A Night at the Village Vanguard is a slightly misleading title, because the album also includes material recorded at an afternoon matinee. The evening trio features bassist Wilbur Ware and drummer Elvin Jones, an assertive rhythm team that combined high-end volatility with the feeling of firm traction underfoot. In the afternoon, Rollins used Donald Bailey on bass and Pete La Roca on drums — a pairing with plenty of firepower but less mystery and nuance.

Joseph Neff, senior editor at The Vinyl District, wrote his own paean to Rollins’ album in 2014.

What these musicians achieved is amongst the very greatest jazz ever laid to tape. Surely no release in Rollins’ discography ranks higher, with the horn solos in “Old Devil Moon” alone more than justifying the full cost of this LP. And as he plays, Jones and Ware are in constant communication with the saxophonist and each other. Rollins is still clearly the leader; he called the tunes and was the one who chiseled the marble of this splendid audio sculpture down to a three-piece in the first place.

But all it takes is a listen to the vibrant elasticity, the assured balance of the rhythmic imperative in tandem with the desire for melodiousness, in Ware’s opening bass-line on “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise” to comprehend that in the creation of this music, hierarchy was on nobody’s mind. So logically Ware’s solos are ceaselessly interesting and never in service to formula, with this feature easily extending to Jones’ responsive work at the kit.

Over half a century later it’s Rollins that impresses most though, mainly because few have sounded this nervy while unfurling so naturally, his improvising free-flowing but reliant on vital swing. But while he was always connected to a savvy classicism, he also wasn’t chained to it. For example, by imbuing the concise “Striver’s Row,” the first of Rollins’ tunes, with increased freedom, the group simultaneously references bebop and transcends it.

Here’s the whole album—just 43 minutes long.

Next up: John Coltrane. I wish I could say I was at the Village Vanguard for this session, but alas, when it was recorded in 1961, I was only 14. I’ve featured ‘Trane here before and shared the impact he and his wife Naima had on me, but I’ve never written about his first live album. I was surprised, when exploring the album’s initial critical reception, to learn that many of the people paid to weigh in were upset by it, and felt compelled to pontificate and pass judgment on their bailiwick of “jazz.” The critiques at the time were so harsh that Downbeat Magazine gave Coltrane and Eric Dolphy a chance to “answer the jazz critics” in April 1962.

Much of the vituperation thrown at Coltrane was fueled by his association with Dolphy. 

Dolphy’s playing has been praised and damned since his national jazz-scene arrival about two years ago. Last summer Dolphy joined Coltrane’s group for a tour. It was on this tour that Coltrane and Dolphy came under the withering fire of DownBeat associate editor John Tynan, the first critic to take a strong—and public—stand against what Coltrane and Dolphy were playing.

In the Nov. 23, 1961, DownBeat, Tynan wrote, “At Hollywood’s Renaissance Club recently, I listened to a horrifying demonstration of what appears to be a growing anti-jazz trend exemplified by these foremost proponents [Coltrane and Dolphy] of what is termed avant-garde music. “I heard a good rhythm section… go to waste behind the nihilistic exercises of the two horns.… Coltrane and Dolphy seem intent on deliberately destroying [swing].… They seem bent on pursuing an anarchistic course in their music that can but be termed anti-jazz.”

The anti-jazz term was picked up by Leonard Feather and used as a basis for critical essays of Coltrane, Dolphy, Ornette Coleman and the “new thing” in general in DownBeat and Show. The reaction from readers to both Tynan’s and Feather’s remarks was immediate, heated and about evenly divided.

Journalist and music critic Ben Ratliff wrote a very long piece for The Washington Post last year about “Coltrane and the essence of 1961.” Sadly, Ratliff spends most of the story discussing what was going on in the world in 1961, and not much time discussing the music. 

A culling from those nights was released as a single LP in February 1962, with only three tracks. They were the serious and easeful “Spiritual,” which later helped define a sort of music lately called “spiritual jazz”; his version of the standard “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise,” which (via this recording) helped define the straight-ahead jazz mainstream; and, for all of side B, the volatile 12-bar blues in F called “Chasin’ the Trane,” which starts abruptly, as if from a tape splice, and flies forward in lunges, defining nothing and beholden to nothing. It ends when it ends and it could conceivably go on much longer. It doesn’t know the meaning of “sufficient.” Sometimes it gets unbearably exciting. It can make the listener think: What exactly is going on here?

One key feature of the Vanguard’s history is that it will forever be the birthplace of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. Resonance Records produced this short documentary about the Feb. 7, 1966 debut of the band. I most enjoyed the interviews with the recording engineers and musicians.

In 2016 NPR’s Jazz Night In America highlighted the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra’s 50th year at the Vanguard.

In 1965, the trumpeter and composer/arranger Thad Jones and the drummer Mel Lewis found themselves with a book of big band music originally intended for the Count Basie Orchestra — and nobody to perform it. So they made their own. They handpicked some of New York’s top talent and called rehearsals on Monday nights, when the studio musicians could actually make it. And by the time they debuted on a Monday in February 1966 at the famed Village Vanguard, they were already a force to be reckoned with — soon to become the most influential big band of the last 50 years. The Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, now the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, still plays every Monday night.

You can watch the full episode below.

The Thad Jones Archive offers this biography.

Thad Jones, trumpeter, cornetist, bandleader, arranger and composer, was born near Detroit in Pontiac, Michigan on March 28, 1923. He is one of three brothers who have had prominent jazz careers: Hank Jones, the oldest of the three, has had a long career as a master pianist; the youngest, drummer Elvin Jones one of the most influential drummers in the modern era.

After Army service including an association with the U.S. Military School of Music and working with area bands in Des Moines and Oklahoma City, Thad became a member of the Count Basie Orchestra in May 1954. He was featured as a soloist on such well-known tunes as “April in Paris,” “Shiny Stockings” and “Corner Pocket.” However, his main contribution was his nearly two dozen arrangements and compositions for the Basie Orchestra, including “The Deacon,” “H.R.H.” (Her Royal Highness, in honor of the band’s command performance in London), “Counter Block,” and lesser known gems such as “Speaking of Sounds.” His hymn-like ballad “To You” was performed by the Basie band combined with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in their only recording together, and the recording “Dance Along With Basie” contains nearly an entire album of Jones’ uncredited arrangements of standard tunes.

Jones left the Basie Orchestra in 1963 to become a freelance arranger and studio player in New York. With former Stan Kenton drummer Mel Lewis, he started a once-a-week rehearsal band of leading studio musicians who needed a creative outlet after the long hours of the then-thriving New York studio recording scene. Armed with only a handful of arrangements, they approached Village Vanguard club owner Max Gordon and were booked for three Mondays in February 1966. This first engagement at the legendary jazz club carried on continuously, gained an international reputation for Jones and the ensemble, and made several foreign tours including a historic 1972 Soviet Union trip. During this time, he also collaborated as an arranger in projects with trumpeter Harry James, and a Bessie Smith tribute with vocalist Teresa Brewer.

Rick Mattingly, of the Percussive Arts Society, and former Senior Editor of Modern Drummer magazine, wrote this detailed bio of Mel Lewis for the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame website.

Mel Lewis, whose real name was Melvin Sokoloff, was born in Buffalo, New York. He began playing professionally at age fifteen and worked with the bands of Lenny Lewis, Boyd Raeburn, Alvino Rey, Tex Beneke, and Ray Anthony. When Lewis joined Stan Kenton’s band in 1954, many jazz critics credited him with being the first drummer to make the Kenton band swing […]

Lewis moved to Los Angeles in 1957 and worked with the big bands of Terry Gibbs and Gerald Wilson, and with pianist Hampton Hawes and trombonist Frank Rosolino. He also co-led a combo with Bill Holman. In 1962 he made a trip to Russia with Benny Goodman. In addition, Lewis did a variety of studio sessions while in L.A. (My favorite trivia fact about Mel is that he was the drummer on the early ’60s rock song “Alley Oop.”)

After returning to New York in 1963, Lewis worked with Ben Webster and Gerry Mulligan. In 1965, Mel and trumpeter Thad Jones (Elvin’s brother) formed the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, which began a steady Monday-night gig at the Village Vanguard club in February 1966. The band also recorded frequently, and the group toured the Soviet Union in 1972.

Enjoy the band’s Vanguard album, recorded live in 1967.

While scrolling through the list of all the jazz artists who recorded live albums at the Vanguard, there was an obvious dearth of women. It’s not that women never played or sang at the club; rather, the live album pickings are pretty damn thin. Thankfully, two of my all-time favorite female jazz artists—Betty Carter and Shirley Horn—as well as Mary Stallings, a vocalist you may not be familiar with, are on that list.

Pianist and music editor Kyle Kevorkian wrote Carter’s bio for Musician Guide.

Carter was born Lillie Mae Jones on May 16, 1930, in Flint, Michigan. She grew up in Detroit and as a high school student studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory of Music. It was a time when a brilliant and bold new music was sweeping the country–bebop, the postwar jazz style that was being pioneered by the great saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker, and horn player Dizzy Gillespie. Lillie Mae was immediately turned on to it. She often “played hookey at the soda joint across the street from my high school and listened to the jukebox, which was filled with bebop singles,” she told Pulse! “We would sit around and learn the solos, and go to see them whenever they came to town–we met Bird and Dizzy when they came to our school.” Soon she was singing Sunday afternoon cabaret gigs; by the age of 18 she had sat in with Bird, Dizzy, trumpeter Miles Davis, and other greats. Her first employer, though, was not a bebopper but a veteran of swing music–the vibraphonist and bandleader Lionel Hampton. In a 1988 interview with AP writer Campbell, Carter recounted their first meeting: “I went with some classmates to hear Lionel’s band. We were standing in front of the bandstand. A guy said, ‘Why don’t you let Lillie Mae sing?’ That was my name then. He said, ‘Can you sing, Gates?’ I said yes. He said, ‘Then come on up, Gates.'”

The impromptu audition landed her a job. From 1948 to 1951 she toured with Hampton, standing in front of his big band and scatting (improvising with nonsense syllables) segments of the tunes they played. “I didn’t get a chance to sing too many songs because Hamp had a lot of other singers at the same time; but I took care of the bebop division, you might say,” she told Pulse! with a chuckle. “He’d stick me into songs they were already doing, so I was singing a chorus here, a chorus there; I didn’t realize at the time what good training that was. And I had the late Bobby Plater teach me to orchestrate and transpose, which I really needed later on.” While she was learning from Hampton she was also learning from his wife. “I had this role model of Gladys Hampton to emulate. She took care of the band, saw to it that everything ran smoothly, that everybody got paid and such. That was the first time I’d ever experienced dealing with a woman who was the boss–and she was a black woman. It was very unusual at that time, and still is.”[…]

In 1952, after two and a half years of “doing what Hamp wanted me to,” as she told AP writer Campbell, “I struck out to find out what more I could do with myself. I came to New York and got work right away at the Apollo Bar, a couple of doors from the Apollo Theater.” Thus began a grueling period of dues-paying. “I did the usual, playing dives and joints, wherever I could,” she told Pulse! “There were a lot of places around to do the hustling then…. Besides all the clubs that were in New York, we had Philadelphia to work with, and Boston, and Washington, D.C.; all up and down the East Coast there were lots of places to work. And Detroit was still good then, and Chicago.” It was a golden time of opportunity. “There was a big, beautiful music world for us in the ’50s,” she told the Daily News Magazine. “We played and learned together, because we all loved music and musicianship. It wasn’t about money–we weren’t making any of that–it was about a whole community. No one had to dominate. We liked each other. I’d hang around clubs with Sarah Vaughan or Ruth Brown. I played on bills with Sonny Til and the Orioles, the Temptations, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Miles Davis. It didn’t matter what you did; you just had to be good at it. At the Apollo, you could play classical music if you did it well…. Someone should write a book about those days. There was such joy. We thought that world would never end.”

I had the good fortune to interview Carter for my radio show in Washington, D.C., and later, spend time with her in her home in New York City. I also saw her perform live numerous times. Though the YouTube upload of this amazing live album by Betty Carter at the Vanguard has some pops and crackles from the vinyl (find pristine clips here), I chose this video because it’s the complete 21-minute album.

When you listen you can feel the rapport Carter had with her audience.

Pianist and vocalist Shirley Horn, who I featured here in April 2021, played the Vanguard in 1991; a film of her performance was released in 2006. Horn’s stylings are both understated and exquisite. 

Finally, Mary Stallings. Her website offers this biography.

Born and raised in San Francisco, the middle child of 11 siblings, Stallings started performing professionally before the age of 10 with her mother and two older sisters in a family gospel group. She got her first real taste of jazz at home, sitting in at rehearsals with her uncle, tenor saxophonist and bandleader Orlando Stallings. Stallings’ career got off to an early start in the late ’50s and her supple voice landed her in rarified air: performing with such luminaries as Ben Webster, Cal Tjader, Earl Hines, Red Mitchell, Teddy Edwards, and the Montgomery brothers (Wes, Monk, and Buddy) in Bay Area night clubs such as Hungry i, The Purple Onion and El Matador.

Perhaps Stallings’ best-known recording was the 1961 Cal Tjader Plays, Mary Stallings Sings on Fantasy Records, which brought engagements in Tokyo, Manila and Bangkok along with work up and down the West Coast. She spent a year in the late 1960s performing in Nevada with Billy Eckstine, and toured South America with  Gillespie’s band in 1965 and 1966. She has shared the bill with such luminaries as Joe Williams, Tony Bennett and Ella Fitzgerald. From 1969-1972, she enjoyed a successful three-year residency in the Count Basie Orchestra. After touring with the Basie orchestra, she devoted her time to raising her only child, R&B singer Adriana Evans.

And since it’s a Sunday, here’s “A Sunday Kind of Love,” from Stallings’ album, recorded live at the Vanguard, in 2001.

No exploration of the musical legacy of the Vanguard would be complete without pianist and composer Bill Evans, who was virtually a fixture at the club. 

Robert Dupuis at Musician Guide describes Evans’ early musical beginnings.

Evans studied piano at age six, soon adding violin and flute to his arsenal,but he later claimed “it was always the piano.” Disdaining formal practice as a child, he worked his way through stacks of used sheet music marches, songs, and classical music that his mother had bought. Thus did he acquire a skill at sight reading that served him all his life. He earned a scholarship to Southeastern Louisiana College and in 1950 was awarded degrees both in music (as a piano major) and in music education. Though he often avoided the specific exercises prescribed in college courses, he regularly demonstrated his ability to play the concepts those exercises were purported to teach by encompassing them in his playing of compositions. With uncharacteristic bravado, he told writer/lyricist Gene Lees, “They couldn’t flunk me because I played the instrument so well.”

[…]

Throughout his years at college Evans played not only in the school groups, but on his own as well. After graduation, he worked with the band of Herbie Fields before being drafted into the U.S. Army. While playing flute in the Fifth Army Band throughout his 1951-54 assignment at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, near Chicago, by night Evans became a part of the city’s jazz scene. During this period he played with the bands of Tony Scott and Jerry Wald, among others. Evans collaborated with avant-garde composer George Russell for several years beginning in about 1956, integrating modal music (stressing structure and form) into jazz playing and producing such recordings as “All About Rosie” and “Concerto for Billy the Kid.” In 1957 Evans was featured on the “East Coasting” album with bassist Charles Mingus.

Though Evans etched his first Riverside album as a leader and drew increasing attention from music insiders, it was his eight-month stint with trumpeter Miles Davis’s sextet in 1958 that propelled the pianist toward stardom and instilled some measure of self-confidence. This all-star group included such luminaries as alto saxist Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, tenorman John Coltrane, and bassist Paul Chambers.

A website dedicated to Evans continues his story and describes his artistry.

After his collaboration with Miles Davis, resulting in several albums in one year, Evans worked with his own trio, until 1961 when Scott LaFaro was tragically killed in a car crash. Bill Evans was a quiet revolutionary whose Bud Powell, Ravel  and Chopin based pianisms introduced a more florid way of playing ballads. Evans was an incredibly lyrical pianist, but he had the ability to be forceful and ambitious as well. Evans’ expressive piano work inspired a whole generation of players who appreciated his unique harmonic approach, his introspective lyricism, and his unhurried improvisation along with an analytical perfection.His chords have its own intrinsic colour, which creates a particular climate. Evans’ essence was defined by his tasteful economy of expression. The notes he chose not to play were fully as crucial as the ones he did, “the breath in between the phrase”. The following statement by the famous classical pianist Arthur Schnabel certainly applies to Bill Evans: “The notes I handle are no better than many pianists, but the pauses between the notes, that is where the art resides!” No pianist plays “deeper” in the keys, extracting a richer, more complex piano sound than Bill Evans. Most jazz pianists tend to think“vertically” in terms of chords and are concerned with the rhythmical placement of these chords than with melody and voice leading. His sparse left-hand voicings support his lyrical right-hand lines, with a subtle use of the sustaining pedal. The long melodic line, which, says Bill Evans, is “the basic thing I want in my playing because music must be always singing”.

Music writer S. Victor Aaron shares his views on the album that has now become a classic: the Bill Evans Trio’s 1961 Sunday At The Village Vanguard.

The album opens with “Gloria’s Step,” with its descending chord patterns that start somewhat bright and work its way down to a somber mood. Evans interprets the melody in short but rich phrases, and Lafaro is playing lines of his own that exhibit limitless range and yet never ignores what Motian and Evans are doing. After a solo brimming with full chords, Evans gives way to LaFaro who makes his bass sing and finds himself making a home in the upper register. As the second take of this song, it’s the best overall performance of the entire day.

LaFaro’s other tune, “Jade Visions,” was performed for the first time that night and played a second time at the end of the evening set. As the last song this trio ever played together, “Jade Visions” is a slow-paced meditative piece centered around a bass riff. Evans plays with much thoughtfulness, adding nomore notes than needed, understanding that to do so would obscure that keyriff. Motian, ever the master colorist, put that skill to great use for this song.

The rest of the songs chosen for the day are covers, most of which were familiar movie and show tunes. Throughout his career, Evans had a penchant for selecting easily recognizable, often overworked numbers and recasting them as harmonically robust songs that became distinctively his own. A notable exception to this Broadway pattern is the choice of Miles Davis’ “Solar,” but even then, it’s adorned with chunks of minor scale motifs in Evans’ remarkable hands. All of these tracks of course feature LaFaro contributing expressive solos from an instrument not previously known to be so impressionistic.

Sit back, relax, and chill with Bill.

That, dear reader-listeners, concludes this edition of Black Music Sunday, but trust that I have lots more music from the Vanguard in store for you in the comments. I look forward to hearing your favorites as well.

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We begin today with an exclusive by George Arbuthnott and Jonathan Calvert of The Sunday Times in Londongrad writing that Ukraine began asking Great Britain for lethal military assistance right after Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea and through the terms of three Conservative prime ministers and were refused. Until recently.

In the years after the invasion of Crimea, there would be much rhetoric directed against the Kremlin from successive British prime ministers and foreign secretaries. However, the words were not matched by action and a series of clear opportunities were missed to challenge Putin and his London-based allies. […]

There were many calls for Britain to confront Putin in a way that would demonstrate the high cost he would have to pay for breaking international law. The pressure to take decisive action greatly increased after the Salisbury chemical weapon attack.

As a result, two parliamentary inquiries — by the foreign affairs committee in 2018 and the intelligence and security committee in 2020 — called for sanctions to be imposed on the oligarchs in London. The committees’ recommendations, however, were largely ignored by the May and Johnson governments. While he was foreign secretary, Johnson sidestepped implementing the findings of the foreign affairs committee and later, as prime minister, delayed the release of the intelligence committee’s report. Britain did not independently sanction any oligarch with known UK assets until Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.

There were a number of reasons for this inertia. A significant one, some claim, was the cosy relationship between the government and wealthy Russians who entertained ministers; gave money to the Conservative Party; brought wealth into London; and acquired important national assets such as a newspaper and Premier League football clubs.

What’s notable about this reporting by The Sunday Times is that a few of the former government ministers were willing to go on the record for this story. The Sunday Times also notes that even the Trump Administration summoned the will to at least sanction a few oligarchs whereas the Brits did not impose any sort of sanctions or restrictions until July 2020; a rather eye-popping bit of news for this liberal on this side of the pond.

Considering that Rupert Murdoch and News Corp owns The Sunday Times, I must say that conservatives are in disarray all over the place, it seems.

Dan Balz of The Washington Post writes that the only thing that animates House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is keeping his hopes of becoming Speaker of the House alive.

After offering critical remarks about Trump on the House floor in the days after the Capitol attack, McCarthy lost his nerve. He made a pilgrimage to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, the supplicant asking the monarch for forgiveness. They were photographed together, the public record of the visit Trump’s apparent punishment for the earlier criticism.

McCarthy has since been craven in bowing to Trump’s wishes, fearing that crossing the former president could compromise both his party’s hopes of capturing the majority in November’s midterm elections and his own desire to lead a Republican-controlled House next year as speaker. He also has been weak in the face of calls to discipline the most extreme members of the House GOP conference — those who have been the most loyal to Trump and his conspiracy theories, including the false claim that he won the 2020 election.

[…]

This is what the Republican Party in the House of Representatives now stands for — the abandonment of a principled conservative leader and the possible elevation of a politician whose abiding principle is the pursuit of power, one who has bent and bowed before a former president whose actions he denounced and knew were wrong.

Heather Cox Richardson writes for her Letters From an American blog naming the names of some the Congresspersons who plotted to overthrow American democracy.

Let’s be clear: the people working to keep Trump in office by overturning the will of the people were trying to destroy our democracy. Not one of them, or any of those who plotted with them, called out the illegal attempt to destroy our government.

To what end did they seek to overthrow our democracy?

The current Republican Party has two wings: one eager to get rid of any regulation of business, and one that wants to get rid of the civil rights protections that the Supreme Court and Congress began to put into place in the 1950s. Business regulation is actually quite popular in the U.S., so to build a political following, in the 1980s, leaders of the anti-regulation wing of the Republican Party promised racists and the religious right that they would stomp out the civil rights legislation that since the 1950s has tried to make all Americans equal before the law.

But even this marriage has not been enough to win elections, since most Americans like business regulation and the protection of things like the right to use birth control. So, to put its vision into place, the Republican Party has now abandoned democracy. Its leaders have concluded that any Democratic victory is illegitimate, even if voters have clearly chosen a Democrat, as they did with Biden in 2020, by more than 7 million votes.

Renée Graham of the Boston Globe notes that Russian President Vladimir Putin has a new pupil: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Like Donald Trump, his political mentor turned detractor, DeSantis appears to be taking his budding dictator cues straight from the Kremlin. Last month, when he signed into law the execrable Parental Rights in Education bill, which bars teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity with children in kindergarten through third grade, DeSantis said that teaching young kids that “they can be whatever they want to be” is “inappropriate.” Those who’ve dubbed it the “Don’t Say Gay” law are promoting “woke gender ideology,” he said.[…]

Putin is an autocrat who has ruled Russia since 1999. In a ruthless move, DeSantis is consolidating power with his GOP-centric reconfiguring of Florida’s congressional districts that — and stop me if you’ve heard this one before — would have a disproportionate impact on Black voters. The change will likely cut the number of Black Democratic representatives in Congress while boosting Republican chances to pick up House seats in November. Even a sit-in on the Florida House floor Thursday led by Black Democrats could only delay but not prevent its passage.

And in an act of pure retaliation, DeSantis went after Mickey Mouse. After pressure from LGBTQ employees, Walt Disney Company officials denounced and pledged to help repeal the “Don’t Say Gay” law. On Thursday the Florida legislature revoked Disney World’s special tax district status that has allowed the 25,000-acre theme park complex near Orlando to operate as a separate municipality since 1967. There’s no doubt DeSantis will sign it into law to send a pointed warning to other companies that might consider publicly bucking him or his policies.

Paul Krugman of The New York Times writes that a recession may— or may not— happen.

The other type of nuclear weapons are tactical, or nonstrategic, which the U.S. is more worried about today. They are shorter-range—they travel up to three hundred miles—and often have lower-yield warheads. (Some, though, carry more kilotons than the Hiroshima bomb.) They are designed to take out tank or troop formations on a battlefield—not wipe out a city. In the history of nuclear weapons, there has never been a treaty—bilateral or international—that limits developing or deploying tactical nukes anywhere. During the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union produced thousands each, with Moscow controlling up to twenty-five thousand. Afterward, the U.S. dismantled most of its tactical arsenal and withdrew most of those weapons from Europe. Russia kept more of its stockpile. There is now a vast disparity in tactical arsenals. Last month, the Congressional Research Service reported that Russia has up to two thousand tactical nukes, while the U.S. has around two hundred.

Today, Russia also has many more delivery systems for tactical nuclear weapons—submarine torpedoes, ballistic missiles on land or sea, artillery shells, and aircraft—while the U.S. has only gravity bombs that can be dropped from warplanes. “They have more diverse capabilities than we do,” McKenzie concluded. More than a hundred U.S. tactical nukes are again situated in Europe, at bases in five nato countries: Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Turkey. Most of Russia’s are on its western front, near the borders of NATO members.

Four scenarios may lead Russia to use a nuclear weapon, according to Kimball of the Arms Control Association. To coerce Kyiv or its NATO allies to back down, Putin could carry out a “demonstration” bombing in the atmosphere above the Arctic Ocean or the Baltic Sea—not for killing, but “to remind everyone that Russia has nuclear weapons.” Russia could also use tactical weapons to change the military balance on the ground with Ukraine. If the war expands, and NATO gets drawn into the fight, Russia could further escalate the conflict with the use of short-range nuclear weapons. “Both U.S. and Russian policy leave open the possibility of using nuclear weapons in response to an extreme non-nuclear threat,” Kimball said. Finally, if Putin believes that the Russian state (or leadership) is at risk, he might use a tactical nuclear weapon to “save Russia from a major military defeat.” Russia has lost some twenty-five per cent of its combat power in the last two months, a Pentagon official estimated this week. Moscow’s military doctrine reserves the right to use nuclear weapons “in response to the use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction” against Russia or its allies, and also in response to aggression via conventional weapons “when the very existence of the state is threatened.” In military jargon, the country’s policy is “to escalate to de-escalate,” Richard Burt, the lead negotiator on the original start accord, which was signed by Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush in 1991, told me. “The idea is to so shock the adversary that a nuclear weapon has been used, to demonstrate your resolve that you’re willing to use a nuclear weapon, that you paralyze your adversary.”

Steffan Klusmann of Der Spiegel writes that it is time for German Chancellor to stand up to Russian aggression.

According to a recent survey, many Germans now doubt their chancellor’s abilities. Just under two-thirds don’t consider him to be a strong leader. Is Olaf Scholz, who likes to attest to his own leadership, ultimately the wrong chancellor for these challenging times?

What is certain is this: He’s stuck in a dilemma that is difficult to resolve. His goal is to avert harm to the German people, and he has taken an oath of office to that end. Germany must not be dragged into the war under any circumstances, because Putin is capable of anything. Yet this is precisely the crux of the matter, and Scholz probably doesn’t want to talk about it publicly because it could be interpreted as a betrayal of Ukraine: What if Putin doesn’t get anywhere in the Donbas either? What if the arms supplies from the West actually enable Zelenskyy’s troops to withstand the Russians’ superior force?

For Putin, that would be tantamount to disgrace. In Scholz’s Chancellery, officials now assume that the Kremlin boss could then use nuclear weapons as a last resort. But what if those bombs fall not on Ukrainian soil but instead on Warsaw or Berlin? That Putin isn’t solely concerned with Ukraine, but with a reordering of the balance of power in Europe – they have understood that much in the Chancellery. This means, conversely, that they are no longer ruling out any possibility any longer.

Hans von de Burchard of POLITICO Europe points out that the German Green Party has become uncharacteristically hawkish because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Green Party is also gaining in popularity in Germany.

Habeck, the economy and climate minister, and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock — the Cabinet’s leading Greens — helped overturn a long-standing policy, of both Germany and their own party, to send defensive weapons to Ukraine. And they have since gone significantly further — pushing Social Democrat Scholz publicly and privately to send heavy weapons to aid Kyiv.

The shift is the latest chapter in the relatively short history of a party that grew out of environmental, pacifist and anti-nuclear movements in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has now begun its second spell in national government. […]

The Greens’ stance is striking a chord across Germany, too. Habeck, who is also at the forefront of efforts to wean Germany off its dependency on Russian energy, has become the country’s most popular politician, according to an Insa poll last week. Baerbock came second in that ranking — ahead of Scholz, who topped the chart not so long ago.

Finally, the second round of the French presidential election is being held today, with incumbent President Emmanuel Macron expected to win a second term and defeat the far right’s Marine Le Pen.

I was intrigued by this article at France 24 about how French pollsters project their election winners without using “exit polls.”

Unlike in most other democracies, where those projections are based on exit polls, French pollsters base their estimates on ballots that have actually been counted. Those estimates are updated throughout the evening as the vote count progresses.

“The main difference with an exit poll is that instead of asking people outside the polling station how they voted, we look straight at their ballots,” says Mathieu Doiret of the Ipsos polling institute, FRANCE 24’s partner for the presidential election. “This means we have to wait for the first polling stations to close at 7pm, whereas exit polls can be worked on throughout the day.”

Like other pollsters, Ipsos relies on feedback from hundreds of polling stations scattered across France. The sample is chosen to ensure it is representative of the diversity of French constituencies while also matching the overall result of the last presidential election, which is used as a benchmark.

There are turnout numbers available for the French overseas departments.

Here are the final polls and the approximate time that we should know the winner of the French presidential election.

Everyone have a great day!

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Among the 25 recordings recently selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry are a number of milestone records by Latino artists, including Linda Ronstadt’s exquisite Canciones de mi Padre. The Spanish-language album covered songs by beloved Mexican composers, including Rubén Fuentes and Gilberto Parra.

“Canciones de Mi Padre is an album I’ve always wanted to make because of my Mexican heritage,” said Ronstadt, who was born and raised in the Sonoran desert along the southern borderlands. Released in 1987 “despite her music label’s disapproval,” the mariachi record won a competitive Grammy, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame last year, and remains the biggest selling non-English album in U.S. music history, NBC News said.

“While Linda Ronstadt is best known for her work in country, rock and pop music, she often referenced her Mexican-American roots,” the Library of Congress said in a statement. “In 1987, she paid full tribute to her heritage with her album ‘Canciones de Mi Padre,’ recorded with four distinguished mariachi bands.” 

Listen to Jennifer Fernandez Ancona from Way to Win explain how Democrats must message to win on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast with Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld

In a take that aged like milk left out in the sun, Rolling Stone magazine initially insulted the record as “the party-gag album of the year,” Gustavo Arellano wrote in the Los Angeles Times in 2017. But the album has not only remained a beloved favorite among Latinos—Ronstadt said that she recalled looking out into her audience and seeing “three generations of families there”—it’s credited with introducing these compositions and music style to new listeners.

“I love the musical traditions that came with it,” Ronstadt said. “I always thought they were world-class songs. And I thought they were songs that the music could transcend the language barrier.” Ronstadt has also had a long history as a fierce defender of migrant rights, in 2020 accepting the Dolores Huerta Award from Farmworker Justice.

Career-defining recordings by Puerto Rican entertainer Ricky Martin and Cuban group Buena Vista Social Club were also selected for induction alongside Ronstadt. In the statement, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said that 1,000 nominations were received this year. “The National Recording Registry reflects the diverse music and voices that have shaped our nation’s history and culture through recorded sound. The national library is proud to help preserve these recordings,” she said.

The Library of Congress has in recent months taken significant steps to increase Latino representation across various mediums.

In December, Selena, the biopic depicting the life of beloved Tejano superstar Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, was inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. In a statement, the Library of Congress hailed both Selena and the Gregory Nava-directed film as “touchstones in Latin American culture,” adding that the singer’s “infectious appeal crossed over to audiences of all kinds.” More recently, the Library of Congress said it would include thousands of immigrant stories in the Handbook of Latin American Studies Web Archive.

The Immigrant Archive Project, which has steadily worked to archive these stories, also accepts requests for unique story submissions. The Library of Congress said that “as the internet has become an increasingly important and influential part of our lives, we believe the historical record would be incomplete if websites like [these] are not preserved and made a part of it,” NBC News reported.

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Ever wonder about the work and team behind Daily Kos’ formidable advocacy? Well, then this breakdown is for you!  

The Daily Kos Activism team provides progressive advocacy groups, civic engagement organizations, and Democratic candidates, elected officials, and committees with grassroots resources—email and SMS list sign-ups, small-dollar fundraising, GOTV and event RSVPs, petition signatures, and deliveries, as well as constituent letters and phone calls to elected officials—at scale to help their campaigns succeed.

One of our biggest priorities is supplying the Daily Kos community with tools to take impactful action on the most critical issues of our time. Sustained grassroots activism has delivered big results at every level of government. Let’s take a look at the tools we provide below.

Letter Campaigns and Petitions

One of the most effective ways of communicating our position to our elected officials is through constituent letters. We build grassroots momentum by mobilizing activists around a particular demand. When you send a constituent letter through a Daily Kos campaign, the letter is sent directly to your elected official, governmental body, or corporate decision-maker.

Daily Kos also organizes petitions to generate grassroots support for an issue. Petitions only require that you sign your name in support. Once a petition campaign ends, we deliver the signatures to the appropriate official, either in person or via email. We often write blogs and highlight petition signature deliveries on social media.

Email

More than 3 million people subscribe to Daily Kos’ email list. Email is the primary driver for actions. Users who have signed up for our email list will receive petitions and letter campaigns dealing with today’s most pressing issues. Participating in our campaigns is an efficient way for the community to voice their support and concerns.

Call Campaigns and SMS

Calls to decision-makers are our most effective tool. We often coordinate with other progressive organizations to create a groundswell of calls on a specific day. We have found that Daily Kos readers are most likely to make a call when they receive an action alert via text, which is why most of our call campaigns are now run through mobile texting. When you sign up for our text message program, we will send you notifications with new call campaigns you can participate in to make your opinions known.

In 2018, Daily Kos began using SMS text messaging. Thanks to our SMS program, we have dramatically increased the number of phone calls we can generate for our lobbying campaigns—especially when it comes to “rapid-response” efforts—and can more effectively track our impact. We use SMS for action alerts, fundraising, and sharing good content such as video clips from Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast.

If you’d like to sign up for the text messaging program, you can do so here.

Long-term campaigns

Effecting change is never quick or easy. It often requires constant, ongoing action. Our long-term campaigns focus on creating momentum toward progressive goals. Currently, that includes voting rights, judicial campaigns, reproductive freedom, abolishing the filibuster, expanding social safety net programs like the child tax credit, making the rich pay their fair share, and reforming the U.S. Postal Service. We plan strategic actions designed to spotlight issues and influence policy conversations.

So far this year, we have generated more than 40,000 phone calls and 2 million constituent letters to Congress in support of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. We have also generated over 338,000 letters supporting voting rights and over 630,000 letters and petition signatures supporting Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court nomination. And that’s just the beginning.

These issues are prevalent, systemic, and deeply ingrained in our society. We at Daily Kos are committed to keeping them at the forefront of the national conversation.

The power of collective action

Daily Kos doesn’t have billions of dollars to spend on lobbyists. We don’t have a constant stream of Koch or corporate money pouring into our coffers. But we do have readers like you who care about the future of this country and are willing to put in the work to make it a better place. 

It’s your persistent advocacy that fuels our Activism team. Your stories, fears, and hopes influence our leaders to act. That’s the power of collective action. That’s the power of Activism.

We couldn’t do any of this without Daily Kos readers. Thank you for continuing to fight alongside us! There is so much more to share. Please follow our new activism group for all the updates from our team.

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Top Starbucks executives are really butt-hurt about the so-far overwhelmingly successful union organizing drive in their stores. In a leaked video call with managers, CEO and founder Howard Schultz included the company’s own employees in a list of “obstacles and challenges” the company has “managed to overcome,” describing them as “a new outside force that’s trying desperately to disrupt our company.” 

These are Starbucks workers, and they are voting overwhelmingly for a union in which they are the driving force. Workers at the Seattle Roastery, by the way, voted to unionize on Thursday, 38 to 27. There are three large “roastery” locations in the U.S., and this is the second of those to vote yes.

Rossann Williams, the company’s president for North America, repeatedly called on managers to ignore what they’re seeing on social media, flatly denied any union-busting (while describing, in veiled terms, her own role in that union-busting) despite multiple National Labor Relations Board charges against the company, and called it “heartbreaking for me to see and hear how some partners are talking about the company that I love.” Managers’ “number one responsibility,” according to Williams? Persuading workers to vote against unionizing. Not that there’s a union-busting campaign going on.

A union activist fired from a Buffalo Starbucks responded:

“okay rossann, i sat and spoke to you one on one and told you i wanted a union. i asked you why you were here in buffalo and you said to improve the partner experience. you assured me i wouldn’t experience retaliation yet i was fired march 4th. starbucks is breaking the law.”

Apple retail workers at the Grand Central store are trying to organize.

Biden administration blasts Arizona for lax workplace safety rules, Dave Jamieson reports.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Wednesday that it’s moving to revoke Arizona’s state OSHA plan. The Grand Canyon State is one of more than 20 states that run their own workplace safety programs under federal approval, with inspections carried out by state officials. Under the law, a state plan must be “at least as effective” as the federal program. If it’s found not to be, then federal officials could move to take over enforcement.

Following the work of major Democratic consulting firm Global Strategy Group worked on Amazon’s union-busting campaign, the Democratic Party is reportedly considering banning its consultants from such anti-union work, Politico’s Eleanor Mueller reported.

“Add personal story here”: Starbucks’ anti-union one-on-ones fall flat. A total must-read from New Jersey Starbucks worker Sara Mughal, peppered with great anecdotes like this:

We were prepared for the one-on-ones. One barista, Paul, started off his meeting by responding to the manager’s “How are you?” with “Pretty good. Everyone’s feeling strong about unionizing, Scott just got fired, and Hamilton Starbucks [our neighboring store] just filed [for a union election].” Scott was our former district manager who had bragged about his past experience union-busting in Philadelphia.

Two opportunities for organizers, would-be organizers, and activists: The 2022 Labor Notes conference is in Chicago from June 17 to 19. And online, a series of Organizing for Power workshops kick off on May 10.

National Domestic Workers Alliance names new director. Jenn Stowe is the granddaughter of a domestic worker and, in addition to previous roles at NDWA, she has worked at Priorities USA and Planned Parenthood.

How a Dollar General employee went viral on TikTok.

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The moment you walk into a liquor store anywhere near us and they see your birthdate begins with a “1” instead of a “2” they instantly know you’re eligible to drink. The lifespan of Daily Kos isn’t quite there yet, but knowing that the top song in 2002 was Nickelback’s “You Remind Me” is definitely an interesting way to see where we are in a good way, in a bad way, and in a cringeworthy way all at the exact same time.

So this week on Connect Unite Act, I get to announce that on May 20, we are holding a virtual Cheers & Jeers meetup once again. Take a chance to join with your fellow members of Daily Kos for an evening of fun, pop-ins, and the chance for all of us to talk about anything we desire.

You know, I wish I had all the time in the day to read every single comment, every single diary. I try hard to read as many as I can between other work, but I almost never miss Bill in Portland Maine’s daily Cheers & Jeers. Going back as many Netroots Nations as I can remember, the organization, planning, and fun of our Daily Kos Cheers & Jeers dinner and the Daily Kos Caucus were two of my favorite organizational moments. We would get together and any member of the Daily Kos community could ask questions of staff and each other, and we built connections and understanding. 

It is a lot easier to appreciate someone when they step out from behind the keyboard and you can see them in real life.

COVID, however, has changed so much about our ability to come together and just talk. On May 20, we’re going to host the second Cheers & Jeers virtual gathering via Zoom. While it isn’t quite the same as meeting in person, it is definitely a chance for everyone to hear each other and talk about their own cheers and jeers.

If you plan to attend the Cheers & Jeers virtual meeting this year, you will need to RSVP. You can do so by sending me Kosmail. You will need to RSVP to attend!

Thoughts on music of 2002

In going through a recent neurology exam, one thing on the report really stood out to me: It is the fact that I struggle on visual recognition, but when it comes to multitasking or recognition of something through music, I do considerably better. By considerably, I mean night and day differences.

Seeing Nickelback as the group with the Billboard hot hit of 2002? Come on. There has to be something better that I connect with, right? Something that might represent Daily Kos better than Nickelback?

So I took time to fish through my murky memory of the albums and songs from 2002 that made a huge difference to me. One of them ended up selling significantly more copies than Nickelback could dream of, even if it started slow. There will be a remaster coming on April 29, and 20 years later, this song is still as good as I remember it. And yes, I will wait for the remaster:

For now though, it might be time to remember one of my other favorites from 2002 and focus on what happens next for the election in November. What does that require? Let’s have Missy Elliot sum it up:

More news ahead!

If you are interested in finding a group that connects to you by subject, region, or cause, check the DK New Groups group, which can give you the details in an easy-to-understand format.

Are you or your group interested in holding a virtual event? Please let me know—I would love to try and help you realize that!

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by Frances Nguyen

This article was originally published at Prism.

Civil rights groups and voting rights advocates knew they were entering a new frontier this redistricting cycle, the first after the Supreme Court gutted a cornerstone provision of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965: the preclearance regime, which required certain states and counties with a history of racial discrimination in voting practices to report any changes to election law, practice, or procedure for federal review and approval—including their redistricting plans.

In its 2013 decision on Shelby v. Holder, the high court ruled that Section 4 of the Act, which determined that the jurisdiction of the preclearance regime—Section 5 of the Act—was outdated and therefore unconstitutional. Things had changed, the court’s narrow 5-4 majority argued, and the success of the preclearance regime in those states and counties over more than 50 years proved that it was no longer needed. Without a jurisdiction, Section 5 became unenforceable. Waves of voter suppression laws immediately swept through the states formerly held under preclearance, some within 24 hours of the decision.

And as voting rights advocates feared, several state legislatures have set their sights on the once-in-a-decade redistricting process to further steamroll voters of color for political gain, drawing gerrymandered maps that dilute their voting power and reduce the number of majority-BIPOC districts to diminish their representation. While independent redistricting commissions have been effective at reducing partisanship in the redistricting process in some states, in those where legislatures maintain control over map-drawing, litigation is often the only recourse for voters of color to protect themselves. Such cases often take years to resolve, all the while allowing for the harm to remain active until a decision is reached. However, if they’re decided in voters’ favor, the precedents can safeguard against gerrymandering elsewhere in the country or, in some cases, outlaw it altogether.

Now communities impacted by gerrymandering are using the courts to test the strength of what remains of the VRA at the federal level, and explore what protections state laws might offer. So far, results have been mixed.

In February, the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court reversed a lower court order for Alabama (one of the states previously covered under preclearance) to redraw its congressional map. The lower court had found that the legislature-drawn plan likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racially discriminatory voting procedures, because it only included one district where Black voters would have the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice when there could’ve been “two districts in which Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it.” With a second district, Democrats were likely to pick up another seat in the House in the fall. The court gave the legislature 14 days to redraw the map accordingly, but when the state appealed to the Supreme Court, the justices ruled in a 5-4 decision to pause the lower court’s decisions on the grounds of maintaining the status quo and not derailing the state’s upcoming primary, leaving the discriminatory map in place.

The decision’s effect was almost immediate. The following month, a federal judge cited the Supreme Court’s newly established precedent in a ruling to keep Georgia’s redistricting maps in place despite finding that the plaintiffs had presented enough evidence that the maps violated Section 2 by diluting the representation of Black voters. Georgia, another state formerly under preclearance, is projected to be one of the fiercest battlegrounds this midterm.

“It tends to happen that, when harmful things occur in one southern state, it sets a trend for other states [in the South] to follow,” said Jesús Rubio, Georgia state director for Mi Familia Vota, a national organization working to build Latino political power. “That’s exactly what occurred: the federal judge here in Georgia saw the Alabama Supreme Court case and threw it out on the grounds that it was so similar to that case.”

‘Why do people have to wait to have their rights?’

Cases involving threats to the voting strength of communities of color are still fair game for the federal and high courts, but those cases were difficult to prove to begin with: Claims of racial gerrymandering require plaintiffs to prove that lines were intentionally drawn to dilute the political power of minority voting blocs, whereas cases brought under Section 2 of the VRA must be tested by the “totality of circumstances.” Litigants must point to conditions, known as the 1982 Senate Factors, such as a state’s history of official discrimination in voting or other areas that affect the voting process, or burdens on political participation due to the continuing effects of discrimination in such areas as education, employment, or health. And while Section 2 cases don’t require explicit proof of intent, meeting the “totality of circumstances” test often involves producing a body of evidence that strongly implies that at least some intent was involved.

“I don’t think people know that voting rights lawsuits are extraordinarily complicated,” said Sonni Waknin, a managing attorney for the UCLA Voting Rights Project. “It’s not just about lawyers; you need data scientists, social scientists, and historians to prove, or disprove, evidence of a voting rights violation.” Gathering proof can be both cost- and time-intensive—both of which frustrate efforts to throw out gerrymandered maps within the same cycle that they’re approved.

“The litigation solution just means that you’re going to wait,” said Waknin. “You don’t get the relief now, and that’s harmful in so many ways. Why do people have to wait to have their rights again?”

And that was before the barrage of attacks on the VRA since the Supreme Court signaled in its Shelby decision that it was now less interested in protecting voting rights. Without Section 5 protections in place, Section 2 of the VRA took on greater significance as one of the last lines of defense for voters of color to protect themselves against discriminatory laws and line-drawing designed to suppress their political power—which explains why Section 2 appears to be under siege now.  

Last year, in its decision in Brnovich v. Demo­cratic National Commit­tee, the Supreme Court reversed a 9th Circuit ruling that a pair of Arizona voting laws were racially discriminatory (and therefore viol­ated Section 2) for disenfranchising voters who vote in the wrong precinct and limiting who can deliver an absentee ballot to a polling place. In doing so, the ruling narrowed the scope of Section 2 claims that can successfully move forward before the court, and tacitly endorsed the “Big Lie” that widespread election fraud justifies targeted voter suppressive legislation.

These days, advocates and legal experts expect courts to be more hostile to redistricting challenges brought under the VRA.

“The reality is that those claims do face a lot of headwinds. They were always hard claims to win,” said Michael Li, senior counsel in the Brennan Center for Justice’s democracy program. “But I think it’s fair to say that it’s also gotten harder this cycle because the courts have gotten more conservative and are skeptical about the use of race in American society in general.”

Litigation without Section 5

Perhaps the cruelest irony of the VRA’s slow dismantling is that Congress passed the law expressly because case-by-case litigation was not effective enough to address the rampant, widespread racial discrimination against voters of color in Section 5-covered jurisdictions. Before the VRA, states fully covered under Section 5 would either simply ignore court orders or find another way to suppress voting rights for communities of color—not unlike what we’re seeing this cycle.

Under Section 5, covered jurisdictions had to submit redistricting plans to the Justice Department and prove that new district lines would not affect the ability of communities of color to elect the candidates of their choice. Without it, the burden of proof now rests on the Justice Department to prove that maps are discriminatory. Such is now the case in Texas, where the Justice Department has filed a lawsuit charging that both the state’s congressional and legislative redistricting plans intentionally discriminated against Latino and Black voters there. It joins a slew of private lawsuits brought against the state on the same grounds.

Between 2010 and 2020, Texas grew by nearly 4 million residents according to the complaint in United States v. Texas, and people of color represented 95% of that population growth—half of which is attributed to Latinos. Consequently, Texas’ House delegation gained two new seats, but the congressional map the legislature drew would ensure that those new districts have white majorities—who will then elect the new representatives. What’s more, the congressional plan actually reduces the number of districts with a Latino voting majority from eight to seven. Similarly, in the state legislature, the districts with a Latino voting majority dropped from 33 to 30. The lawsuits together allege that the state was flagrant in its intent to deny electoral opportunities for voters of color, particularly for Latinos.

Advocates for Latino political power are no strangers to this process in Texas: According to a 2018 report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Texas has violated the VRA with racially gerrymandered maps in every redistricting cycle since the Act was enacted; they knew to expect nothing less this cycle. Except this time, there was no preclearance regime to hold back the legislature from its worst impulses.

“We see this really direct attempt to dilute power, this extra effort being taken to make sure that we are not showing up on maps, and that the maps that are being drawn and passed are not actually accurate of the community presence on the ground,” said Rubio’s counterpart Angelica Razo, Texas state director for Mi Familia Vota.

In a public hearing, Republican state Sen. Joan Huffman, who chairs the Texas Senate Special Committee on Redistricting, claimed that the maps were drawn “race blind,” without reference to any racial data, and were reviewed by legal counsel to make sure they were compliant with federal anti-discrimination law. However, she declined to explain their process for drawing district lines, or what factors were considered in mapmaking, invoking legislative privilege.

Similarly, North Carolina’s legislature was accused of drawing state House and state Senate districts that diluted Black voting power. Republican legislators defended that they intentionally excluded racial data in their approach to redistricting because they were sued for using race last cycle, state Sen. Ralph Hise, a Republican and co-chair of the legislature’s redistricting commission, told CNN, and that they didn’t read the law as requiring them to incorporate race.

“That’s a new defense that they’ve come up with,” responded Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), a regular advocate for plaintiffs in redistricting battles in Texas. “There’s no such thing as ‘race-blind’ redistricting. And even if it were true, it’s irrelevant. There’s no area of the law, including this one, where you’re allowed to claim you are ignorant, and therefore your violation should be ignored. It doesn’t work like that.”

A similar defense has been used in Alabama, which, in its appeal to the Supreme Court over its congressional map, is challenging how much race can be a consideration in VRA compliance when it comes to redistricting—a consideration that the Supreme Court will deliberate on in the fall.

“It seems kind of nutty, right? How do you comply with the Voting Rights Act without thinking about race? It’s a race-explicit statute!” said Li. “It doesn’t make sense, but this is the world of the Supreme Court: you have to draw a car without thinking about a car too much.”

The danger, however, is that when the Supreme Court does take up the full Alabama case in the fall, its conservative majority will seize the opportunity to rewrite the parameters of when race can be considered in complying with the VRA, whittling away remaining protections for voters of color and providing ample cover for racially discriminatory voting practices to continue unabated.

Another well-worn defense is that any racially discriminatory maps are still legal because they were drawn solely on the basis of partisanship, hiding behind the Supreme Court’s 2019 ruling in Rucho v. Common Cause. In Rucho, the Supreme Court decided that federal courts cannot hear constitutional challenges to maps gerrymandered for political reasons, essentially giving carte blanche to partisan gerrymandering and at the same time providing a convenient cover for racially discriminatory maps: Now legislatures can simply claim they were produced to meet partisan ends only, putting them beyond the purview of federal courts.

“That’s a longstanding contention: ‘We’re not doing this for race reasons; we’re doing this for party reasons,’” said Saenz.

It’s true that partisanship and racial voting patterns often overlap with some communities of color, but to treat them as homogenous would be a mistake. “If party and race coincide, that’s not a given,” said Saenz. “The Republican Party has so alienated minorities that they won’t vote for them. You don’t even get to say that’s not racial.”

‘The law is on our side’

Despite some states’ efforts to put forth discriminatory maps and essentially claim in court that they did so by accident, there are still occasions for cautious optimism.

Ultimately, advocates believe that the law is on their side.

The Native American Rights Fund (NARF) has joined a suit in North Dakota challenging the state’s legislative map for diluting the Native American vote, namely for the Spirit Lake Tribe and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. The suit claims that the map approved by the governor packs a supermajority of Turtle Mountain citizens into a single house subdistrict while separating other Turtle Mountain citizens and Spirit Lake citizens into nearby house districts and subdistricts—where the majority voting bloc often votes against Native Americans’ preferred candidates—shrinking their opportunity to elect two candidates of choice to the state House down to just one. The tribes had appealed to the state legislature’s redistricting committee in public meetings (which were held far from reservations) to have their reservations drawn into the same district. Michael Carter, a staff attorney for NARF, said that the tribes had also proposed what they believed would be fair redistricting maps to the legislature and provided a legal basis for why a district encompassing both reservations is required under the VRA. Their concerns were entirely ignored. “That really left the tribes with no choice but to bring the case,” said Carter.

Historically, Native Americans have had to rely on litigation to protect their voting rights against an onslaught of suppressive measures that prevent their meaningful participation in the political process, and yet they have won more than 90% of the cases they’ve brought, according to NARF.

“We feel good about the case,” said Carter. “Otherwise, the tribes—and tribal members who are plaintiffs—wouldn’t have brought it. Of course, there’s a shifting legal landscape right now, and those developments have been concerning, but we don’t think that anything that has occurred so far, involving the Supreme Court or any other legal precedents, alters our policy, our case, our legal arguments, or our ability to pursue the remedies that the tribes are pursuing.”

Saenz feels equally confident about the case in Texas. MALDEF has litigated in the state for decades. “[Texas] loses cases year after year, decade after decade, and nothing has changed to appreciably alter that likely outcome,” he said. “I am quite confident that the law is on our side. Precedent is on our side.”

What’s more, while the Supreme Court’s rulings over the last decade have left states (and their respective legislatures) to their own devices, there are still state-level protections that provide some buffer against abuses of power in redistricting. “Free and fair” clauses in some state constitutions have helped pave the way for successful litigation against gerrymandering. In a 2018 redistricting lawsuit brought against the state, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court found that its 2011 congressional redistricting map violated the state constitution’s Free and Equal Elections Clause, ruling that “[a]n election corrupted by extensive, sophisticated gerrymandering and partisan dilution of votes is not ‘free and equal.’” The decision set a legal precedent for other states with similar clauses in their constitutions to bring challenges against gerrymandered maps to state court.

Both North Carolina’s congressional and legislative maps this cycle were struck down by the state’s Supreme Court for violating provisions in the state constitution, including those guaranteeing free elections and equal protection. The court imposed a new map that wouldn’t diminish Black representation.

And Ohio’s Supreme Court has rejected three rounds of state legislative maps drawn by the GOP-dominated redistricting commission in barely two months for being chronically noncompliant with the state constitution’s anti-gerrymandering law, a 2015 amendment added by Ohio voters explicitly outlawing partisan gerrymandering (and, ironically, creating the same commission that ultimately drew the rejected maps).

The League of Women Voters of the United States—a longtime litigant in gerrymandering cases— was a plaintiff in two successful lawsuits in Ohio this cycle, in Adams v. DeWine and League of Women Voters of Ohio v. Ohio Redistricting Commission.

“Our hope, through strategic litigation, is to hold our elected leaders accountable and protect the freedom to vote at all costs,” said Celina Stewart, chief counsel and senior director of advocacy and litigation for the League of Women Voters of the United States, in a statement to Prism. “There is too much at stake, and without action, there will be no progress.”

Challenging Race

In the years to come, there will be more court cases probing the nexus of race and voting rights, spurred by the challenges brought by this redistricting cycle. What remains to be seen is how the courts will handle when and how race intersects with politics—whether they will ignore it, deny it, or face it.

“It is hard to disentangle race and politics,” said Li. “But courts are set up to disentangle these sorts of things, to figure out motive. Just because these cases are hard doesn’t mean they don’t have a remedy.”

For Saenz, the only wild card is the composition of the courts. Before Trump left office, he appointed more than 200 judges to the federal bench—including some of the most ideologically reliable conservatives in the movement. How they’ll respond not only to a rapidly growing minority voting bloc—and accompanying demographic fear—is the danger.

“It would be naïve of me to say that demographic fear has not seeped into the overall political discourse of the country, and that, in turn, can have an effect on the courts,” said Saenz. Still, he said, “if we have judges who are going to stick to the law as developed, and who, in good faith, are going to apply the facts, then I’m confident that we have strong cases, not just the ones we’ve filed but future ones.”

Li observes much of what has happened this cycle as just that: a visceral reaction to demographic change, or, more accurately, “an emerging multiracial America.” While the most insidious plays for partisan gains have long-term consequences for communities of color, they are still shortsighted and, ultimately, futile. “It’s Republicans taking a look at the future and deciding that it scares them instead of competing for it,” he said. “It’s not like the country is going to stop getting more diverse.”

Frances Nguyen is a freelance writer, editor of the Women Under Siege section (which reports on gender-based and sexualized violence in conflict and other settings) at the Women’s Media Center, and a member of the editorial team for Interruptr, an online space for women experts to disrupt discourse in traditionally male-dominated focus areas. She is currently working on a creative nonfiction portfolio on race, identity, and the American Dream.

Prism is a BIPOC-led nonprofit news outlet that centers the people, places, and issues currently underreported by national media. We’re committed to producing the kind of journalism that treats Black, Indigenous, and people of color, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and other invisibilized groups as the experts on our own lived experiences, our resilience, and our fights for justice. Sign up for our email list to get our stories in your inbox, and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

This post was originally published on this site

Come for the politics, stay for the community. Daily Kos’ unique platform and mission have created a powerful chosen family who congregate on its pages each day. It’s like no other political hub on the internet.

The internet—and the world—was a very different place on May 26, 2002, when Markos Moulitsas dashed off seven sentences and hit “Publish” on the first-ever post on Daily Kos. Moulitsas—better known as the Kos in Daily Kos and Kos Media, LLC—will be the first to tell you that he never anticipated what was to come.

And now, we’re just weeks from the 20th anniversary of that iconic handful of sentences. In case you haven’t noticed, we kinda can’t stop talking about it or coming up with ways to celebrate. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been challenging everyone—including you, dear Community—to ponder our writings here on Daily Kos over the last 20 years and pick a personal best.

It’s been a blast collecting submissions from the Community Contributors Team, our Daily Kos Staff (part one and part two), Kos himself, and you, dearest Community.

RELATED: Daily Kos Turns 20: We want to showcase the ‘best’ thing you’ve written here! Up first: The CC Team

And now it’s time to present the first of several collections of Community TIMB submissions!

Some years ago, I’m told, there was a wonderful series called This Is My Best (TIMB), which encouraged Community members to share their own writing that they were most proud of, rather than the writing of others. One part self-promotion, one part self-confidence, all parts awesome, TIMB encourages writers to press pause on their role as their own worst critics and take some time to toot their own horns. 

So let’s go! This week’s stories are intimate and reflective, deeply researched and political. And they mean a lot to the people who wrote them. So give ‘em a read!

And remember: If you don’t see your story below, we’ll be keeping the party going right up until our joyful 20th anniversary on May 26!

TEXMEX

Who the hell am I? (2007)

I like it because by writing it, it caused me to reflect on who I was and how I am perceived. I don’t reflect on the writing. I mostly write like I am writing in a journal. I put my thoughts into words for me. But, then I know that there are others who read my words. But often what I write just sinks and disappears. So my feelings don’t get hurt all the time if they do.

SIDEPOCKET

Rebels with a Cause: A success story (2013)

[I did] a lot of research on a subject of vital interest to many in the Bay Area, and links to several cool Kossack events.

WU MING

Obama’s scold is a good sign (2005)

I keep coming back to this diary, written after then-Sen. Obama had publicly criticized lefty bloggers for being mean to Democratic senators who voted to confirm John Roberts for chief justice of the SCOTUS, because of how prescient it has turned out to be in retrospect. We knew that the GOP was going to pack the Supreme Court and use it to wreck our democracy, and we knew that Democratic senators’ obsession with bipartisan comity was being systematically taken advantage of.

Obama did turn out to be a great statesman, but as citizens we deferred far too much to his leadership in his first two years, instead of applying maximum pressure, and so the tea party pushed the historical dialectic in the opposite direction, until the Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter and Indivisible movements (and a ton of stubborn, unheralded grassroots organizing to take the Democratic Party over from the bottom up) pushed it back again. We have grown and matured as a movement of citizens, online and off, and our organized pressure has gradually moved the country in the right direction over the past decade and a half.

But the best part of this is that Obama posted a rebuttal linking to my diary! High point of my blogging career.

FISH OUT OF WATER

COVID-19 antibody response drops in 3 months, according to Kings College London report in review (2020)

My best diary on COVID-19. This diary was spot-on, warning us accurately about how immunity would fade, and how policies based on the concept of herd immunity would lead to pointless mass death.

KROTOR

40th anniversary of the military reign of terror in Argentina (Part I) (2016)

One of the things I am proud of writing is a five-part series about the overthrow of democracy in Argentina, and the resulting seven-year military dictatorship. I wrote it back in 2016.

What I like about it: It surprised me by taking on a life of its own. I intended to write up a short summary of events to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the coup, but I quickly realized it would be woefully inadequate for bringing understanding of the period to many people. So, I started writing it with more and more detail, and ultimately it turned into a major project: five lengthy, researched, and footnoted diaries, written over a period of eight days. It was an intense period, believe me.

What else I like about it: As I said, it was to be short summary, so I began with the the initial moments of the coup. Rather than the typical presentation of historical events, beginning long before the salient point and trying to anticipate and explain its origins, I began with the event itself. From there, I moved forward in time, then backward, then forward and backward, and finally forward to current times, sort of peeling new layers of the complex onion of the relevant historical foundations, causes, effects, and aftermaths in Argentina. I think it made it a more interesting tale to present things that way.

Finally, I like it because it was my small contribution to aiding interested readers in understanding my adopted homeland of many years now.

SENOR UNOBALL

A gang, a gun, a murder (2013)

A long and detailed personal look at the insides of a murder trial. Jury selection, testimony of witnesses, how it felt to have somebody’s life and future in my hands. Details of Latino criminal gangs that I knew nothing of beforehand.

ZENBASSOON

I’m a failure (2014)

This is something I wrote after the death of Robin Williams. These are the things I’ve struggled with every day. I’m trying to communicate what depression is, and why it is so mystifying to others.

CRONESENSE

Mother’s Day: The other side of the coin (2007)

Part memory, part reflection on our role in the Iraq war, which seems timely today. We were the aggressors then in an ill-fated war. My son served in that war and came home safely, only to commit suicide after a two-year struggle in 1993.

One thing I liked most about my diaries was the wonderful comments that others posted when they shared their reflections of my subjects.

CAPTAIN FROGBERT

Whom do you shoot? (2007)

Wrote this way back in 2007, and I think of reposting it every time there’s a mass shooting. Thirteen years and we are still watching people walk into schools, shopping malls, and everywhere else and murder people for no sane reason. And we STILL have to pander to the pathetic gun loony, cosplay KKKommandos, and their sad little pew, pew, boom, boom fantasy lives.

MORRELLWI1983

History of the Antiquities Act, Part 1: The beginning of conservation (2015)

Most of my diaries have been environmentally based, such as my Antiquities Act series and my National Park Series. As for which is my best, its really hard to pin down. I would say the introduction diary to the AA series. Both of my series have involved a lot of research, particularly the NP ones. Some states have lots of public areas, others, not so much.

LIBERALDAD2

The Economic Case for Welfare (2014)

This was my very first Daily Kos diary and is still one of my favorites, because it highlights a common economic fallacy about poor people and money. It proves why giving poor people money strengthens the economy for everyone. I have never understood why the business community opposes giving their customers more cash: It obviously helps all of them. It’s the opposite of Reagan’s “trickle-down” theory, because it shows that injecting money at the lowest tiers of the economic pyramid is way more effective than at the top. I think it didn’t get much attention because it had too much math, LOL.

ERICLEWIS0

Cartoon: Animal Nuz: Fight Night Edition (2016)

Not my best Animal Nuz cartoon, but I really like [the] first panel. I am just happy with how it looks like a real kick, and maybe the idea that the Pope can kickbox.

WIDE EYED LIB

Free Food: Why foraging beats ‘taking nothing but photographs’ (2010)

For a little more than two years, on almost every Sunday during the Northeastern growing season (roughly March to November), I published a story on how to forage edible wild plants. I started on March 22, 2009 and the last one was June 19, 2011—I published a total of 53 diaries in between. All of them included original photographs of numerous edible wild plants and describe their characteristics, growth range and edible and medicinal properties. I’m proud of so many of them, but I’m choosing this one because I outline my whole philosophy of how foraging creates a lasting bond with nature.

GLEN THE PLUMBER

Tales from the trail: Getting out the vote in CA-17 (2014)

My little one and I had spent many months canvassing for our favorite congressmember. And we used Daily Kos to recruit others to join us. While I had written many diaries covering the race, I never wrote about our experiences while canvassing. But that changed after an experience on one of the final days before the election, I had to share.

Our little family had put a lot of effort into the race. And in the end, we had an effect.

It’s not too late to submit your own TIMB story, of course. To make my job easier (and data entry much faster—give some love to Christopher Reeves for his help on that front), please use this format for your submission:

Linked title of story (year published)

A sentence or two in your own words—not an excerpt—about why it’s your “best.”

See you in the comments!

RELATED: Daily Kos Turns 20: Let’s showcase our best work! Up next: The man who started it all—Kos himself

One more thing: If you’ve already submitted, there’s no need to do it again, and we are only accepting one story per person. And if you simply can’t narrow down your choice before comments close, we’ll be back with another installment (and opportunity to submit) next week, when I’ll have even more Community submissions from the last four weeks.