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Far-right “constitutionalists” have been around for decades now, particularly in rural America, where they have a history of recruiting vulnerable marks into their grift, which convinces the gullible that they can declare themselves “sovereign” people free from obligation or oversight from the federal or state government. They have left a long trail of human and community wreckage in their wake, from Jordan, Montana, to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

But along with everything else associated with the self-styled “Patriot Movement” in recent years, it has been spreading widely and insinuating itself more deeply within communities, especially as they increasingly elect “constitutional” sheriffs and other public officials. The city fathers in the small northern California town of Oroville this week, however, went even further: They declared Oroville its own “constitutional republic” independent of federal and state governments.

The resolution, which was approved Tuesday by the Oroville City Council by a 6-1 vote, declares the town a “Constitutional Republic City,” a designation it says enables the city to declare state and federal government orders it considers “unconstitutional” null and void. The move is largely in response to COVID-19-related restrictions and vaccine mandates, particularly those imposed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“I proposed it after 18 months of increasingly intrusive executive mandates and what I felt to be excessive overreach by our government,” said Vice Mayor Scott Thomson, the resolution’s main sponsor. “After the failed recall in California, our state governor seems to [be] on a rampage and the mandates are getting more intrusive. Now he’s going after our kids and schools.”

Local residents who supported the resolution turned out in large numbers. “We hope that becoming a constitutional republic city is the best step to regain and preserve our inalienable rights protected by the U.S. Constitution. What will be left if we do not have it? If we do not have bodily autonomy?” said one speaker who was moved to tears. “What else do they want me to let them do to my children? Where does it stop?”

The resolution’s advocates on the council offered a hodgepodge of rationalizations for the resolution’s language. A “democracy is run by people and republic is run by the laws of constitution,” Mayor Chuck Reynolds told the local Enterprise-Record newspaper.

“Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts,” Reynolds said. “A constitutional republic makes America a successful nation. Rights are by the people, for the people.”

“Constitutionalist” ideology preaches that the federal government is heavily constrained by the text of the Constitution, limited almost entirely to a national defense. Otherwise, they believe, the document prohibits federal land ownership, the ability to enforce civil rights, environmental, education, and other federal statutes. None of these ideological tenets have any basis in reality, especially not in settled law; like most far-right belief systems, it’s built on conspiracy theories and disinformation.

The Oroville region, located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, has been a hotbed of COVID denialism. In 2020, Oroville refused to enforce state prohibitions on indoor dining. This fall, Butte County chose not to recommend a mask mandate, even as COVID cases were surging at the local medical center. The county has a vaccination rate of about 48%.

Thomson told KRCR-TV in an email that “this has to do with the large amount of mandates that are affecting every aspect of our lives and our kids’ lives. The American culture and way of life is being challenged at its very core and perverted by radicalized politicians who have forgotten that, as a republic, the power belongs to the people. Our founders understood the dangers of those who would like to have more control over the people, and thus they set up our country with a firm foundation that separated the powers, by forming a Republic, and protected our God-given rights, in the founding documents in the US Constitution. America is already a Constitutional Republic, however, I put this declaration out for the agenda as a reminder and a statement that we the people in Oroville are not amicable to the tyranny of power-hungry politicians.”

“I assure you folks that great thought was put into every bit of this,” Reynolds said. “Nobody willy-nilly threw something to grandstand.”

However, even one of the council members who supported the resolution noted that it had “no teeth” and was simply a “political statement.” One member of the council noted that the city receives millions of dollar in federal support, and wondered: “Will Oroville be able to stand alone and sustain itself?”

Oroville’s city attorney, Scott Huber, quickly assured her: “I am quite certain that this would not result in any loss of funding for the city. In the event that it could in the future you could revise this and do what you will but this is not going to put it jeopardy any state or federal funding.”

Lisa Pruitt, a rural law expert at the University of California-Davis, told The Guardian that the empty gesture does not grant Oroville more power or the ability to ignore state law.

“It seems to make the people of Oroville feel better that their city council has made this gesture but as a practical matter it doesn’t make any difference,” Pruitt said.

This, in fact, is the problem with all “constitutionalist” interpretations of the law: They are fabrications—legalistic fantasies that have no basis in the operative U.S. codes, and have never been upheld or otherwise vindicated by any court in the country.

“A municipality cannot unilaterally declare itself not subject to the laws of the state of California,” Pruitt said. “Whatever they mean by constitutional republic you can’t say hocus pocus and make it happen.”

“Constitutionalists,” however, have been waving their magic wands uselessly in the air since they first started organizing as part of the far-right Patriot Movement of the 1990s. Drawing on ideas first proposed by the rabidly racist Posse Comitatus movement of the 1970s, outfits like the Montana Freemen created a legal conflict that culminated in an 81-day armed standoff in 1996.

This ideology also engendered the “Sovereign Citizen” movement, whose adherents, as the ADL explains, refer to themselves variously as “freemen” and “constitutionalists,” and strive constantly to separate themselves from the “illegitimate” government. Many renounce their U.S. citizenship, which they believe enslaves them to a “corporate entity.”

Over the years, “constitutionalists” have engaged in a number of armed conflicts with various authorities, particularly federal officials. In 2014, “constitutionalist” rancher Cliven Bundy engaged in armed standoff in Nevada over his grazing rights; then, in 2016, his sons led the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southern Oregon.

Among the main venues for spreading “constitutionalist” ideas in recent years have been Patriot organizations like the Oath Keepers and “Three Percent” militias. Both groups were heavily involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

However, “constitutionalists” also have been worming their way into positions of local authority through their successful recruitment of law enforcement officers, primarily through the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, which also was heavily involved in the two Bundy standoffs. These extremists are good at creating an appearance of establishment normalcy, but inevitably, both their bigotry and their seditionist politics eventually manifest themselves.

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A man who sustained life-altering injuries in 2017 from being violently struck by a car driven by the man who ultimately murdered Heather Heyer took the witness stand in Charlottesville on Thursday as part of an ongoing trial against “Unite the Right” rally organizers. Thomas Baker said he now lives with chronic pain and limited mobility as well as the emotional effects from the crash. Baker told attorney David Mills, who is part of a team representing plaintiffs in the Sines vs. Kessler case, that a book falling to the floor can trigger a panic attack and memories of the event.

Baker expertly handled cross-examination from the likes of Richard Spencer (who hasn’t fared so great as his own attorney) and Christopher “Crying Nazi” Cantwell, the latter of whom became visibly upset when Baker said he did not see swaths of “antifa” carrying out violent attacks that August weekend in 2017. It got to a point that Judge Norman Moon stepped in to reiterate that Baker hadn’t seen any counterprotesters carrying bats when repeatedly pressed by Cantwell.

Baker made it abundantly clear that he knew participants of the “Unite the Right” rally were racist instigators willing to parachute in and terrorize the city of Charlottesville without a single care for its residents. He categorized them as bullies but admitted the word likely was too weak a descriptor.

Baker recalled members of the neo-Confederate League of the South barreling through counterprotesters with their shields and striking people with flagpoles as they made their way to a park where no actual rally took place. League of the South members pelted the crowd with objects and repeatedly raced back and forth to continue attacking counterprotesters as their nonevent soon became labeled an “unlawful assembly.”

Perhaps the most alarming testimony came from League of the South co-founder Michael Hill, who was made to recite a racist pledge he made in 2016 and did so with aplomb. Hill also readily admitted that his opinion hadn’t changed about the outcome of the “Unite the Right” rally, either.

Hill never apologized to Heyer’s family or to anyone impacted by the rally and has no plans to do so. He’s consistently defended convicted murderer James Fields, who fatally struck Heyer with his car and was responsible for Baker’s injuries as well as dozens of other people. And he isn’t alone in being an unabashed Nazi hellbent on violence in a trial that hinges on proving “Unite the Right” rally organizers’ very explicit intent to harm anyone who stands in their way. The trial continues next week, with a break on Thursday for a holiday. Defendants are expected to provide an estimate on Monday of how many trial dates they need to keep digging their own graves.

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Leading Off

● Virginia: In a major setback for voting rights, Republican Glenn Youngkin narrowly defeated former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe in the race to become Virginia’s next governor, giving Youngkin the power to discontinue a practice begun by McAuliffe and his successor, Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, of using executive orders to expand voting rights for formerly incarcerated people. Republicans also appear to have gained a razor-thin majority in the state House, though there are multiple races that are still too close to call with the possibility that Democrats could salvage a 50-50 tie after absentee and provisional ballots are fully processed.

After winning the governor’s office in 2017 and gaining full control over the legislature in 2019 to obtain unified government for the first time in a quarter century, Democrats passed dozens of laws to expand access to voting, reform redistricting, and make the election process run more smoothly, progress that is now at risk from a Republican governor and state House. Democrats still narrowly hold the state Senate by 21-19 since it wasn’t up for election this year, but Republicans would only need to persuade a single Democrat to defect to reverse some of those changes after also flipping the lieutenant governor’s office, which breaks ties.

Among the most immediate effects of the GOP victory in Virginia, Youngkin could discontinue a policy that McAuliffe implemented in 2016 where he used his executive power to end lifetime disenfranchisement for those convicted of felonies by restoring voting rights to people who had fully served their sentences. Northam continued that policy and earlier this year extended it to restore voting rights to everyone on parole or probation, enabling more than 200,000 people to vote. (Only those still in prison remain unable to vote.) However, Youngkin could refuse to issue such executive orders and in doing so even resurrect lifetime disenfranchisement going forward. Before McAuliffe’s executive orders, this remnant of Jim Crow had left one in five Black Virginians permanently banned from voting, five times the rate of whites.​

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​Democrats had also passed a constitutional amendment that would permanently end felony disenfranchisement for everyone not in prison. However, because lawmakers have to pass that same constitutional amendment again after this year’s elections before it could go to voters for their approval, Republicans will likely be able to block its passage in the state House by refusing to allow a vote, even though it could still have majority support if a few Republicans were to vote for it as they did earlier this year.

In addition, Virginia (along with South Carolina) is one of just two states where legislators directly pick justices for state Supreme Court, which currently has a 5-2 conservative majority and could be critical for voting rights and fair redistricting. Over the next two years, two justices—one conservative and one liberal—will see their terms come to an end, giving lawmakers a chance to reshape the court in either direction. Both chambers vote together when selecting justices, so the fate of the remaining uncalled races will matter immensely for whether a Republican-majority state House could outvote the Democratic-controlled Senate. If the state House is tied 50-50, Democrats would have a one-seat majority, but a 52-48 GOP state House would give Republicans a one-seat majority instead.

Youngkin’s victory also means Republicans will eventually gain a majority on the state Board of Elections, giving them control over election administration, which the GOP could use to try to overturn a Democratic Electoral College victory in 2024. Youngkin has already joined in GOP efforts to undermine voter confidence in Democratic victories last year by demanding an “audit” of the 2020 elections even though Virginia already conducted such an audit that confirmed the results. And if Republicans are able to hold the House and capture the Senate in 2023, they would regain full control over state government and could use it to roll back nearly all of the voting reforms Democrats have passed in the last two years.

Election Recaps

● New Jersey: Conservative Democrat Steve Sweeney, who has served as president of New Jersey’s Senate since 2010, has lost in a major upset to Republican Edward Durr, but many Democrats—and progressive activists in particular—will be happy to see Sweeney gone, particularly since the party retained the governor’s office and control over both chambers of the legislature in Tuesday’s elections. Sweeney has long opposed many progressive priorities backed by Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, including a proposal to allow same-day voter registration, and it’s possible that a different Democrat leading the Senate could allow a vote on such a bill.

However, Democrats no longer have the three-fifths majority in the state Assembly needed to put constitutional amendments on the ballot in just a single year. They instead would have to pass any amendment twice—both before and after a state election—before it could go to a referendum, which might complicate their ability to pursue certain election reforms.

● New York: In New York, voters rejected two constitutional amendments that Democratic lawmakers placed on the ballot to expand voting access, along with a third that would have made several changes to redistricting. All three of the measures are currently failing with between 42% and 44% of the vote (with a majority needed for passage), though there are still uncounted absentee ballots that could narrow the eventual margin.

Of the defeated amendments, Proposal 3 would have allowed lawmakers to pass a same-day voter registration law—something currently forbidden by the state constitution—which Democratic leaders have said they’d go forward with had the amendment passed. Proposal 4, meanwhile, would have removed the excuse requirement to vote absentee. Last year, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order that allowed any voter to cast an absentee ballot because of the pandemic, but the passage of Proposal 4 would have laid the groundwork for the legislature to make excuse-free absentee voting permanent.

A third amendment, Proposal 1, would have also enacted several changes to the state’s redistricting laws that would have diminished the sway Republicans have over the mapmaking process but would have also enshrined a few nonpartisan requirements for future redistricting plans in the state constitution. However, since Democrats still hold two-thirds supermajorities in the legislature, they may nevertheless still have the numbers necessary to override the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission and draw their own legislative and congressional maps.

In a damning sign of political malpractice, the state Democratic Party spent nothing to support the three ballot measures while conservative opponents spent millions spreading lies that the amendments would increase fraud. Democratic Party chair Jay Jacobs, who for years was a steadfast ally of the now-disgraced Cuomo, claimed that Democratic lawmakers didn’t ask for help, something that prominent state Sen. Mike Gianaris vociferously disputed. Cuomo and his allies had long stymied progressives from enacting voting reforms until Democrats overcame the GOP gerrymander Cuomo had signed and flipped the state Senate in 2018.

Democrats have since passed a broad range of reforms to improve New York’s nationally criticized voting system over the last three years, and these two voting amendments would have been the culmination of that effort. Now, however, they’ll have to start the process all over again—and devote the necessary resources to ensure a better result—if they want to make these constitutional changes.

● Pennsylvania: Commonwealth Court Judge Kevin Brobson, a Republican, was elected Pennsylvania’s next Supreme Court justice after defeating Superior Court Judge Maria McLaughlin, a Democrat, by a narrow 51-49 margin. Brobson will replace Republican Justice Thomas Saylor, who will hit the state’s mandatory retirement age in December, meaning the 5-2 Democratic majority on the bench will remain unchanged.

The Democratic majority on Pennsylvania’s top court, in place since the 2015 elections, has been critical for voting rights and redistricting. Most notably, the court struck down the GOP’s congressional gerrymander and replaced it with a much fairer map in 2018. The justices also protected access to mail voting during the pandemic amid Republican efforts to restrict it. Barring unexpected vacancies, the soonest Republicans could take back the court would be 2025.

Redistricting

● Alabama: Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed Alabama’s new congressional and legislative maps on Thursday, a day after lawmakers in the GOP-run legislature gave them their final approval. The congressional plan preserves the state’s current delegation—which sends six white Republicans and one Black Democrat to Congress—by leaving in place just a single Black district.

According to Dave’s Redistricting App, the redrawn map packs an excessive number of Black voters into the 7th District, making it 55% Black, while ensuring every other district is at least 62% white and no more than 30% Black. Alabama could, however, easily create a second district where Black voters would be able to elect their preferred candidates, given that African Americans make up nearly two-sevenths of the state’s population, but Republicans have steadfastly refused to do so.

Black voters, with the support of Democrats, filed a federal lawsuit seeking to compel a second Black district almost immediately after Ivey signed the new congressional map, making it the second such lawsuit after an earlier one was filed in late September.

● Arkansas: A group called Arkansans for a Unified Natural State says it plans to gather signatures for a veto referendum to overturn the state’s new Republican-drawn congressional map, an undertaking that would also have the effect of suspending the map if the referendum qualifies for next year’s ballot. Organizers would need to collect 53,491 signatures from registered voters in at least 15 counties by Jan. 13. The group previously announced plans to qualify veto referendums for three other laws the legislature passed earlier this year but abandoned those efforts after failing to obtain enough signatures.

● Colorado: As expected, the Colorado Supreme Court has approved the new map adopted by the state’s independent congressional redistricting commission in September. Under the 2018 amendments that created the commission and its separate legislative counterpart, the court is required to assess any maps to ensure they adhere to criteria laid out in the state constitution and accept input from interested parties. The justices concluded that the map’s challengers did not meet the constitution’s high standard of review: whether commissioners engaged in an “abuse of discretion.”

Those challengers included Latino voting rights advocates, who argued that the state constitution provided greater protections for racial and language minority groups than specified in the Voting Rights Act. The court, however, agreed with the commissioners, ruling that language in the constitution does not afford such groups additional protections. The justices also rejected complaints from Democrats that the commission failed to properly prioritize the creation of competitive districts.

The end result is a map that could easily result in equal representation for Republicans and Democrats, despite the fact that the state voted for Joe Biden by a comfortable 55-42 margin last year. That’s because the new 8th District, based in the Denver suburbs, would have gone for Biden 51-46 and in fact would have voted for Donald Trump 46-45 in 2016. While this district has a large Latino minority, many of those residents aren’t eligible to vote. Only about 27% of the district’s voting eligible population would be Latino compared to the 66% that is white, and given traditional turnout patterns, the Latino share of the electorate would likely be even smaller.

Thanks to Colorado’s 2018 amendments, the legislature and governor no longer play a role in redistricting, meaning that the new congressional map is now law. The state Supreme Court is also reviewing the commission’s legislative proposals, but they’ll likely pass muster for the same reasons. While it’s possible that these maps could face further legal challenges through normal lawsuits, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of state law regarding the Voting Rights Act probably forecloses what would have been the most potent avenue of attack.

● Delaware: Democratic Gov. John Carney has signed Delaware’s new legislative maps, just a day after they were passed by lawmakers. Democrats currently control both the state House and Senate and will almost certainly remain in charge in this solidly blue state that voted for native son Joe Biden 59-40 last year.

● Iowa: Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed Iowa’s new congressional and legislative maps into law on Thursday, a week after lawmakers passed them almost unanimously. The congressional plan creates three red-leaning districts and one safely Republican seat, which we outlined previously in our other newsletter, the Morning Digest.

Despite the wide bipartisan support it received, the map could face a legal challenge according to redistricting expert Michael McDonald. Iowa law requires the drawing of “reasonably compact districts” that are “square, rectangular, or hexagonal in shape, and not irregularly shaped.” As you can see here, though, the new districts are anything but regular.

● Massachusetts: Republican Gov. Charlie Baker has signed Massachusetts’ new legislative maps, which passed both chambers last month almost unanimously. A recently introduced congressional map remains pending before lawmakers.

● Montana: The independent tiebreaker on Montana’s bipartisan redistricting commission voted with Republicans on Thursday to advance the GOP’s proposed congressional map. The plan could still be tweaked before the commission’s Nov. 14 deadline to adopt a final map but is likely very close to final.

The map divides the state into an eastern and a western district, with the latter the more competitive of the two. Compared to the GOP’s initial proposals, the western seat (which would be numbered the 1st) is about a point bluer and would have gone for Donald Trump by a 52-45 margin last year, making it about 3 points redder than Democrats’ preferred plans. The 2nd District, by contrast, would have voted 62-35 for Trump. By and large, the map bears the hallmarks of a nonpartisan plan that doesn’t seek to favor one party over the other.

● New York: In an item last week, we incorrectly stated that a new New York law aimed at curbing gerrymandering applied only to the 23 counties with their own governing charters. The law in fact applies to the entire state, at both the county and local level. Thank you to Jeff Wice for this correction.

● North Carolina: North Carolina’s Republican-run legislature passed new congressional and legislative maps on Thursday, meaning they are now law because redistricting plans do not require the governor’s approval under state law. All three are extreme GOP gerrymanders designed to lock the party into power for years to come, despite the state’s perennial tossup status.

With North Carolina gaining a seat due to redistricting, the congressional map would create 10 safely red districts and just three that would be safely blue, with one swing seat currently held by a Democrat that’s been trending hard to the GOP. By comparison, the map used in last year’s elections—which Republicans had to repeatedly redraw thanks to intervention by the courts—sent eight Republicans and five Democrats to D.C.

We delved into the details of the new districts, including where each incumbent could run, in our weekday newsletter, the Morning Digest. The new map notably undermines Black representation by making a Democratic-leaning district held by African American Democrat G.K. Butterfield whiter, turning it into a pure swing district that could elect a Republican favored by white voters in next year’s midterm environment. Republicans also split the three cities of the Piedmont Triad region among four different heavily white and Republican districts even though most of the area now is currently in one Democratic-held district that has a sizable Black population.

No state has seen more litigation over redistricting in the past decade than North Carolina, and that’s not going to change: An updated lawsuit has already been filed in state court over the congressional map in the same case that saw a state court block a prior GOP map in 2019 on the basis that partisan gerrymandering violates the state constitution. Separately, a new lawsuit has also been filed over the legislative maps. The chief attack on the maps centers on the fact that Republicans say they ignored racial data in drawing their lines, in contravention of the Voting Rights Act, with Republicans baselessly claiming that the VRA no longer applies.

● Ohio: Republicans in Ohio’s Senate and House have each released a draft congressional map, both equally extreme gerrymanders. The House version would likely send 13 Republicans and just two Democrats to Congress next year, while the Senate plan would do the same, albeit with districts configured differently.

● Texas: Three lawsuits were filed this week by Democrats and advocates for voters of color that are challenging various parts of the gerrymanders that Republicans adopted last month. Two of the suits were filed by Latino voter advocates, one in state court arguing that the state House map violates a state constitutional limit on splitting counties and another in federal court challenging the congressional, state House, and state Board of Education lines for racial discrimination. Meanwhile, Democratic state Sen. Beverly Powell and several voters filed an additional federal lawsuit arguing that the GOP’s redraw of Powell’s 10th District discriminated against Black and Latino voters.

Two previous federal lawsuits had already been filed in recent weeks, meaning there are now four federal cases and five in total.

● Wisconsin: A committee in Wisconsin’s Republican-run state Senate has passed the GOP’s proposed congressional and legislative maps, but they’re certain to be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers due to their extreme gerrymandering.

Voting Access Expansions

● Congress: As expected, Senate Republicans, with the exception of Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, all voted to filibuster Democrats’ bill to restore the Voting Rights Act, known as the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The vote blocked Democrats from beginning debate in spite of some compromises that West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and other Democrats made to bring Murkowski on board. We previously explained how this bill would restore and expand many of the VRA protections that the conservatives on the Supreme Court have repeatedly undermined, but unless Manchin and fellow centrist Sen. Kyrsten Sinema agree to curtail the filibuster, the bill stands no chance of overcoming GOP obstruction.

Voter Suppression

● Arkansas: Arkansas Republicans have appealed to the state Supreme Court after a lower court rejected their motion to dismiss a lawsuit challenging four voting restriction laws that the GOP enacted earlier this year. The good-government plaintiffs in this case are opposing laws that:

• Eliminate the ability of voters who lack ID to sign a sworn statement and instead strictly require ID for ballots to count;
• Require voters to return their absentee ballots to election officials by the Friday before Election Day instead of by Election Day itself—all but one other state sets that deadline on Election Day or afterward;
• Require a voter’s signature on an absentee ballot application to match their original signature on their voter registration form, even though voter signatures often change over time; and
• Effectively ban giving food or drinks to voters waiting in line to vote by restricting who may linger near polling place entrances.

● Texas: The Department of Justice is the latest party to file a federal lawsuit challenging parts of the major new voting restriction law that Texas Republicans enacted last month, which has already drawn several other lawsuits in state and federal court.

As we’ve previously detailed, the GOP’s law adds criminal penalties to a wide range of voting activities and includes measures that:

• Ban drive-thru early voting;
• Eliminate 24-hour early voting locations by setting limits on hours of operation from of 6 AM to 10 PM at the latest;
• Expand early voting in small, mostly white counties that are heavily Republican while limiting it in larger, more diverse counties that lean Democratic;
• Add new voter ID requirements for absentee voting;
• Make a felony for election officials to send unsolicited absentee ballot applications to voters or use public funds to help third parties to do so;
• Enable partisan “poll watchers” to potentially harass and intimidate voters while limiting their oversight by election officials by imposing criminal penalties for getting in their way; and
• Require people who are assisting voters with disabilities who aren’t the voters’ caregivers to provide documentation and take an oath that they will follow limits on assistance, which advocates argue is intimidating and burdensome.

Campaign Finance

● Ballot Measures: The Federal Election Commission voted 4-2, with Democratic Chairwoman Shana Broussard joining the three Republicans, to affirm that foreigners can donate to ballot measure campaigns in the United States on the nonsensical grounds that they are supposedly not elections under federal law (foreigners are still banned from giving to federal candidates). Just this week, Maine voters rejected a power transmission project that was the subject of the state’s most expensive referendum campaign in history after Canadian energy giant Hydro-Quebec and its allies spent $50 million in an unsuccessful effort to win the vote.

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Greg Sargent/WaPo:

A dangerous myth about those big Democratic losses is threatening Biden’s agenda

Did Democrats take a big drubbing on Tuesday because they are trying to accomplish too much on behalf of our country?

To some centrist Democrats and opinionmakers, the answer is yes. If this idea gains traction, it could spook centrist lawmakers into making more demands to downsize President Biden’s agenda, fueling ideological conflict and causing important programs to be jettisoned.

You hear this argument everywhere. But it’s weakly reasoned and utterly without any real basis.

“Dems lost ground in an off year election where the party in power usually loses, fueled by the pandemic, so I’m right about this other thing” is a helluva drug.

OOT the BIF → BIL is now on the way to be Bilateral Infrastructure Law when it lands on the president’s desk. And that’s a BFD.

Manchin and Sinema took their Oscar turn on the red carpet. As for reconciliation? That’s the hard part but do not bet against Nancy Pelosi. It’s not unreasonable to think that no other Speaker could have done this. She even got the Problem Solvers caucus to solve a problem (she got 13 R votes last night, however many Rs were in the derided caucus). And she got the Rule passed to govern debate for the reconciliation bill on a party line vote. That’s a lot of wins.

Oh, and here is what is in the BFD bill, among many things:

Electric vehicles: The bill would provide $7.5 billion for zero- and low-emission buses and ferries, aiming to deliver thousands of electric school buses to districts across the country, according to the White House. Another $7.5 billion would go to building a nationwide network of plug-in electric vehicle chargers, according to the bill text.

It’s the chargers that are the BFD part.

Marcus H Johnson/Twitter:

The funny thing is people think the CRT discourse is something new. No, this is the same cultural-political fight going back 200+ years. Over the level of political power Black people can have in society. Black people gain something politically, there’s a conservative backlash. 

Abolitionist movement — secession.

Reconstruction — jim crow and state sanctioned vigilante violence. lost cause propaganda.

Civil rights/Voting/Immigration — southern strategy, modern gop realignment. tough on crime, conf monuments

Obama — Trump

BLM/Floyd Protests — anti CRT 

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It is Friday. It has been another week filled with names like Manchin and Sinema, along with words like “conservative” and “blame.” But we are on the precipice of having our government accomplishing something! It has been a tough week for progressives and the centrist discourse that the traditional media promotes, and has always promoted, is once again searching for surface-level answers to poorly thought out questions about our country’s deepest concerns.

Here are some stories you may have missed:

• Florida senator gets call telling her to ‘F**k off and die’ after asking surgeon general to mask up
• Tucker’s gaslighting campaign is about more than just justifying the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection
• Police reform measure fell short in Minneapolis, but this is why we still won
• Justice Department sues Texas over ‘unlawful and indefensible’ provisions in voter suppression law
• There’s no such thing as a bad day in court for Donald Trump when it comes to Jan. 6
• Election official says voter fraud lies caused two heart attacks in suit against Trump and Giuliani​​​​​​​
• Stocks soaring, record job growth, pandemic receding—Biden is succeeding as Democrats falter​​​​​​​
• Trial for Ahmaud Arbery murder begins with brutal video one defendant thought would prove his case​​​​​​​

And from the Daily Kos community:

• The NYT Editorial Board: It’s all the Progressives fault!
• A Far Right MN Man Ran For School Board As Anti-Vaxxer.  A Stint In ICU With Wife Changed His Mind.​​​​​​​
• Powerful new X-ray source shows amazing detail inside organs, including lung from a COVID death​​​​​​​

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When will people learn that families come in all different colors? Well, someone needs to start by teaching Southwest Airlines employees before a major misstep evolves into a major lawsuit. 

The most recent gaffe by the airline took place a month ago when Mary MacCarthy, who is white, boarded a plane in San Jose, California, with her 10-year-old biracial daughter Moira MacCarthy to attend a funeral. 

When the plane landed in Denver, MacCarthy and her daughter were swarmed by police officers and a Southwest staff member on the jet bridge. MacCarthy says she initially thought the police were there to inform her about the death of another family member. Instead, police separated her and her daughter to question them following a report of a suspicion that MacCarthy was a potential human trafficker and her daughter was a victim. 

“The officer said, ‘We’re talking to you because you were reported to the pilot for suspicious behavior,’” MacCarthy told the Denver Post. “And it immediately occurred to me what was going on. This is the type of situation that mixed-race families and families of color face all the time while traveling.”

The Independent reports that a crew member felt it was suspicious that MacCarthy and her daughter were the last to board the flight, asked other passengers to move so they could sit together, and were not very communicative. What? 

MacCarthy boarded the plane last because she bought her ticket at the last minute due to the sudden death of her brother, so and her daughter were in the last boarding group. She tells The Independent that she asked the flight attendants if she could change her seats so that she and her daughter could sit together, but was told she needed to ask her fellow passengers. 

As for the lack of communication, MacCarthy said: “My brother had died less than 12 hours before, I’m a single mother and he was like a father figure to my daughter … so we were in shock.” She adds, “The police report says I wouldn’t give any information, but I have a three-minute video.” 

In the video below MacCarthy can clearly be heard explaining herself. 

MacCarthy is now demanding the airline apologize and explain why they racially profiled her and her daughter. 

“The whole thing is based on what I believe to be a racist assumption about a mixed-race family,” MacCarthy told The Independent. “Things like this happen to mixed-race families all the time, this is a thing that we are afraid of … I feel an obligation towards my daughter and other mixed-race families to speak out.” 

Sadly, this isn’t something that is that uncommon with mixed-race families. In 2017, Brian Smith, a white Arizona man, was stopped at the Phoenix airport after being accused of trafficking his 16-year-old daughter, who he and his wife adopted from China. A Southwest Airlines flight attendant “had some concerns” about his daughter, according to ABC 15 in Arizona. 

“I don’t like to accuse anyone of anything,” the girl’s mother, Renee Smith, told ABC 15. “But if Georgianna was a Caucasian child, I don’t believe this would have happened.

In another more high-profile incident in 2018, Lindsay Gottlieb, a coach for the University of California-Berkeley women’s basketball team, was flying with her 1-year-old son when she was stopped at the Denver International Airport by a Southwest Airlines employee asking her to “prove” she was the mother of her biracial son—even after providing the child’s passport.  

“We had a passport that verified our son’s age and identity, and both parents were present,” Gottlieb said in a statement to The Washington Post at the time. “But still being pushed further to ‘prove’ that he was my son felt disrespectful and motivated by more than just concern for his well-being.”

“She said because we have different last names. My guess is because he has a different skin color,” Gottlieb wrote on Twitter.

Now, we’re not against being vigilant about human trafficking, but maybe Southwest Airlines need to be a bit better trained. 

“If [staff] had chatted to my daughter and I, any reasonable person would understand that we’re family … if they are going to be trained in things like looking out for human trafficking, they should also be taught not to engage in ignorant racial profiling,” said MacCarthy, who added that she has hired an attorney to handle the incident.  

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After weeks of striking and 15 days without food, New York City’s taxi drivers were served a crucial victory as Mayor Bill de Blasio finally agreed to a debt restructuring plan building off an initial program that already eliminated $21.4 million of debt for individual drivers who took out loans to secure their medallions. Two dozen drivers have already had their debt fully forgiven and more than 1,100 have been interviewed to participate in the improved Taxi Medallion Relief Program.

An individual taxi driver in New York City is defined as an owner-driver who has five or fewer medallions. Those drivers owed an average of half a million dollars for their medallions and faced staggering monthly payments that have now been capped at $1,122. The city’s largest lender for medallions, Marblegate, has agreed to “restructure outstanding loans to a principal balance of $200,000, which will be constituted as a $170,000 guaranteed loan, plus a City grant of $30,000,” per a press release. “The terms of the new loan will include a 5% interest rate and a 20-year, fully amortizing term.”

Marblegate became the largest lender because it bought thousands of loans from numerous companies that were shut down by the federal government following the 2014 medallion collapse that saw individual medallion prices skyrocket to more than $1 million. Jacobin has an excellent write-up on the damage wrought by banks, hedge funds, and the city of New York itself that directly led to the medallion bubble’s boom and bust.

The New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) has been fighting for the livelihoods and well-being of its members for years in hopes of attaining some relief in what has become a life-or-death situation for many drivers faced with insurmountable debt. Their victory Wednesday was an emotional one for those still standing. On-the-ground coverage from The City shows drivers dancing, embracing, and crying as they chanted “no more suicides.” At least eight drivers tragically took their own lives while facing debt and dwindling wages following the rise of ride-share companies like Lyft and Uber between 2017 and 2018.

Richard Chow, whose brother was one of those eight drivers, is a cabbie himself and has played an active role in the strikes that led to the debt restructuring agreement. He told The City he was proud to make history with his fellow drivers. Augustine Tang, who inherited his father’s medallion and the debt attached to it, continued to drive to honor his legacy and said the moment would’ve meant the world to his dad.

“I’m sure he didn’t want me to go through what I went through throughout this journey, but us winning has to be something,” Tang told The City. The NYTWA’s actions have inspired family members of drivers to run for office and put the pressure on lawmakers to do the right thing.

NYTWA has had the support of the likes of Chuck Schumer, city council members, and even Letitia James, the New York state attorney general, who at one point almost sued the city of New York for its actions against medallion holders. Last month, 50 elected officials signed a letter calling on de Blasio to act. Now that he has, they and NYTWA members and supporters are rightfully celebrating.

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When detained immigrants are able to access legal help and gain representation, they are up to 10 times more likely to be able to stay in the U.S., the Vera Institute of Justice said earlier this year. “Lawyers make a big difference.” Maybe that’s one reason why Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have consistently set up roadblocks that make just trying to get a lawyer on the phone outright impossible.

“As described in a letter sent today by the American Immigration Council, the ACLU, and 88 legal service provider organizations to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, ICE detention facilities have systematically restricted the most basic modes of communication that detained people need to connect with their lawyers and the rest of the outside world, including phones, mail, and email access,” American Immigration Council staff attorney Emma Winger and ACLU National Prison Project senior staff attorney Eunice Cho write in a post.

Like previously noted, unlike in the criminal court system, immigrants in the immigration court system are not guaranteed an attorney if they can’t afford one. But let’s say a detained immigrant does get pro-bono help (there are many great organizations working to do just that). “Even when attorneys are available and willing to represent detained people, ICE detention facilities make it prohibitively difficult for lawyers to communicate with their detained clients, refusing to make even the most basic of accommodations,” Winger and Cho write. “For example, many ICE facilities routinely refuse to allow attorneys to schedule calls with their clients.”

We already saw a form of this play out amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, when ICE officials told attorneys they had to wear face masks and other protective gear to visit their detained clients. Right now, that doesn’t sound out of the question. But officials said this in March 2020, when the nation was facing major protective gear shortages. When attorneys were actually able to get protective gear, ICE blocked them from seeing their clients anyway. Officials claimed it was a safety measure. Hilarious, considering how the agency’s refusal to allow detained immigrants to shelter at home worsened the national caseload by the hundreds of thousands.

“Immigration law is a highly technical, complex area of law, which federal courts themselves have observed can confuse even experienced lawyers,” the organizations tell the Biden administration in their letter. But Winger and Cho note that ICE facilities often cut short the calls they do allow, “leaving legal  providers like the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project in Arizona unable to complete intakes for potential clients in complex immigration cases in less than 20 minutes.”

Again, that’s if they can even schedule a call in the first place. The letter notes that at Boone County Jail in Kentucky, “a faulty fax machine” is the only mechanism to request calls or visits. Just this past summer, ICE was forced under court order to restore a free legal hotline it shut down after it was featured on the Emmy-winning Netflix series Orange Is the New Black. “ICE has tried again and again to silence and censor anyone who speaks out against its abusive immigration detention system,” Freedom for Immigrants deputy executive director Layla Razavi said at the time.

”The Biden administration has made access to legal representation and access to justice a priority,” the letter continues. Last month, for example, the administration announced a significant initiative expanding legal representation to asylum-seeking children (they aren’t guaranteed legal help either). “Despite this commitment, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) maintains a network of immigration detention facilities where people are routinely denied access to counsel and are prevented from effectively representing themselves,” the letter continued.

The organizations make a number of key recommendations, notably ensuring “private, confidential, free video conferencing for legal visits to all people in immigration detention,” “timely access to private, confidential, free legal phone calls of unlimited duration and adequate quality,” and “meaningful access to private, confidential in-person visitation with legal representatives.” Of course, it’s better that immigrants just not be locked up in the first place. Immigration detention is civil detention, and “the data show that most undocumented people show up for court,” the ACLU noted last year. “Detention is not necessary, nor is it a humane or acceptable de facto response.”

“Immigration detention is inhumane, and it is a key barrier to access to justice,” Winger and Cho concluded. You can read their full post here, and the full letter from the organizations to the Biden administration here. “But so long as people are detained, ICE must ensure that detention facilities provide immigrants with timely access to counsel.”

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As Daily Kos has continued to cover, Republicans have been more than happy to jump into anti-trans hate as a way to distract people from their failures in office. While some state-level legislation has died in committee, some has made its way through both the statehouse and senate and made it all the way to the governor—and some, sadly, has even been signed into law by Republicans. One example comes to us from Tennessee, where Republican Governor Bill Lee signed a discriminatory anti-trans sports bill into law in March 2021, which is also when it went into effect. With the help of Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), however, one brave openly trans teen is suing for his right to play sports with the team that matches his gender identity, as reported by NBC News.

In a news release, 14-year-old Luc Esquivel, a trans boy who wanted to try out for the boys’ golf team at Farragut High School in Knoxville, Tennessee, said he was “crushed” by the legislation. “I just want to play,” the high school freshman added. “Like any other kid.”

As some context, most people pushing these anti-trans bills are hyper-focused on the idea of trans girls participating on girls’ sports teams, arguing that it could be unfair to cisgender girls when it comes to competitions and even scholarships. (It’s not.) Some bills do use language that refers only to trans girls (which is still hateful, discriminatory, and wrong) but most use broad language that includes both trans girls and trans boys (and arguably non-binary trans youth, too), which is the case for public middle and high schools in Tennessee. So while legislators waxed faux hysteria about trans girls, trans boys like Luc are also being discriminated against, though their situation has gotten far less national media attention.

Luc, unlike so many trans kids and teens, has the support of his mother, Shelley Esquivel. In a press release, Luc’s mother described it as “heartbreaking” to see him miss out on the chance to play sports with his peers, a normal and fun high school activity. “It’s painful for a parent to see their child subjected to discrimination because of who they are,” she added.”

The goal of the lawsuit, which was filed by Lambda Legal, the ACLU of Tennessee, and the ACLU, is to get the federal court to intervene. The suit argues that the law is fundamentally discriminatory and unconstitutional. A similarly transphobic sports bill in Idaho has been temporarily blocked using the same method, and is waiting for a decision by a U.S. appeals court. Temporarily blocking the law at least gives trans youth back some dignity and opportunities to participate in sports with their peers for the time being.

Executive director of the ACLU of Tennessee, Hedy Weinberg, said the emotional cost of this law is “tremendous” when it comes to harming trans student-athletes. “We stand with trans students across the state as we challenge this law, and we urge other trans student-athletes and their families facing such discrimination to contact us,” she said in a statement. 

“For trans kids, who often experience alienation and stigmatization, participating on teams with their peers is especially important,” explained Sara Buchert, a senior attorney at Lambda Legal, in a statement. “Luc just wants to play golf with other boys, to be part of the team, and to improve his game. Like all kids, he just wants to play.”

“To have the legislature pass a law that singled out me and kids like me to keep us from being part of a team, that crushed me, it hurt very much,” Luc stated. 

Disturbingly, anti-trans legislation is booming across the nation, and Republicans are quick to use whatever angle they can to fire up outrage against a vulnerable, marginalized population. In Tennessee alone, Gov. Lee has signed multiple transphobic bills into law in addition to this sports bill. For example, Lee signed a bill into law that requires restaurants and businesses to post what the HRC calls “offensive and humiliating signage” alerting customers that trans folks are able to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity, as well as a bill that bars trans youth from accessing gender-affirming medical treatment.