Tag: Michigan state government

Prominent 2020 election denier seeks GOP nod for Michigan Supreme Court race

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LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A Donald Trump ally who faces felony charges of trying to illegally access and tamper with voting machines is seeking the Republican nomination for the highest court in Michigan, an epicenter of efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

In June, attorney Matthew DePerno announced his intent to run for the state Supreme Court, almost one year after he was charged and arraigned.

Delegates will vote on nominees Saturday, Aug. 24, at the Michigan GOP party convention for two state Supreme Court seats in a battleground state where the court has the potential final say in Michigan election matters.

Michigan Supreme Court races are officially nonpartisan — meaning candidates appear on the ballot without party labels — but candidates are nominated at party conventions. Democratic-backed justices currently hold a 4-3 majority. Republican nominees would have to win both seats to take back majority control while Democrats stand to gain a 5-2 favorability.

DePerno rose to prominence for pushing false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from then-President Trump. He unsuccessfully ran for Michigan attorney general in 2022 and lost a bid to be the GOP state party chair in 2023.

DePerno was named as a “prime instigator” in the voting machine tampering case. Five vote tabulators were illegally taken from three Michigan counties and brought to a hotel room, according to documents released in 2022 by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office. Investigators found the tabulators were broken into and “tests” were performed on the equipment.

He was charged with undue possession of a voting machine and conspiracy. A state judge has ruled it is a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison, to take a machine without a court order or permission directly from the secretary of state’s office.

DePerno has denied wrongdoing. He’s not due back in court until Nov. 21 after the general election and no trial date has been set. He also faces a separate complaint from the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission, threatening his law license, over accused attorney misconduct when he represented a former state lawmaker.

DePerno in a phone interview said both the felony charges and the attorney misconduct allegations are politically motivated.

Michigan is just one of at least three states where prosecutors say people breached election systems while embracing and spreading Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

DePerno is seeking nomination to run for a partial-term seat currently held by Justice Kyra Harris Bolden, who was appointed by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer after a Democratic-backed justice announced she was resigning by the end of 2022 with six years left on her term.

Bolden is seeking the Democratic nomination for the seat she was appointed to in January 2023. She is the first Black woman to sit on the state’s highest bench and would be the first elected if successful in November.

Republican-backed conservative Justice David Viviano announced in March that he would not seek reelection, opening another seat.

The Democratic Party is holding its convention the same day as the GOP, Aug. 24.

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Campaign finance reports showed an astounding gap between candidates seeking Democratic and Republican nominations and a serious lack of fundraising on DePerno’s part.

Bolden, seeking the Democratic party’s backing, has raised more than $1.1 million as of Aug. 8th, while DePerno has only raised $136, according to the most recent campaign finance reports.

DePerno has focused on shoring up delegate support, not fundraising and expressed confidence that he can out-fundraise Bolden if nominated for the general election, citing his own name recognition, he said.

“I don’t think the other candidates in my race can raise any money in the general election,” he said.

DePerno’s Republican competitors at the party convention include Detroit attorney Alexandria Taylor and Circuit Court Judge Patrick O’Grady. Both have outraised DePerno so far by thousands of dollars according to campaign filings.

State Court of Appeals Judge Mark Boonstra and state Rep. Andrew Fink are competing for the Republican nomination for Viviano’s seat. Boonstra was endorsed by Trump in May. On the Democratic side, University of Michigan Law School professor Kimberly Ann Thomas is seeking nomination for the opening.

Michigan’s Democratic Party executive committee has endorsed Bolden and Thomas and they face no nominating challengers.

Thomas reported raising over $826,603 as of Aug. 8 in recent campaign filings, hundreds of thousands more than Fink and Boonstra.

State Supreme Court races have taken on new meaning in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, shifting abortion policy to the states. Millions of dollars were spent in hotly contested races in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2023. Supreme Court races in Ohio and Montana are expected to be heated because of potential rulings on abortion.

“Michigan is one of only two state Supreme Courts in the country that could flip to a conservative majority this cycle — putting abortion access, unions and workers, and our very democracy at risk,” Lavora Barnes, the Michigan Democratic Party chair, said in a statement.

Republicans in the state have framed the race as a fight to stop government overreach while Democrats say it’s a fight to preserve reproductive rights. Abortion rights were added to the state constitution by voters in 2022, months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

“We continue to respect the laws that are in place in Michigan here,” Republican party executive director Tyson Shepard said. “We’re tired from the fearmongering from the left.”

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Associated Press writer Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.

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August 16, 2024
Some Democratic-led states seek to bolster voter protections

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers in several Democratic-controlled states are advocating sweeping voter protections this year, reacting to what they view as a broad undermining of voting rights by the Supreme Court and Republican-led states as well as a failed effort in Congress to bolster access to the polls.

Legislators in Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey and New Mexico have introduced voting rights measures, while Michigan’s secretary of state is preparing a plan.

Among other things, the proposals would require state approval for local governments to change redistricting or voting procedures, ban voter suppression and intimidation, mandate that ballots are printed in more languages, increase protections for voters with disabilities, ensure the right to vote for those with previous felony convictions and instruct judges to prioritize voter access when hearing election-related challenges.

The measures are taking a much wider approach than legislation targeting a single aspect of voting or elections law. They seek to implement on a statewide basis many of the protections under the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, a law that many Democrats and voting rights groups say is being stripped of its most important elements.

If the legislation is enacted, the states would join California, New York, Oregon, Washington and Virginia in having comprehensive voting rights laws.

“It’s up to states now to ensure that the right to vote is protected,” said Janai Nelson, president of the the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Maryland’s proposal includes a requirement for local voting changes to receive preapproval, mirroring core provisions of the federal law that was struck down by the Supreme Court a decade ago.

Maryland was not among the states, mostly in the South, that was covered under the provision known as preclearance before the court ended it. But lawmakers there saw it as important because of persistent concerns over how districts for local governing bodies have been drawn, said Morgan Drayton, policy and engagement manager at Common Cause Maryland.

“A lot of our maps here are drawn behind closed doors, and there’s not a lot of input from the public that’s able to be given,” she said. “So this would do a lot to make these processes more transparent.”

In Maryland’s Baltimore County, a lawsuit claimed the county council’s map packed most Black voters into a single district. The state legislation would require jurisdictions in Maryland with a history of voter discrimination to have redistricting and election changes cleared by the state attorney general.

Democratic state Del. Stephanie Smith, a co-sponsor of the legislation, said that despite Maryland’s racial diversity and history of diversity in its political leadership, “access to the ballot and equitable representation is uneven.”

“This bill strengthens our commitment to voting access and protections at a time of great stress on our democratic institutions,” she said.

Proposals in Michigan and New Mexico address harassment against election workers and voters, especially those in minority communities. One of several bills in New Mexico would protect election officials, from the secretary of state to county and municipal elections clerks, from intimidation. That would be defined as inducing or attempting to induce fear, and a violation would be punishable as a fourth-degree felony punishable by up to 18 months in prison.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, said she will seek similar protections for voters, including prohibiting firearms within a certain distance of polling places.

“We need an explicit ban on voter suppression and intimidation,” she said.

Connecticut’s legislation would expand language assistance for voters who speak, read or understand languages other than English. Language assistance is covered under the federal law, but only specifies protections for Spanish-speakers and for Asian, Native American and Alaska Native language minorities.

Ballots offered in Arabic, Haitian Creole and other languages also are needed, said Steven Lance, policy counsel at the national NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

A language would be covered if the group speaking it is more than 2% of the citizens of voting age in a particular municipality or the group includes more than 4,000 citizens of voting age, under Connecticut’s legislative proposal.

Residents also would have the right to ask the secretary of state to review whether a certain language should be covered, Lance said.

In New Jersey, advocacy organizations are pushing to expand voting rights legislation to include more groups that would be specifically protected from discrimination, including the state’s sizable Arab American population.

“A reality is the federal VRA was originally crafted in 1965, and while there have been other bills in the decade since, the VRA doesn’t reflect the diversity of the population of New Jersey in 2023,” said Henal Patel, law & policy director at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.

Some state voting rights bills also seek to create databases for information that has not always been readily available, such as polling place locations, voting rules and redistricting maps. The bills also would specify that state judges interpret voting laws in a way that ensures people maintain their right to vote.

Democrats in Minnesota are pushing numerous voting changes, including restoring voting rights to felons as soon as they are released from prison, allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to preregister so they are ready to vote as soon as they turn 18 and automatically registering people to vote when they obtain or renew their driver’s licenses.

Passing state voting rights legislation is only half the battle, said state Sen. Jennifer McClellan, a Virginia Democrat who introduced a state voting rights act that passed in 2021 when Democrats controlled both houses of the Legislature and the governor’s office.

McClellan noted that ensuring voting rights historically was a bipartisan issue, but said Republicans are now focused on “fighting phantom voter fraud” — making this year’s Virginia legislative elections all the more important.

“The entire General Assembly is up for election this year, and I think that’s going to be a big theme in the election — that if we want to protect our progress on voting rights, we’re going to need to make sure that Democrats keep the Senate and regain the majority in the House,” McClellan said.

McClellan won a special election this past week to fill an open seat in the U.S. House, where she will make history as the first Black woman to represent the state in Congress.

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Associated Press coverage of race and voting receives support from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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February 25, 2023
Election conspiracist to lead Michigan GOP through 2024

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LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Election conspiracist Kristina Karamo, who was overwhelmingly defeated in her bid to become Michigan’s secretary of state, was chosen Saturday to lead the state’s Republican Party for the next two years.

Karamo defeated a 10-candidate field dominated by far-right candidates to win the Michigan GOP chair position after a state convention that lasted nearly 11 hours. A former community college professor, she lost her secretary of state race in the 2022 midterms by 14 percentage points after mounting a campaign filled with election conspiracies.

Karamo inherits a state party torn by infighting and millions in debt. She will be tasked with helping win back control of the Legislature and flipping one of the nation’s most competitive Senate seats, while attempting to help a presidential candidate win the battleground state.

Addressing delegates before the vote, Karamo said that “our party is dying” and it needs to be rebuilt into “a political machine that strikes fear in the heart of Democrats.”

Karamo rose to prominence following the 2020 presidential election when she began appearing on conservative talk shows saying that as a poll challenger in Detroit, she saw “ballots being dropped off in the middle of the night, thousands of them.”

The decision to elect Karamo, who will lead through the 2024 elections, solidifies the hold that far-right activists have on the state party after Michigan Republicans suffered sweeping electoral losses last year.

It took three rounds of voting at the convention in Lansing for locally elected delegates to pick Karamo over former attorney general candidate Matthew DePerno, who had been endorsed by Trump in the race.

With a field dominated by grassroots activist candidates running on far-right messaging, many longtime Michigan Republicans had given up on a state party before Saturday’s vote even took place.

“We lost the entire statehouse for the first time in 40 years, in large part, because of the top of the ticket. All deniers. It turned off a lot of voters,” former longtime Republican U.S. Rep. Fred Upton said last week. “As I look at the state convention, it looks like it could well be more of the same.”

The party may take “a cycle or two to correct itself and to get out of the ditch that we’ve been in for the last couple of years,” Upton told The Associated Press.

The state party previously has been led by former U.S. Sen. Spencer Abraham, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and current national Republican Party Chair Ronna McDaniel. The party built a large volunteer base of grassroots activists, former Chair Bobby Schostak said, while also raising “$30 to $35 million each cycle.”

In Schostak’s time as chair from 2011 to 2015, Republicans maintained control of the Legislature and Rick Snyder, a Republican, was reelected as governor. Trump won the state in the 2016 presidential election.

Democrats now control all levels of power in the state for the first time since the 1980s. They won control of both houses of the Legislature and defeated Republicans by significant margins for governor, attorney general and secretary of state in the 2022 midterms.

Longtime donors withheld millions in donations as the Republican party grew increasingly loyal to Trump, nominating his handpicked candidates, DePerno and Karamo. Tudor Dixon, who lost her race for governor to Whitmer, said her campaign was hurt by the state party not having as much money as in the past.

“I’d love to say that it is just a movement of going and knocking doors. But you’ve got to be able to put the money behind it,” Dixon said.

Following the midterms, Michigan GOP Chair Ron Weiser and co-Chair Meshawn Maddock said they would not seek reelection.

Prior to the vote Saturday, Schostak, now a major donor in the state, said the next leader will need to prove “they have the capability to be good stewards of the donor money.”

If donors once again decide in large numbers not to give to the state party, they will need to find other ways of helping candidates ahead of a 2024 presidential election in which Republicans will look to flip the state House and win a U.S. Senate seat for the first time in more than two decades.

“The state party’s a little bit weaker, and they’re not going to have the influence in races that they had before,” state House Republican Floor Leader Bryan Posthumus noted. “That being said, there are a lot of other avenues to pick up that slack and to make sure that we are still effective with or without the party.”

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February 18, 2023
Haley’s candidacy shows balancing act for women in politics

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In announcing her campaign for the Republican presidential nomination this week, Nikki Haley made a subtle reference to the historic nature of her candidacy.

“I don’t put up with bullies,” Haley said in a video that launched her bid to become the first female president of the U.S. “And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels.”

Haley has plenty of accomplishments, including becoming the first woman elected governor of South Carolina and representing the U.S. at the United Nations. But her introduction captured the balancing act women — particularly conservative women — often navigate as they aspire to win the top job in American politics.

They must show toughness to prove they can compete against rivals who are almost always men for a job that has only been held by men. But there’s also something of an invisible line that can’t be crossed for fear of being viewed as too tough and repelling voters.

“We’ve seen higher levels of Republican women running and winning in recent elections,” said Kelly Dittmar, director of research and a scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “But what you also see these women often doing is working hard to meet that double bind. … It’s like, ‘I’m tough, but I’m also feminine. I’m also meeting my kind of feminine expectations.’”

Sexism in politics is hardly limited to one political party, with women in public life often under pressure to appear “likable” in ways that aren’t expected of men. During a Democratic primary debate in 2008, a male moderator pressed Hillary Clinton on the “likability issue” in relation to her rival, Barack Obama.

“I don’t think I’m that bad,” Clinton responded. Obama broke in to say, “You’re likable enough, Hillary.”

More recently, prominent Democratic women have also sought to project toughness in their campaigns. Sharice Davids, a former mixed martial arts fighter, sparred in a 2018 ad for a Kansas congressional seat. Amy McGrath, who challenged Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell in 2020, highlighted her experience as a Marine fighter pilot.

But the dynamics are different, Dittmar said, in Republican politics, where voters tend to have more traditional views about stereotypical gender roles. That can incentivize Republican women seeking top offices to demonstrate both their toughness and femininity. She noted how former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin introduced herself as a vice presidential nominee in 2008 with a joke comparing hockey moms to a pitbull with lipstick.

“It’s another way to cue” to voters that candidates are both tough and feminine, Dittmar said.

Haley’s formal announcement in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday was peppered with examples. A congressman described Haley as leading with “an iron fist in a velvet glove.” The mother of Otto Warmbier, the young American who died after he was held and tortured in North Korea, said Haley taught her how to fight but also checked on her with the compassion of a fellow mom. And Haley herself called on voters to send “a tough-as-nails woman to the White House.”

Haley is one of only five Republican women to launch prominent campaigns for the office this century. By comparison, 12 Democratic women have been prominent candidates, including six in 2020, according to CAWP. The 12 include Clinton as the party’s 2016 nominee and a 2020 candidate, Kamala Harris, who became the country’s first female vice president.

Women face other hurdles their male peers do not, including online abuse that overwhelmingly targets women, especially women of color, and sometimes-sexist media coverage.

In a pointed example Thursday, CNN anchor Don Lemon said that Haley “isn’t in her prime” because she is 51. He added that “a woman is considered being in her prime in her 20s, 30s and maybe 40s.” Lemon himself is 56.

Haley’s main competition so far for the nomination, former President Donald Trump, has a long record of insulting his rivals, targeting women with sexist attacks including criticizing their appearance.

Clinton’s campaign accused Trump during the 2016 election of repeatedly interrupting her during a debate, saying it resembled a frustrating experience many women have with men. Trump also made critical remarks about the appearance of the last major Republican female candidate to challenge him for the presidency, businesswoman Carly Fiorina.

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the last of six women to drop out of the party’s 2020 presidential primary, referenced sexism as a factor, noting the two remaining hopefuls were white men. Trump said her problem was actually a “lack of talent” and called her mean and unlikable.

Before Haley made her bid official, Trump called her “a very ambitious person,” telling conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt that Haley “just couldn’t stay in her seat.” He also said he essentially gave Haley his blessing before she reversed course on an earlier decision not to challenge him. “I said, ‘You know what, Nikki, if you want to run, you go ahead and run.’”

Haley, a former accountant and state legislator who became South Carolina’s first female and first Indian American governor, is no stranger to sexist and racist attacks.

The daughter of Indian immigrants, she has written and talked about growing up in a small town as the only brown-skinned family. During her 2010 campaign for governor, a state lawmaker used a racial slur to reference her. He later apologized.

Former Rep. Susan Brooks of Indiana, who led GOP efforts to recruit and elect more women to the U.S. House, called Haley’s candidacy “good for the party” and the country.

Olivia Perez-Cubas is spokeswoman for Winning For Women, which formed to help elect more GOP women after Democratic women led a takeover of the U.S. House in 2018. She said the group wants to ensure the Republican Party is representative of the U.S., which means it needs more diversity, including more women.

She is also hopeful that having more women in office or running as candidates will help Republicans attract more female voters, who have been more likely to support Democrats than Republicans in recent presidential elections. AP VoteCast, a broad survey of the electorate, shows 55% of women voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and 43% voted for Trump.

“Voters like to see and hear themselves reflected,” she said. “And when we can put forward a strong candidate that’s a woman, that’s great for everyone.”

Still, Perez-Cubas acknowledged that just as in many careers, the bar for women is “always just a little bit higher.”

Republican businesswoman Tudor Dixon was the first woman to be the GOP nominee for governor in Michigan, defeating four male rivals in the 2022 primary. Her nomination was surprising to some voters, Dixon said, including one woman who liked the Republican’s policies but said, “I just can’t vote for you because you have four girls and I don’t think you should be leaving them.”

Michigan was one of five states where 2022 gubernatorial contests were between two women, a U.S. record. But it also led to “disgusting” comparisons between herself and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Dixon said, such as who was younger or more physically fit — discussions that rarely happen in contests between two men.

She applauded Haley for getting into the race, saying it’s not an easy thing to do.

“You are personally attacked. You put yourself out there, and it’s hard,” she said. “But young women should see that they can do this, and that the future is that women are doing the same things that men are doing.”

Evelyn Sanguinetti, who was Illinois’ first Latina lieutenant governor when she served with Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, had similar experiences on the campaign trail. She was excited about Haley’s bid, noting the historic nature of electing a woman who is of Indian descent and could, she said, lead with empathy and compassion at a time when the country is greatly divided.

“I’d like for our daughters to see that, because we’ve been seeing a lot of males, particularly white males, for a really long time,” Sanguinetti said.

In her Wednesday speech, Haley made a point to eschew so-called identity politics. But she stood on stage wearing the white of the suffragette movement and had a message to her rivals.

“As I set out on this new journey I will simply say this,” Haley said. “May the best woman win.”

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Associated Press writer Emily Swanson in Washington contributed to this report.

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February 17, 2023
New year expected to bring more changes to state voting laws

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State lawmakers around the country introduced thousands of bills to change the way elections are run after former President Donald Trump falsely blamed his 2020 loss on voter fraud. Hundreds became law.

Even with proponents of Trump’s election lies roundly defeated during this year’s midterms, advocates on both sides of the voting debate are bracing for another round of election-related legislation. Republicans are eager to tighten election rules further while Democrats, who took control of two additional statehouses, will seek to make it easier to cast a ballot.

Minnesota’s newly reelected Democratic secretary of state, Steve Simon, said he had spoken to several secretaries of state who are eager to push for changes in voting. Losses by election-denier candidates in top races have emboldened some Democrats to champion expansions of voting rights.

“Voters spoke loudly and clearly about what they wanted and didn’t want, both in regards to this office and all these other issues,” said Simon, who defeated a Republican challenger who parroted some of Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.

Democrats won majorities in both houses of the Minnesota Legislature in November, giving Simon a good shot at enacting changes. He expects to urge lawmakers to adopt automatic voter registration and allow high school students to pre-register.

States routinely make adjustments in their voting laws — some subtle, some dramatic. But experts have never seen an explosion of legislation like that which followed the 2020 presidential election, when more than 3,600 election bills were introduced, according to the Voting Rights Lab, which tracks the legislation.

Liz Avore, senior adviser to the group, said 22 states in the last couple of years expanded access to the ballot, 10 created new restrictions and five expanded access in some ways while creating new barriers in others. This, she said, has created a divide in the U.S. in which “your ZIP code determines your access to our democracy.”

That divide seems likely to grow next year. Legislatures won’t convene until January at the earliest, so it’s unclear how many bills are being drafted and on which subjects. But Texas, where the Legislature meets only once every two years and lawmakers can “pre-file” drafts of legislation for the upcoming session, offers a preview.

The Associated Press has identified nearly 100 election-related legislative proposals already filed in the state, both to increase access to the ballot box and to further restrict it. This includes one that would allow the state’s top lawyer to assign a prosecutor focused on election crimes, testing the boundaries of a court ruling earlier this year that said the attorney general did not have the authority to prosecute election crimes.

Another would assign a group of peace officers to serve as election marshals who investigate claims of election-related missteps. That would follow the lead of Florida, where officers in a special unit assigned to elections have already made a handful of arrests — including of people who mistakenly thought they were eligible to vote under a 2018 constitutional amendment restoring voting rights to some felons. Critics have labeled the unit a political tool of the governor.

Matt Simpson, a senior attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said current election legislation proposed in the state, such as increasing criminal penalties for election crimes and creating election marshals, is “extreme” and “very intimidating” for voters. He said these approaches are primarily political and don’t solve actual voting-related issues, such as high rejection rates of mail ballots and ballot applications due to widespread confusion on the identification numbers necessary.

“It is certainly the case that Texas elections do not have widespread fraud,” Simpson said. “These bills, these concerns that are raised, are solutions in search of a problem.”

The reliability of Texas’ elections was underscored by the release earlier this month of an audit by the secretary of state’s office. The 359-page audit of the 2020 election in the state’s two largest Democratic counties and two largest Republican ones found some “irregularities,” but they were largely related to holding an election during a pandemic.

“In most cases, the audit found that the counties followed their procedures and clearly documented their activities,” the audit says.

Ohio is another Republican-controlled state where lawmakers continue to push for restrictions.

The state is likely to draw national attention next year after Republicans indicated they might try again to place on the May ballot a measure requiring a 60% majority for any future constitutional amendments to pass. That provision could limit the ability of Ohio voters to rein in GOP gerrymandering or otherwise counter the majority-Republican Legislature, such as by codifying the right to an abortion.

Republicans failed to muster enough votes during December’s lame-duck session to place the higher threshold for passing amendments on the ballot, but they did pass a sweeping election law overhaul. The bill adds a photo ID requirement for voters and provides them for free, codifies a directive requiring one ballot drop box per county and eliminates early voting on the Monday before Election Day — county officials had said it interfered with their final preparations. The legislation also shrinks the window for receiving mail-in ballots after the election from 10 days to four.

Republican state Sen. Theresa Gavarone said taking steps to tighten access to the voting booth and speed vote counting are aimed at improving the “perception, confidence and integrity” in elections.

“Folks, perception matters,” Gavarone said. “Whether you want to believe it or not, the goal should not just be to secure our elections, but it’s imperative that we give people doubting the results of our elections reason to participate in them.”

Voting rights advocates were outraged.

“This legislation will make voting unnecessarily harder for seniors, students, rural Ohioans, active-duty military and other eligible Ohioans,” said Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters Ohio.

The office of Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said he was reviewing the legislation.

Democrats are readying their own pushes, especially in two states where they won control of the legislatures and retained the governorship — Michigan and Minnesota.

Michigan voters not only gave Democrats control of the state Legislature, they also passed Proposal 2, a sweeping ballot initiative that expanded early and mail voting. Democrats already are preparing to strengthen the measure in the legislative session.

“There will need to be quite a bit of implementation legislation next term, and I look forward to working with the Legislature and the governor’s office to enact this,” Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum, a Democrat, said in an interview.

Jake Rollow, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of State, said Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson will likely ask lawmakers to allocate $100 million annually for local election offices and propose new measures against circulating election misinformation. A Democratic state lawmaker also proposed imposing penalties for people who pressure election workers, a key cause of Democrats in state legislatures after conspiracy theorists targeted voting officials after the 2020 presidential election.

In Minnesota, Simon said he also wants to increase penalties against threatening or interfering with election workers. He said he’ll push a range of other reforms, including pre-registering high schoolers so they can quickly join the voting rolls upon turning 18. Younger voters lean Democratic, but Simon said he’s not trying to promote his party.

He said he merely wants to make the electorate more reflective of the population, a goal he also pushed when the statehouse was split between Republicans and Democrats.

“These are reforms that will benefit everyone,” he said.

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Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, and Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

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December 30, 2022
‘You’ve got to deliver’: Democrats take charge in Michigan

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LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Democrats will be in charge of Michigan’s state government for the first time in nearly 40 years come January, raising progressive hopes of undoing decades of Republican-backed measures and advancing an agenda that includes restrictions on guns and help for the working poor.

With control of the state House and Senate and the governor’s office, Democrats also will face a test of whether their party can deliver on years of promises in a swing state where they must appeal to more than just their base. Their performance could have wider consequences in 2024 for the presidential battleground state: The way voters feel about two years of Democratic control may be a factor in which party’s candidate they want in the White House.

“The most important thing is actually delivering,” said Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who won reelection to her central Michigan district in one of the country’s most competitive U.S. House races. “You can say what you want all day long. You can have an agenda on a piece of paper. But in Michigan, you’ve got to deliver something.”

Full Democratic control will begin a new challenge for the party and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a close ally of President Joe Biden who has been mentioned as a future White House candidate.

Whitmer, who resoundingly won reelection last month, must now balance the enthusiasm of a newly powerful Democratic caucus with the need to maintain support from moderate and independent voters when the Legislature is up for grabs again in two years.

“We’re mindful that people are watching. What happened here in Michigan’s only happened four times in 130 years,” Whitmer said during a recent meeting with reporters. “There are a lot of eyes on us. It’s our job to make sure that we stay focused on what matters to Michiganders, not what national pundits are interested in.”

Pressure from lobbyists and special interest groups already is immense, and Democratic caucus members are having internal debates about how to proceed, said Rosemary Bayer, a Democratic state senator first elected in 2018. She and others already have tried to lower some expectations and focus on passing legislation that has widespread appeal across the state.

“We can’t do everything at once,” she said. “We don’t want to scare everybody.”

Bayer’s district includes Oxford, the community outside Detroit where a 15-year-old gunman killed four people and injured others at the local high school in 2021. Bayer is now leading the charge for increased gun restrictions, but said she expects to begin by asking lawmakers to approve measures that voters have been asking for and can accept, based on polling reviewed by the party.

That likely means legislation to require background checks for nearly all gun purchases, gun storage laws and a red flag law that bars people deemed to be a danger to themselves and others from having a firearm.

“That’s what people are comfortable with. That’s what they’ve been asking for,” Bayer said. “We have to help everybody understand that if we don’t do this correctly and we end up scaring the crap out of everybody, we get nothing done.”

Republicans have warned that the Democrats’ agenda will be bad for the state’s economy. One of the biggest battles is expected to be over a right-to-work law approved by Republicans about a decade ago that allowed workers covered by union contracts to not pay dues.

The law is seen as weakening organized labor financially and politically. Labor unions, among Democrats’ biggest supporters, have been pushing to repeal it. Business groups and the GOP say doing so would hurt the state’s recovery from the pandemic.

John Sellek, a Republican consultant who advised GOP state House speakers and was state director for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, cautioned Democrats that the last time the party controlled both chambers of the Legislature and the governor’s office, in 1983, it was short-lived. After a tax increase was passed, two Democratic senators were recalled, and the GOP returned to power.

Like that time, Democrats now will have a slim majority. They will hold 56 of 100 seats in the House, all of which are up for reelection in two years, and 20 of 38 in the Senate.

“There’s going to be a ton of pressure on the governor in how she handles this,” Sellek said. “It is not a science, it’s an art.”

Whitmer and other Democrats have said they expect to pursue tax credits, education changes and action on climate change.

The Legislature also will work to put in place two ballot measures that voters overwhelmingly approved in November. One expands voting access, allowing nine days of early in-person voting for the first time in the state. The other enshrines the right to an abortion in the state constitution and eliminates a ban on the procedure that was approved in 1931. Whitmer sued to stop the ban from taking effect after the U.S. Supreme Court in June overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling from 1973 that legalized abortion nationwide.

Democrats also control the statewide offices of attorney general and secretary of state. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson plans to ask the Legislature to impose stricter penalties for harassing election workers and spreading misinformation about voting.

Michigan could be the focus of even more attention than usual in the next election cycle. The Democratic National Committee’s rule-making arm voted to move Michigan up in the party’s presidential primary calendar for 2024. If the full DNC approves the plan, as expected, Michigan would be the fifth state to vote in the primary process and the first contest in the Midwest.

That may not matter much if Biden runs again, as he has indicated he will. If he opts out, it could raise the stakes for Whitmer, who has insisted she will not forgo serving a second term to run for president. U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who ran for president in 2020 and is considered a likely future White House contender as well, moved to northern Michigan this year to be closer to his husband’s family.

State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who received national attention after a viral speech on the state Senate floor in April, said what Michigan Democrats are able to accomplish could stand in contrast with Washington, which will have divided government with the GOP holding a slim House majority.

“It feels like Michigan is going to be a real opportunity to signal to the rest of the country what it looks like when Democrats are in charge,” McMorrow said.

___

Burnett reported from Chicago.

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Joey Cappelletti is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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December 30, 2022
New year expected to bring more changes to state voting laws

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State lawmakers around the country introduced thousands of bills to change the way elections are run after former President Donald Trump falsely blamed his 2020 loss on voter fraud. Hundreds became law.

Even with proponents of Trump’s election lies roundly defeated during this year’s midterms, advocates on both sides of the voting debate are bracing for another round of election-related legislation. Republicans are eager to tighten election rules further while Democrats, who took control of two additional statehouses, will seek to make it easier to cast a ballot.

Minnesota’s newly reelected Democratic secretary of state, Steve Simon, said he had spoken to several secretaries of state who are eager to push for changes in voting. Losses by election-denier candidates in top races have emboldened some Democrats to champion expansions of voting rights.

“Voters spoke loudly and clearly about what they wanted and didn’t want, both in regards to this office and all these other issues,” said Simon, who defeated a Republican challenger who parroted some of Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.

Democrats won majorities in both houses of the Minnesota Legislature in November, giving Simon a good shot at enacting changes. He expects to urge lawmakers to adopt automatic voter registration and allow high school students to pre-register.

States routinely make adjustments in their voting laws — some subtle, some dramatic. But experts have never seen an explosion of legislation like that which followed the 2020 presidential election, when more than 3,600 election bills were introduced, according to the Voting Rights Lab, which tracks the legislation.

Liz Avore, senior adviser to the group, said 22 states in the last couple of years expanded access to the ballot, 10 created new restrictions and five expanded access in some ways while creating new barriers in others. This, she said, has created a divide in the U.S. in which “your ZIP code determines your access to our democracy.”

That divide seems likely to grow next year. Legislatures won’t convene until January at the earliest, so it’s unclear how many bills are being drafted and on which subjects. But Texas, where the Legislature meets only once every two years and lawmakers can “pre-file” drafts of legislation for the upcoming session, offers a preview.

The Associated Press has identified nearly 100 election-related legislative proposals already filed in the state, both to increase access to the ballot box and to further restrict it. This includes one that would allow the state’s top lawyer to assign a prosecutor focused on election crimes, testing the boundaries of a court ruling earlier this year that said the attorney general did not have the authority to prosecute election crimes.

Another would assign a group of peace officers to serve as election marshals who investigate claims of election-related missteps. That would follow the lead of Florida, where officers in a special unit assigned to elections have already made a handful of arrests — including of people who mistakenly thought they were eligible to vote under a 2018 constitutional amendment restoring voting rights to some felons. Critics have labeled the unit a political tool of the governor.

Matt Simpson, a senior attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said current election legislation proposed in the state, such as increasing criminal penalties for election crimes and creating election marshals, is “extreme” and “very intimidating” for voters. He said these approaches are primarily political and don’t solve actual voting-related issues, such as high rejection rates of mail ballots and ballot applications due to widespread confusion on the identification numbers necessary.

“It is certainly the case that Texas elections do not have widespread fraud,” Simpson said. “These bills, these concerns that are raised, are solutions in search of a problem.”

The reliability of Texas’ elections was underscored by the release earlier this month of an audit by the secretary of state’s office. The 359-page audit of the 2020 election in the state’s two largest Democratic counties and two largest Republican ones found some “irregularities,” but they were largely related to holding an election during a pandemic.

“In most cases, the audit found that the counties followed their procedures and clearly documented their activities,” the audit says.

Ohio is another Republican-controlled state where lawmakers continue to push for restrictions.

The state is likely to draw national attention next year after Republicans indicated they might try again to place on the May ballot a measure requiring a 60% majority for any future constitutional amendments to pass. That provision could limit the ability of Ohio voters to rein in GOP gerrymandering or otherwise counter the majority-Republican Legislature, such as by codifying the right to an abortion.

Republicans failed to muster enough votes during December’s lame-duck session to place the higher threshold for passing amendments on the ballot, but they did pass a sweeping election law overhaul. The bill adds a photo ID requirement for voters and provides them for free, codifies a directive requiring one ballot drop box per county and eliminates early voting on the Monday before Election Day — county officials had said it interfered with their final preparations. The legislation also shrinks the window for receiving mail-in ballots after the election from 10 days to four.

Republican state Sen. Theresa Gavarone said taking steps to tighten access to the voting booth and speed vote counting are aimed at improving the “perception, confidence and integrity” in elections.

“Folks, perception matters,” Gavarone said. “Whether you want to believe it or not, the goal should not just be to secure our elections, but it’s imperative that we give people doubting the results of our elections reason to participate in them.”

Voting rights advocates were outraged.

“This legislation will make voting unnecessarily harder for seniors, students, rural Ohioans, active-duty military and other eligible Ohioans,” said Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters Ohio.

The office of Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said he was reviewing the legislation.

Democrats are readying their own pushes, especially in two states where they won control of the legislatures and retained the governorship — Michigan and Minnesota.

Michigan voters not only gave Democrats control of the state Legislature, they also passed Proposal 2, a sweeping ballot initiative that expanded early and mail voting. Democrats already are preparing to strengthen the measure in the legislative session.

“There will need to be quite a bit of implementation legislation next term, and I look forward to working with the Legislature and the governor’s office to enact this,” Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum, a Democrat, said in an interview.

Jake Rollow, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of State, said Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson will likely ask lawmakers to allocate $100 million annually for local election offices and propose new measures against circulating election misinformation. A Democratic state lawmaker also proposed imposing penalties for people who pressure election workers, a key cause of Democrats in state legislatures after conspiracy theorists targeted voting officials after the 2020 presidential election.

In Minnesota, Simon said he also wants to increase penalties against threatening or interfering with election workers. He said he’ll push a range of other reforms, including pre-registering high schoolers so they can quickly join the voting rolls upon turning 18. Younger voters lean Democratic, but Simon said he’s not trying to promote his party.

He said he merely wants to make the electorate more reflective of the population, a goal he also pushed when the statehouse was split between Republicans and Democrats.

“These are reforms that will benefit everyone,” he said.

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Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, and Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

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December 28, 2022
Bond set at $50K for father of July 4 shooting suspect

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CHICAGO — A judge on Saturday set bond at $50,000 for the father of an Illinois man charged with killing seven people at a July 4 parade who is accused of helping his son get a gun license years before the shooting on a suburban Chicago main street.

Robert Crimo Jr., 58, looked somber and tired in his first appearance before a judge since voluntarily surrendering to police Friday. His lawyer, George M. Gomez, told the judge Saturday that the father of three would be able to pay the required bond amount for his release.

Crimo, a rare case of a parent charged after a child is accused in a mass shooting, faces seven felony counts of reckless conduct — one count for each person fatally shot during the summertime parade. Each count carries a maximum three-year prison term.

At a brief 10-minute hearing, conducted via video link, Lake County Judge Jacquelyn Melius said she accepted an agreement between Crimo’s lawyer and prosecutors that bond be set at $50,000, which was lower than the $500,000 bond that could have been imposed.

Gomez told the judge before she set bond that his client had been a business owner for over 30 years and had lifelong ties to the community of Highland Park, where the mass shooting occurred over the summer. Prosecutors did not oppose Crimo’s release on bond.

“Mr. Crimo is not a danger to the community. He is not a flight risk,” Gomez said, adding that Crimo had cooperated fully with authorities since the shooting.

Among the conditions of his release, the judge told Crimo, was that he turn in any gun licenses, as well as any weapons at his home, within 24 hours of the hearing. Crimo currently lives in Highwood, a city that borders Highland Park.

Asked by the judge if he could hear the proceedings through his video link, Crimo said that he could — but he otherwise made no statements to the court.

Judge Melius set his next hearing for Jan. 12.

Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart said Friday that charges against the father were based on Crimo sponsoring his son’s application for a gun license in December 2019. His son was 19 years old at the time.

“Parents and guardians are in the best position to decide whether their teenagers should have a weapon,” Rinehart said. “In this case, the system failed when Robert Crimo Jr. sponsored his son. He knew what he knew and he signed the form anyway.”

Authorities have previously said the accused shooter, Robert Crimo III, attempted suicide by machete in April 2019 and in September 2019 was accused by a family member of making threats to “kill everyone.”

Those reports came months before Crimo Jr. sponsored his son’s application.

Gomez, the Chicago-area attorney, called the charges against the father “baseless and unprecedented” in a written statement on Friday.

“This decision should alarm every single parent in the United States of America who according to the Lake County State’s Attorney knows exactly what is going on with their 19 year old adult children and can be held criminally liable for actions taken nearly three years later,” Gomez said.

Gomez said his client “continues to sympathize and feel terrible for the individuals and families who were injured and lost loved ones.” But the attorney called the charges “politically motivated and a distraction from the real change that needs to happen in this country.”

A grand jury in July indicted Robert Crimo III on 21 first-degree murder counts, 48 counts of attempted murder and 48 counts of aggravated battery, representing the seven people killed and dozens wounded in the attack on a beloved holiday event in Highland Park.

Legal experts have said it’s rare for an accused shooter’s parent or guardian to face charges — in part because it’s difficult to prove such charges.

In one notable exception, a Michigan prosecutor last year filed involuntary manslaughter charges against the parents of a teen accused of fatally shooting four students at his high school. A January trial date in that case has been delayed while the state appeals court considers an appeal by the parents.

Authorities have previously said that Illinois State Police reviewed Crimo III’s December 2019 gun license application and found no reason to deny it because he had no arrests, no criminal record, no serious mental health problems, no orders of protection and no other behavior that would disqualify him.

But following the parade shooting, public records showed that Crimo III attempted suicide by machete in April 2019, according to a police report obtained by The Associated Press that noted a “history of attempts.”

In September 2019, police received a report from a family member that Crimo III had a collection of knives and had threatened to “kill everyone.”

Both Crimo III and his mother disputed the threat of violence at the time. Police have said father Robert Crimo Jr. later told investigators the knives belonged to him, and authorities returned them.

Robert Crimo Jr. has shown up at several pretrial hearings for his son this year, nodding in greeting when his son entered the courtroom shackled and flanked by guards. The father has been a familiar face around Highland Park, where he was once a mayoral candidate and was well known for operating convenience stores.

In media interviews after the shooting, Robert Crimo Jr. had said he did not expect to face charges and did not believe he did anything wrong by helping his son get a gun license through the state’s established process.

———

This story corrects paragraph three to reflect that the maximum penalty for each count is three years in prison, not six.

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December 17, 2022
Father of July 4 shooting suspect charged with 7 felonies

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CHICAGO — The father of an Illinois man charged with killing seven people in a mass shooting at a July 4 parade in a Chicago suburb has been charged with seven felony counts of reckless conduct, prosecutors announced Friday.

Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart said Robert Crimo Jr. surrendered to police on Friday and will have a bond hearing Saturday. Rinehart said the charges are based on Crimo sponsoring his then 19-year-old son’s application for a gun license in 2019.

“Parents and guardians are in the best position to decide whether their teenagers should have a weapon,” Rinehart said. “In this case, the system failed when Robert Crimo Jr. sponsored his son. He knew what he knew and he signed the form anyway.”

Rinehart wouldn’t further discuss what led his office to file the charges this week. Authorities have previously said the accused shooter, Robert Crimo III, attempted suicide by machete in April 2019 and in September 2019 was accused by a family member of making threats to “kill everyone.”

Both those reports came months before Crimo Jr. sponsored his son’s application in December 2019.

Chicago-area attorney George M. Gomez said by phone Friday that he was representing Robert Crimo Jr. in the newly announced criminal case. He declined to answer questions but emailed a statement that described the charges as “baseless and unprecedented.”

“This decision should alarm every single parent in the United States of America who according to the Lake County State’s Attorney knows exactly what is going on with their 19 year old adult children and can be held criminally liable for actions taken nearly three years later,” the statement from Gomez said. “These charges are absurd and we will fight them every step of the way.

Gomez said Crimo Jr. “continues to sympathize and feel terrible for the individuals and families who were injured and lost loved ones,” but the attorney called the charges “politically motivated and a distraction from the real change that needs to happen in this country.”

A grand jury in July indicted Robert Crimo III on 21 first-degree murder counts, 48 counts of attempted murder and 48 counts of aggravated battery, representing the seven people killed and dozens wounded in the attack on a beloved holiday event in Highland Park.

Until Friday, Rinehart had refused to discuss whether the man’s parents could face charges connected to the killings.

Legal experts have said it’s rare for an accused shooter’s parent or guardian to face charges — in part because it’s difficult to prove such charges.

In one notable exception, a Michigan prosecutor last year filed involuntary manslaughter charges against the parents of a teen accused of fatally shooting four students at his high school. A January trial date in that case has been delayed while the state appeals court considers an appeal by the parents.

Authorities have previously said that Illinois State Police reviewed Crimo III’s December 2019 gun license application and found no reason to deny it because he had no arrests, no criminal record, no serious mental health problems, no orders of protection and no other behavior that would disqualify him.

But following the parade shooting, public records showed that Crimo III attempted suicide by machete in April 2019, according to a police report obtained by The Associated Press that noted a “history of attempts.”

In September 2019, police received a report from a family member that Crimo III had a collection of knives and had threatened to “kill everyone.”

Both Crimo III and his mother disputed the threat of violence at the time. Police have said father Robert Crimo Jr. later told investigators the knives belonged to him, and authorities returned them.

Robert Crimo Jr. has shown up at several pretrial hearings for his son this year, nodding in greeting when he son entered the courtroom shackled and flanked by guards. The father is a longtime resident of Highland Park and a familiar face around the city, where he was once a mayoral candidate and was well known for operating convenience stores.

In media interviews after the shooting, Robert Crimo Jr. had said he did not expect to face charges and did not believe he did anything wrong by helping his son get a gun license through the state’s established process.

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December 16, 2022
Flint water crisis charges dismissed against ex-Gov. Snyder

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FLINT, Mich. — A judge dismissed criminal charges against former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder in the Flint water crisis, months after the state Supreme Court said indictments returned by a one-person grand jury were invalid.

Snyder, a Republican who left office in 2019, was charged with two misdemeanor counts of willful neglect of duty. He was the first person in state history to be charged for alleged crimes related to service as governor.

Snyder also is the eighth person to have a Flint water case thrown out after the Supreme Court’s unanimous June opinion.

Genesee County Judge F. Kay Behm signed the order Wednesday, a day after the U.S. Senate approved her nomination to become a federal judge in eastern Michigan.

“The charges against (Snyder) were not properly brought and must be dismissed at this time,” Behm wrote.

Only one case remains pending in the water scandal, which not only exposed children to toxic lead but was blamed for nine deaths linked to an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease. Activists who believe crimes were committed are frustrated that no one has been locked up.

The Michigan attorney general’s office has desperately tried to keep the cases alive but so far has lost at every turn. Prosecutors have argued that the indictments could simply be turned into common criminal complaints in district court, but Behm and another judge have rejected that approach.

Flint’s water became tainted with lead after city managers appointed by Snyder began using the Flint River in 2014 to save money while a new pipeline to Lake Huron was built. The water wasn’t treated to reduce its corrosive qualities, causing lead to break off from old pipes and contaminate the system for more than a year.

The Michigan Civil Rights Commission said it was the result of systemic racism, doubting that the water switch and the brush-off of complaints in the majority-Black city would have occurred in a white, prosperous community.

Flint residents complained about the water’s smell, taste and appearance, raising health concerns and reporting rashes, hair loss and other problems. Snyder didn’t acknowledge that lead was a problem until 17 months after the water switch, in fall 2015, when he pledged to take action.

Snyder acknowledged that state government had botched the water switch, especially regulators who didn’t require certain treatments. But his lawyers argued that criminal charges were the result of “political persecution” by the attorney general’s office.

Michigan prosecutors typically file charges in a district court after a police investigation. A one-judge grand jury was rare and had mostly been used in Detroit and Flint to protect witnesses who could testify in private about violent crimes.

State prosecutors, however, chose that path in the Flint water saga to hear evidence in secret and get indictments against Snyder and others.

But the state Supreme Court unanimously said a one-judge grand jury can’t issue indictments. The process apparently had never been challenged.

Judge Elizabeth Kelly in October dismissed felony charges against seven people, including two senior health officials from Snyder’s administration, Nick Lyon and Eden Wells, who had been charged with involuntary manslaughter in nine Legionnaires’ deaths.

A former Flint public works official, Howard Croft, still has misdemeanors pending with a different judge.

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Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwritez

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This version corrects that the misdemeanors were for willful neglect of duty, not misconduct.

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December 9, 2022
Prosecutors in Whitmer kidnap plot say life sentence fits

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Federal prosecutors told a judge Monday that a life prison sentence would be justified for the leader of a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, saying his goal to turn the country upside down in 2020 was a forerunner of rampant anti-government extremism.

“If our elected leaders must live in fear, our representative government suffers. A plan to kidnap and harm the governor of Michigan is not only a threat to the officeholder but to democracy itself,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler wrote.

Adam Fox “fanatically embraced the cause and persistently pushed his recruits to action,” Kessler said.

The court filing in Grand Rapids, Michigan, came a week before U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker is scheduled to sentence Fox for conspiracy crimes. He and co-defendant Barry Croft Jr. were convicted in August.

Fox’s attorney hadn’t filed a sentencing memo yet. At trial, Christopher Gibbons portrayed him as hapless and virtually homeless, a man with a loud, vile mouth who was living in the basement of a Grand Rapids-area vacuum shop.

Jonker has much flexibility in determining Fox’s punishment, though Kessler noted that his sentencing score is “off the chart,” greatly enhanced by a conviction for conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction in the scheme.

“The guidelines provide for a life sentence because Congress recognized kidnapping is an extremely serious offense,” Kessler said. “When the aim of that kidnapping is to terrorize the people and affect the conduct of government, it is so pernicious that only the most serious sanction is sufficient.”

In 33 pages, the prosecutor highlighted what FBI agents and informants revealed at trial, repeatedly citing Fox’s own violent words, which were secretly recorded or plucked from text messages and social media.

“Fox’s plot was a harbinger of more widespread anti-government militia extremism,” Kessler said.

Fox and others trained with guns inside crudely built “shoot houses” in Wisconsin and Michigan and made trips to Elk Rapids to scout Whitmer’s second home. The strategy included blowing up a bridge to slow down police officers responding to an abduction, according to evidence. The FBI broke up the plan with arrests in October 2020.

The government said Fox’s rage at elected officials was fueled by Whitmer’s COVID-19 restrictions.

“We want a revolutionary war,” he said in a June 2020 video. “We want to get rid of this corrupt, tyrannical … government. That’s what we want to get rid of.”

Croft, a trucker from Bear, Delaware, will be sentenced on Dec. 28. Two more men pleaded guilty to the kidnapping conspiracy and testified against Fox and Croft, while two other men were acquitted last spring.

In October, in state court, three members of a paramilitary group called the Wolverine Watchmen were convicted of providing support for Fox.

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Follow Ed White at http//:twitter.com/edwritez

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December 5, 2022