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Tag: Voting

  • US averts UN diplomatic crisis over Israeli settlements

    US averts UN diplomatic crisis over Israeli settlements

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    UNITED NATIONS — The Biden administration has averted a potential diplomatic crisis over Israeli settlements at the United Nations that had threatened to overshadow Western efforts for the world body to spotlight Russia’s war with Ukraine during the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion this week.

    Multiple diplomats familiar with the situation said Sunday that the U.S. had successfully managed to forestall a contentious U.N. Security Council resolution pushed by the Palestinians and their supporters that would have condemned Israel for settlement expansion and demanded a halt to future activity.

    To avoid a vote and a likely U.S. veto of the draft resolution, which would be legally binding, the diplomats said the administration managed to convince both Israel and the Palestinians to agree in principle to a six-month freeze in any unilateral action they might take.

    On the Israeli side, that would mean a commitment to not expanding settlements until at least August, according to the diplomats.

    On the Palestinian side, the diplomats said it would mean a commitment until August not to pursue action against Israel at the U.N. and other international bodies such as the World Court, the International Criminal Court and the U.N. Human Rights Council.

    Instead of a resolution, the diplomats said the Security Council will adopt a weaker presidential statement along the lines of the resolution, probably on Monday. Presidential statements, which require support from all 15 council nations, become part of the council’s record but are not legally binding.

    The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the highly sensitive negotiations.

    A veto of the settlements resolution would have been a political headache for President Joe Biden as he approaches the 2024 presidential election.

    Biden is struggling to balance his opposition to Israeli settlements and his support for a two-state resolution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict with moves to improve ties with the Palestinians that have wide backing among his progressive supporters.

    And, although the administration has already denounced Israel’s latest settlement expansion and called the Palestinian resolution “unhelpful,” top congressional Republicans have warned Biden that a veto would have severe consequences for his legislative agenda.

    A veto would also alienate U.N. member countries supportive of the Palestinians, like the United Arab Emirates, which was sponsoring the resolution in the Security Council, as the West seeks support for Ukraine in the war with Russia..

    The U.S. will be looking to the UAE and other countries sympathetic to the Palestinians to vote in favor of a resolution in the 193-member General Assembly on Thursday condemning Russia for invading Ukraine and calling for a cessation of hostilities and the immediate withdrawal of all Russian forces.

    The deal was arrived at on Sunday after days of frantic talks by senior Biden administration officials with Palestinian, Israeli and UAE leaders. Diplomats said the intensive effort including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Sullivan’s deputy Brett McGurk, the top diplomat for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, and special envoy for Palestinian affairs Hady Amr.

    The Palestinian push for a resolution came as Israel’s new right-wing government has reaffirmed its commitment to construct new settlements in the West Bank and expand its authority on land the Palestinians seek for a future state.

    Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. The United Nations and most of the international community consider Israeli settlements illegal and an obstacle to ending the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

    In December 2016, the Security Council demanded that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.” It stressed that halting settlement activities “is essential for salvaging the two-state solution.”

    That resolution was adopted after President Barack Obama’s administration abstained in the vote, a reversal of the United States’ longstanding practice of protecting its close ally Israel from action at the United Nations, including by vetoing Arab-supported resolutions.

    Yet, the Ukraine war looms large, especially this week.

    On Wednesday, Ukraine is holding a meeting focusing on human rights violations, prisoners and abducted children. More than 20 ministers are expected to be among the dozens of speakers in the General Assembly starting Wednesday afternoon and continuing ahead of Thursday’s vote. On Friday’s anniversary, the Security Council will hold a ministerial meeting on the invasion and its impact.

    ___

    Lee reported from Washington.

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  • Ohio ex-speaker ill, corruption trial pauses after big week

    Ohio ex-speaker ill, corruption trial pauses after big week

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    CINCINNATI — The racketeering trial of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and lobbyist Matt Borges was cancelled due to illness again Friday, giving jurors a long holiday weekend to mull striking new details revealed this week by players directly involved in an alleged $60 million bribery scheme.

    It marked the third time since the largest corruption trial in state history began Jan. 23 that U.S. District Judge Timothy Black in Cincinnati has postponed proceedings. Two previous pauses involved jurors testing positive for COVID-19; on Friday, Householder himself was sick, though apparently not with the coronavirus.

    Testimony is scheduled to resume Tuesday, after the Presidents Day holiday. Before being slowed by illnesses, the trial was expected to last about six weeks.

    The jury must decide whether Householder, 63, and Borges, 50, are guilty of conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise involving bribery and money laundering. Both have pleaded not guilty and maintain innocence. Each faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

    An indictment alleges Householder, Borges, three other people and a dark money group called Generation Now orchestrated an elaborate scheme, secretly funded by Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp., to secure Householder’s power, elect his allies, pass legislation containing a $1 billion bailout for two aging nuclear power plants, and then vex a ballot effort to overturn the bill with a dirty tricks campaign. The arrests happened in July 2020.

    Juan Cespedes, a former lobbyist who has pleaded guilty in the case, provided the most gripping testimony of the week, if not the entire trial.

    It amounted to the first time Cespedes had spoken publicly since the arrests. Jeff Longstreth, a longtime Householder associate who was also arrested and charged, has pleaded guilty and is expected to testify soon. The third man arrested along with Householder and Borges, long-powerful Statehouse lobbyist Neil Clark, pleaded not guilty before dying by suicide in March 2021.

    “I’m here to tell the truth and be accountable for it,” Cespedes said as his testimony began.

    He said he worked for FirstEnergy Solutions and coordinated tens of millions in donations steered to Generation Now, which he described as controlled by Householder and Longstreth.

    Cespedes testified Monday to directing a client to give Householder, through Generation Now, a $500,000 campaign contribution in exchange for legislation bailing out two aging nuclear plants owned by his company, which the Ohio House would eventually pass under Householder’s watch.

    He said that at an Oct. 10, 2018, meeting, another Columbus lobbyist, Robert Klaffky, slid a $400,000 check across to Householder while emphasizing the importance of the legislation.

    “Our client cares very much about this issue,” Klaffky said.

    Householder looked into the envelope containing the check, made out from FirstEnergy to Generation Now, and said, “Well yes, they do.” Klaffky told cleveland.com he does not recall saying those things.

    The remaining $100,000 was given to Longstreth to give to Householder, Cespedes said.

    Householder’s lawyers argued during opening statements that he was not part of any criminal conspiracy but was engaging in politics as usual.

    Cespedes described the contribution as a clear pay-to-play scheme.

    “We were trying to establish the fact that our support was specifically tied to the legislation,” Cespedes said.

    Generation Now has pleaded guilty to its role in the scheme. In a deal to avoid prosecution, Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. has admitted to using dark money groups to fund the bribery scheme and agreed to pay $230 million and other conditions.

    Cespedes testified Tuesday that he and Borges paid $15,000 off the books in 2019 to referendum operative Tyler Fehrman to try to get inside information on a campaign to repeal the nuclear bailout bill, known as House Bill 6.

    The alleged $15,000 bribe is key to the government’s case against Borges, a former chair of the Ohio Republican Party. His attorneys describe the payment as a loan to help a friend.

    Cespedes testified that it was for a spying effort on behalf of FirstEnergy Solutions, a then-subsidiary of FirstEnergy. He said he tried to keep the firm’s executive chair, John Kiani, in the dark because he believed Kiani would apply pressure to go through with the bribe. After Kiani learned of the plan, that came to pass, Cespedes said.

    “(W)hat happened to the black ops,” Kiani asked in an Aug. 31, 2019, text, a reference Cespedes testified was to the plan to get inside information. On Sept. 2, 2019, Cespedes said he told Borges that Kiani “reiterated to do whatever it takes to get this information.”

    Cespedes testified that Kiani had plans to operate the two Ohio nuclear plants for a short period, get a government bailout, then sell them in a deal that could have netted him $100 million. On cross-examination, Borges’ attorneys got Cespedes to concede that he, too, could have gotten rich off the planned sale.

    Jurors also heard hours of tapes this week of the voice of the late Clark, which were gathered by two undercover FBI agents posing as developers who had hired him as their lobbyist.

    Clark took the pair to a dinner at the Aubergine Private Dining Club in suburban Columbus on Sept. 23, 2019, to meet Householder — and advised them to bring a $50,000 check made out to Generation Now. Republican state Rep. Jay Edwards, of Athens County in southeastern Ohio, and a House staffer also attended.

    In the recordings, Clark described himself as Householder’s “proxy” and told the agents that, for getting attention, “a noticeable number is $15,000, $20,000 or $25,000.” He said “it goes into a (c)(4),” referring to Generation Now by the IRS code section — 501(c)(4) — that sets the rules for a category of tax-exempt organizations that can raise and spend unlimited amounts without disclosing their donors.

    “It’s the speaker’s (c)(4). That’s how it works,” he told them.

    ___

    This story was first published on February 17, 2023. It was updated on February 19, 2023 to correct how witness Juan Cespedes reiterated an executive’s desire “to do whatever it takes to get this information” on a referendum effort to defendant Matt Borges. Cespedes testified that he told Borges verbally; it was not contained in a text message.

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  • Republican losses fan election conspiracies in rural Arizona

    Republican losses fan election conspiracies in rural Arizona

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    BISBEE, Ariz. (AP) — James Knox was glad to get out of the big city.

    Part of a network of activists who believe U.S. elections are unreliable, Knox has unsuccessfully tried to convince supervisors in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county and home to Phoenix, that they should throw out elections that Republicans lost and get rid of voting machines.

    So earlier this past week, Knox went somewhere more hospitable to his project — nearly 200 miles south of his home in the Phoenix exurb of Queen Creek to Cochise County. During last year’s elections, the county’s conservative-majority Board of Supervisors tried to count all ballots by hand — until a judge blocked that — and then refused to certify the results until a judge ordered them to do so.

    “Here, it’s a little bit easier to be heard by the board,” Knox said before the latest supervisors’ meeting, where members discussed replacing the respected elections director, who resigned after objecting to the board’s decisions.

    Last year was a tough one for the election denial movement in Arizona. Its candidates for U.S. Senate, governor, secretary of state and attorney general all lost. But it’s still thriving in rural Cochise County, a vivid example of how paranoia about elections fanned by former President Donald Trump maintains a stubborn grip in rural parts of the country.

    Trump last year backed a slate of candidates for top state election positions in Arizona and elsewhere who parroted his lie about losing the 2020 presidential election due to voter fraud. Every one of those candidates lost in the battleground states that typically decide the presidency. But the election conspiracy movement maintains a firm hold in beet-red rural spots such as Cochise County, a swath of the Sonoran Desert dotted with ranches, small towns and U.S.-Mexico border communities that encompasses an area larger than Rhode Island and Connecticut combined.

    The county’s respected elections director, Lisa Marra, who had opposed the board’s voting moves, recently resigned from the nonpartisan position after five years in the job. The two Republicans on the three-member board are seeking to replace her with the elected county recorder, David Stevens, another Republican.

    Stevens is a friend of former GOP state Rep. Mark Finchem, who attended Trump’s rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, that preceded the Capitol riot and who ran unsuccessfully last year for secretary of state, Arizona’s top election post. Finchem had said he would not have certified President Joe Biden’s 2020 win in Arizona.

    Stevens was prepared to oversee Cochise County’s hand count when Marra objected last year, and only stopped once a judge ruled that it violated state law. Stevens and the two Republican board members have appealed that ruling. The recorder recently joined a nonprofit founded by Finchem to focus on election “integrity.”

    In Arizona, elected recorders such as Stevens already play a part in elections. They register voters, distribute mail ballots and verify signatures on the ones sent back, while the nonpartisan election director handles the counting. Stevens said he has always been a fair broker in elections and that in 2020, he spoke more to Democratic groups about voting than Republican ones.

    Still, many residents are furious at Stevens’ new role.

    “Recorder Stevens has proven he’s part of the crazy conspiracy crowd,” said Jennifer Druckman, a retiree who was one of dozens who spoke out against Stevens getting expanded responsibilities to oversee elections in the county.

    Cochise is staunchly conservative — Trump won the county by 20 percentage points in 2020 even as Biden took the state. But the backlash to the election chaos has been palpable.

    Activists are circulating petitions to recall Supervisor Tom Crosby, one of the two Republicans who voted for the hand count in October. Crosby also refused to certify the county’s vote tallies as a way to stop the state from finalizing election results in December after Democrat Katie Hobbs defeated Republican Kari Lake for governor.

    After a judge ordered the Cochise County board to certify the election, Crosby skipped the next meeting, leaving fellow Republican Peggy Judd and Democrat Ann English to take the vote. It was a dramatic example of how the once-routine task of formalizing election results became charged with politics as Trump allies in scattered rural counties in the West targeted certification as a way to disrupt elections.

    In an interview after this past week’s meeting, Crosby scoffed at speakers’ claims that he represents a threat to democracy.

    “The ‘Big Lie’ is that checking voting machines is subverting democracy,” Crosby said. “My constituents feel like, if we can’t check ‘em, we don’t want ’em.”

    Election officials, including in Cochise County, check the accuracy of their machines by comparing their tabulations with paper ballot receipts, but Crosby said he still had broader suspicions. Crosby also dismissed the recall effort.

    “If it’s leftists bashing me or patriots saying I’m wonderful, the message is the same,” he said.

    But not everyone upset at Crosby is a leftist. Greg Lamberth, a retired engineer and lifelong Republican, is one of the people circulating petitions to recall the supervisor.

    “I don’t see Mr. Crosby as acting in a way that gives us a functional government in Cochise County,” Lamberth said in an interview, noting the county has already spent more than $100,000 in legal fees related to its election adventures.

    A former Marine, Lamberth is also disappointed in Stevens, a onetime military information technology specialist.

    “He knows damn well that a hand count is less accurate than a machine count,” Lamberth said.

    That’s why election officials decades ago largely turned away from hand counts and used tabulators to tally up ballots. Trump and his allies have attacked those devices, making unsupported allegations they were rigged against him in 2020, sometimes insinuating that foreign powers such as Venezuela were behind it. Those allegations triggered pushes for hand counts in a few rural counties in Nevada and New Mexico.

    Stevens said in an interview that last October, a small group of conservative citizens approached him and asked whether the county could tally all ballots by hand rather than rely on machines. Stevens said he told them no — it was too close to the election to change procedure.

    But Stevens suggested the county conduct a parallel hand count to check the machines’ accuracy. Other election officials were alarmed, warning it could fan misinformation about the true tally in statewide races. A judge ruled the county didn’t have discretion to pursue a full hand count; the county is appealing.

    Stevens stressed that none of this was his idea or that of the supervisors.

    “All this comes from the grassroots,” he said in an interview in his office in the county building, where a pockmarked target from a shooting range hung from the wall and assembled Lego Star Wars sets sat on his coffee table.

    While Stevens knocked down some prominent Arizona election conspiracy theories, saying most were a product of people not understanding the complexity of the elections process, he said he didn’t want to dismiss the value of a hand count.

    “I try not to have preconceived notions — let’s find out,” Stevens said.

    Elisabeth Tyndall, the chairwoman of the county’s Democratic Party, said the problem is that Cochise’s Republican power structure simply cannot say “no” to its base.

    “We have had Republican leadership pretty much forever,” Tyndall said. “They haven’t held their fellow Republicans accountable for nonsense.”

    Despite their overwhelming numerical advantages at the ballot box, many Cochise Republicans still see themselves as an aggrieved minority that needs to get more aggressive.

    Bob McCormick, 82, a retired real estate agent, was a member of the small group that initially met with Stevens. He said their numbers are now more than 100.

    Still, McCormick knew as he waited to enter the supervisors meeting that he was outnumbered by angry Democrats wanting to vent at the Republican supervisors and Stevens.

    “For every 10 of them, one of us shows up,” McCormick said of Democrats. “We really don’t fight. Until we change the whole system, we’re going to be in trouble.”

    ___

    Associated Press coverage of democracy receives support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Kari Lake loses appeal in Arizona governor race challenge

    Kari Lake loses appeal in Arizona governor race challenge

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    PHOENIX — An Arizona appeals court has rejected Republican Kari Lake’s challenge of her defeat in the Arizona governor’s race to Democrat Katie Hobbs, denying her request to throw out election results in the state’s most populous county and hold the election again.

    In a ruling on Thursday, the Arizona Court of Appeals wrote Lake, who claimed problems with ballot printers at some polling places on Election Day were the result of intentional misconduct, presented no evidence that voters whose ballots were unreadable by tabulators at polling places were not able to vote. The court said that even a witness called by Lake to testify had confirmed that ballots that couldn’t initially be read at polling places could still ultimately have their vote counted.

    And while a pollster who testified on behalf of Lake claimed the polling place problems had disenfranchised enough voters to change the outcome in Lake’s favor, the court said his conclusion were baseless.

    The appeals court wrote Lake’s appeal failed because the evidence supports the conclusion that “voters were able to cast their ballots, that votes were counted correctly, and that no other basis justifies setting aside the election results.”

    Shortly after the ruling, Lake tweeted: “I told you we would take this case all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court, and that’s exactly what we are going to do. Buckle up, America!”

    Lake, who lost to Hobbs by just over 17,000 votes, was among the most vocal 2022 Republicans promoting former President Donald Trump’s election lies, which she made the centerpiece of her campaign. While most of the other election deniers around the country conceded after losing their races in November, Lake did not.

    Lawyers for Lake focused on problems with ballot printers at some polling places in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of the state’s voters. The defective printers produced ballots that were too light to be read by the on-site tabulators at polling places. Lines backed up in some areas amid the confusion.

    County officials say everyone had a chance to vote and all ballots were counted since ballots affected by the printers were taken to more sophisticated counters at the elections department headquarters.

    Lake’s attorneys also claim the chain of custody for ballots was broken at an off-site facility, where a contractor scans mail ballots to prepare them for processing. They claim workers at the facility put their own mail ballots into the pile, rather than returning them through normal channels, and also that paperwork documenting the transfer of ballots was missing. The county disputes the claim.

    Hobbs’ attorneys said Lake was trying to sow distrust in Arizona’s election results and offered no proof to back up her allegations of election misconduct.

    Lake faced extremely long odds in her challenge, needing to prove not only that misconduct occurred, but also that it was intended to deny her victory and did in fact result in the wrong woman being declared the winner. In her appeal, her lawyers argued a trial court judge applied the wrong standard of proof in deciding the case.

    Hobbs took office as governor on Jan. 2.

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  • Nicaragua’s vote to strip opponents of citizenship

    Nicaragua’s vote to strip opponents of citizenship

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    MEXICO CITY — Last week Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega packed off 222 political leaders, priests, students, activists and other dissidents to the United States, their release long demanded by the international community.

    Shortly after, Ortega’s government voted to strip the former prisoners of Nicaraguan citizenship. Analysts, legal experts and human rights groups are calling it a political ploy but also a violation of international law that they say is unprecedented — at least in the Western Hemisphere — in terms of scale and impact.

    A look at what has happened:

    ——-

    WHY DID NICARAGUA KICK THE DISSIDENTS OUT?

    The expulsion comes amid a broader push by the Ortega government to quash political dissent dating back to 2018 anti-government street protests that were met by a violent response from Nicaraguan security forces.

    Ortega has called his imprisoned opponents “traitors” and maintains they were behind the protests, which he claims were a foreign-funded plot to overthrow him. Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans have fled the government’s crackdown.

    The incarceration of government opponents became a sticking point internationally, particularly with the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, which used their detention to justify sanctions on the Central American nation.

    The release of the prisoners was, in part, a tactic to “minimize the public costs of his repression,” particularly in the eyes of the international community, said Ivan Briscoe of International Crisis Group, a nonprofit research group focused on resolving conflicts around the world.

    “He would prefer to revert to a steady, low-level authoritarian government in which there are no, perhaps none of the more visible forms of abuses, but continuing political control,” Briscoe said.

    U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington on Monday that the release of the prisoners was considered “a constructive step,” and is something Biden officials have said would open a door to a dialogue between the two countries.

    But Ortega’s Congress simultaneously voting to strip the citizenship of the expelled prisoners is drawing criticism.

    “This was in no way a panacea for the many concerns we have with the Nicaraguan regime, including the repression and oppression it continues to wield against its own people,” Price said.

    While Nicaragua’s Congress still needs to carry out a second vote to approve the constitutional change to formally strip those expelled of their nationality, it was unanimously approved in the initial vote. Ortega’s firm hold on power leaves any other outcome highly unlikely.

    “I think the message is very clear: On my land, there will be no opposition,” said Briscoe.

    ___

    WHY DO EXPERTS SAY IT VIOLATES INTERNATIONAL LAW?

    Peter J. Spiro, an international law professor at Temple University, and others say stripping away citizenship in this context violates a treaty adopted in 1961 by countries in the United Nations, including Nicaragua, which sets clear rules meant to prevent statelessness.

    The treaty states that governments cannot “deprive any person or group of persons of their nationality on racial, ethnic, religious or political grounds.”

    Spiro noted there are some circumstances when governments can terminate citizenship, such as ending nationality for someone who acquires citizenship in another country when the first nation prohibits dual citizenship. But, he said, ending citizenship is not allowed when it is used as a political weapon.

    “This is banishment, and banishment is antithetical to modern conceptions of human rights,” he said.

    Spain has offered its citizenship to the 222 exiles, while the U.S. granted the Nicaraguans a two-year temporary protection.

    But many of the former prisoners in the United States are left in a state of legal and mental flux, said Jennie Lincoln, senior adviser on Latin America for the Carter Center who is in touch with many of the dissidents.

    “Psychologically they are stateless,” Lincoln said. “They’re in shock, going from one day being in prison, then hours later on a plane to the United States. Imagine the psychological impact of that, and then being stripped of your citizenship.”

    ___

    HOW COMMON IS THE REVOCATION OF CITIZENSHIP?

    The move by Ortega is unprecedented in the Western Hemisphere, in both its size and reach, according to analysts and legal experts.

    Previous cases of states in the region moving to strip citizenship of political actors have always been limited in scale.

    In Chile in the 1970s, the Pinochet dictatorship stripped the citizenship of Orlando Letelier, who was living in exile where leading opposition to political repression in the South American nation.

    Spiro, at Temple University, said Ortega’s action does bear some resemblance to what has been done in Bahrain, in the Middle East.

    Over the course of years, the Bahrain government has stripped hundreds of human rights and political activists, journalists and religious scholars of their nationalities, leaving them stateless. In 2018, a court stripped 115 people of their citizenship in one mass trial on accusations of terrorism, according to Human Rights Watch.

    “But Ortega’s move is more high-visibility,” Spiro said.

    ___

    WHAT ABOUT PRISONERS WHO DIDN’T GO TO THE U.S.?

    Experts are especially concerned about Roman Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez, a vocal critic of Ortega who refused to board the plane to the U.S. with the other prisoners.

    He told those close to him that if he got on the plane, it would be like admitting to a crime he never committed.

    Shortly after, Álvarez was sentenced to 26 years in prison — famous for their poor conditions — and stripped of his citizenship within Nicaragua, something sharply condemned by State Department officials.

    It left him in a legal limbo more extreme than his counterparts in the U.S.

    Until now, no one has been able to contact Álvarez, nor confirm for themselves where he is or if the he is safe, said a person close to Álvarez, who asked not to be quoted by name out of fear of reprisal.

    “From a legal point of view, his future looks completely grim, and he knows it,” the man said.

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  • Israel’s president urges Netanyahu to delay legal overhaul

    Israel’s president urges Netanyahu to delay legal overhaul

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    JERUSALEM — Israel’s president on Sunday appealed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to delay a contentious plan to overhaul the country’s judicial system and instead seek a compromise with his political opponents.

    President Isaac Herzog issued the appeal in a prime-time nationwide address a day before Netanyahu’s coalition is to take its first steps toward implementing the plan in a parliamentary vote. The proposed reforms have triggered mass demonstrations, opposition from wide swaths of Israeli society and even drawn a veiled warning from President Joe Biden.

    “I feel, we all feel, that we are in a moment before a collision, even a violent collision, a barrel of explosives before a blast,” Herzog said.

    Herzog’s job is largely ceremonial. But the president is meant to serve as a unifying force and moral compass for a country that is deeply divided.

    Netanyahu and his supporters say the changes are needed to rein in a judiciary that wields too much power.

    But his critics say the plan, which include proposals to weaken Israel’s Supreme Court, will damage the country’s fragile system of democratic checks and balances. They also say that Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges, is motivated by a personal grudge against the legal system and that he and has allies have a deep conflict of interest.

    “They want to destroy the system because the system wasn’t nice to them,” said Eliad Shraga, chairman of the Movement for Quality Government in Israel. “This is a hostile takeover by a bunch of crooks.”

    The movement has planned a mass demonstration outside the Knesset, or parliament, on Monday, when Netanyahu’s coalition is expected to present the first legislation for its sweeping overhaul. Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend.

    Herzog urged Netanyahu to put off Monday’s vote and instead begin dialogue with his opponents. Saying that both sides have valid points, he offered a five-point plan as a basis for dialogue.

    There was no immediate response from Netanyahu’s office.

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  • Berlin holds court-ordered rerun of chaotic state election

    Berlin holds court-ordered rerun of chaotic state election

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    BERLIN — The city of Berlin on Sunday is holding a court-ordered rerun of a chaotic 2021 state election that was marred by severe glitches at many polling stations that led to hours-long lines as some polling places ran out of ballot papers or received ones for the wrong district.

    Berliners have long been frustrated by the German capital’s notoriously dysfunctional ways, which have been defying clichés of German efficiency for years and have made the city the laughing stock of the rest of the country.

    The constitutional court of Berlin, one of three German cities that is also a state in its own right, declared the original vote invalid in November. It said in a statement that a partial rerun wouldn’t be enough “in view of the large number and severity of the election errors.”

    The decision followed complaints by several political parties and government entities over the Sept. 26, 2021, vote for the state legislature.

    Berlin held four votes on the same day that year: the state election, an election for the city’s 12 district assemblies, the German national election and a local referendum. The Berlin Marathon, also held the same day, added to logistical difficulties.

    Long lines formed outside many polling stations as voters struggled with extra ballot papers. Some polling stations ran out of ballot papers during the day and others received ones for the wrong district, leading to a large number of invalidated ballots.

    Another issue was that the election was supposed to end at 6 p.m., but voters waiting in line at that time were allowed to cast their ballots — at a time when exit polls were already public.

    Franziska Giffey, who belongs to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, was elected Berlin’s new mayor in 2021, and has been leading the city in a three-party left-wing governing coalition. The 44-year-old is now running for mayor again.

    The Green Party’s top candidate is Environment and Mobility Senator Bettina Jarasch. Klaus Lederer, the senator for culture, is running for the Left Party — both are currently coalition partners of Giffey.

    Kai Wegner is the top candidate of the center-right Christian Democratic Union, which is currently leading the polls.

    In recent polls, the Christian Democrats were leading, ahead of the Social Democrats and the Greens, with a number of other parties also expected to take a significant proportion of the vote.

    The polling estimates leave open who will become Berlin’s next mayor as several different coalition options are possible.

    Among the most pressing issues is the city’s housing market. Rising rents and a housing shortage have made affordable living in the city center almost impossible for many middle-class families.

    Berliners would also like to see an end to some of their city’s frustrations.

    Among the most teeth-grinding issues are the much-delayed opening of the city’s airport and the near impossibility of getting an appointment with the city’s citizen centers to apply for a wedding license, register after a move or apply for a new passport.

    The city’s school system is known for its notoriously dilapidated buildings and students who regularly rank at the bottom of the national scores when it comes to reading, math and other subjects.

    Yet, despite the many complaints, the city’s 3.6 million residents also love their city which is praised for its tolerance, buzzing culture and night-life scene, and diversity.

    Around 2.4 million people are eligible to vote in the rerun, according to the German news agency dpa.

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  • Kansas Republicans pick election conspiracy promoter Mike Brown as their new leader

    Kansas Republicans pick election conspiracy promoter Mike Brown as their new leader

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    Republicans in Kansas narrowly picked an activist who has promoted unfounded election conspiracies and promised a shakeup to lead the state Republican Party for the next two years, following weeks of infighting that mirrors the acrimony in the party across the U.S.

    Within 30 minutes of the change in the Kansas Republican Party’s leadership, its state committee reviewed a resolution demanding that the U.S. House impeach President Joe Biden for “tyranny” over comments he and his aides made in the summer of 2021 decrying misinformation about coronavirus vaccines spreading within the GOP. The committee tabled the resolution until its next meeting.

    The Kansas state committee elected Mike Brown, who has long been active in the GOP in the Kansas City area, as its new chair through the 2024 elections. The vote came three months after Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly narrowly won reelection and the only Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation, U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, won another term handily in her Kansas City-area district.

    The Kansas party’s retiring chair, Mike Kuckelman, and its two other Republican National Committee members supported RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel when she won reelection last month. But Brown had called on McDaniel to resign in December, and he said Saturday that the national GOP is seeing an internal “uprising” from members still upset over COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

    “The RNC needs to be paying very close attention to that,” Brown said. “It is the future of our party.”

    Last year, Brown ran unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination for Kansas secretary of state. Both he and his opponent, Helen Van Etten, a longtime Topeka activist and former RNC member, promised to revive the Kansas party. But Brown asked fellow Republicans whether they were happy with the results of the past two governor’s races, won by Kelly, and Davids’ election victories.

    The vote — with Brown prevailing 90-88 — occurred against the backdrop of the GOP’s unexpectedly poor showing in the 2022 midterms, when it won fewer than expected U.S. House seats and failed to recapture a U.S. Senate majority.

    In Kansas, the GOP holds a voter registration advantage, which means that Democrats win big races by attracting votes from moderate Republicans and independent voters, while Republicans generally prevail when the party is unified.

    “We need to have more unity,” state Rep. Patrick Penn, a Wichita Republican, told fellow GOP committee members. “That’s the crux of it.”

    Some Republicans framed the contest between Brown and Van Etten as a fight between an anti-establishment wing and the establishment.

    The infighting ahead of Saturday’s vote was especially intense in Johnson County, in the Kansas City area, the state’s most populous county and home for both Brown and retiring State Chair Mike Kuckelman. The county’s affluent suburbs once were GOP strongholds, but since 2018, they’ve become conspicuously more Democratic — and have been crucial to Kelly’s and Davids’ victories.

    The Johnson County GOP’s new chair, a Brown ally concerned about the county’s “purple creep,” told GOP state committee members that Kuckelman had been “absolutely abhorrent” in his treatment of Brown. Kuckelman fired back with several emails, including one accusing Brown of being soft in opposing abortion and supporting gun rights.

    With the Republican National Committee, McDaniel overcame opposition from the ultra-Make America Great Again wing of the party despite having been picked for the job in 2016 by former President Donald Trump.

    In Michigan, two statewide GOP candidates who denied President Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020 were seeking party offices ahead of a convention next weekend. In Nebraska last year, Republicans who support Trump fired the state chair during a tumultuous convention following a Trump-backed candidate’s loss in the GOP primary for governor.

    Brown has promoted unfounded theories that Trump’s supporters have used to bolster the former president’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. He is a construction contractor who served on the Johnson County Commission before losing his seat in 2020.

    Brown lost the GOP primary for secretary of state to Republican incumbent Scott Schwab, who has vouched for the integrity of Kansas elections.

    Van Etten, a retired audiologist, served on the RNC from 2008 to 2020. She also is a former member of the state board that oversees Kansas’ higher education system.

    She promised state committee members a “very aggressive” program of building local party organizations: “We’re ready and willing to unite the party.”

    One supporter, conservative Kansas City-area economist, researcher and consultant Michael Austin, said: “We need experience. We need connections.”

    During the state committee meeting, Kuckelman defended current party leaders’ record, noting that the party has no debt.

    Kim Borchers, a longtime Topeka activist who serves on the RNC, defended McDaniel and pushed back pointedly on complaints against the party establishment. She had the state committee members with more than five years’ of experience stand.

    “Welcome to the establishment,” she said. “I call that commitment.”

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  • Panel scolds Wisconsin justice for remarks in Trump case

    Panel scolds Wisconsin justice for remarks in Trump case

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    MADISON, Wis. — A judicial oversight commission has dismissed a complaint against a liberal-leaning Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who accused an attorney for former President Donald Trump of making racist contentions and trying to protect his “king” in a case challenging the 2020 election results in the battleground state.

    Judicial complaints are confidential under Wisconsin law but Justice Jill Karofsky released documents to The Associated Press on Saturday that show a retired attorney in Maryland filed one against her with the Wisconsin Judicial Commission two years ago. The commission decided in November 2022 not to discipline her but warned her to remain neutral and avoid making sarcastic remarks from the bench.

    Karofsky’s attorney remained defiant, telling the commission in a letter Tuesday that Karofsky was trying to save the U.S. government and accusing the panel of allowing itself to become a political weapon.

    “The Judicial Code (sic) requires judges to act with impartiality towards the parties, but it does not require a judge to turn a blind-eye to dangerous, bad-faith conduct by a lawyer or litigant,” Karofsky said in an email to the AP, quoting a passage from one of her attorney’s responses to the commission. “It is beyond reason to read the Code to require judges to be mouse-like quiet when parties are arguing in favor of a slow-motion coup.”

    Trump filed suit in Wisconsin in December 2020 after a recount confirmed Democrat Joe Biden had won the state by about 21,000 votes. The filing was one of scores of lawsuits Trump filed across multiple states in an unsuccessful attempt to overturn the election results and remain in office.

    The Wisconsin lawsuit asked the state Supreme Court to toss out about 171,000 absentee ballots cast in Dane and Milwaukee counties. The conservative-leaning court ultimately rejected the lawsuit by a 4-3 vote, with swing Justice Brian Hagedorn casting the deciding vote to uphold Biden’s victory in the battleground state.

    Maryland attorney Fletcher Thompson filed a complaint against Karofsky in January 2021 accusing her of being hostile toward Trump attorney Jim Troupis. He noted that during oral arguments Karofsky told Troupis that the lawsuit “smacks of racism” because it sought to toss out absentee ballots in Wisconsin’s two most diverse counties.

    Thompson added that Karofsky later told Troupis that he wanted the court to overturn the election results “so that your king can stay in power” and said that suggesting the election was marred by fraud was “nothing short of shameful.”

    Thompson accused Karofsky of being discourteous and inappropriately launching personal attacks against Troupis. He said her remarks revealed a political and racial bias. He noted that Trump endorsed Karofsky’s opponent, Daniel Kelly, during their race in spring 2020.

    Karofsky attorney Stacie Rosenzweig admonished the judicial commission in her Feb. 7 letter for letting partisan actors “hijack the (judicial) disciplinary system, in an attempt to silence a justice who rightfully tried to stop frivolous and dangerous arguments that undermined our democracy.”

    “We believe the Commission risks setting a dangerous precedent,” Rosenzweig wrote. “By allowing the Commission to be weaponized in this fashion, the Commission became a pawn of those determined to undermine an independent judiciary.”

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  • UN draft resolution: Any peace must keep Ukraine intact

    UN draft resolution: Any peace must keep Ukraine intact

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    UNITED NATIONS — Ukraine’s supporters have circulated a proposed resolution for adoption by the 193-member U.N. General Assembly on the eve of the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of its smaller neighbor that would underscore the need for peace ensuring Ukraine’s “sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity.”

    The draft, obtained Friday by The Associated Press, is entitled “Principles underlying a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine.”

    The proposed resolution is broader and less detailed than the 10-point peace plan that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced at the November summit of the Group of 20 major economies. This was a deliberate decision by Ukraine and its backers to try to gain maximum support when it is put to a vote, U.N. diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions have been private.

    General Assembly spokesperson Paulina Kubiak said Friday that a reactivated emergency session of the General Assembly on Ukraine will start on the afternoon of Feb. 22. Dozens of speeches are expected to continue through most of Feb. 23 and the vote is expected late that day.

    Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister said last month that Zelenskyy wants to come to the U.N. for the anniversary, but diplomats said expectations of a major new Russian offensive may keep him at home.

    The General Assembly has become the most important U.N. body dealing with Ukraine because the Security Council, which is charged with maintaining international peace and security, is paralyzed because of Russia’s veto power. Unlike the council, there are no vetoes in the assembly, but while its five previous resolutions on Ukraine are important as a reflection of world opinion, they are not legally binding.

    The Security Council will hold a ministerial meeting on Feb. 24, the anniversary of the invasion. Russian and Ukrainian diplomats will be at the same table, as they have been at dozens of meetings since the invasion — but there will be no outcome.

    The Ukrainian-backed draft resolution for the anniversary was circulated Thursday night to all U.N. member nations except Russia and its ally Belarus, and negotiations on the text started Friday afternoon, the diplomats said.

    It underscores the need to reach “a comprehensive, just and lasting peace” in Ukraine “as soon as possible” in line with the principles of the United Nations Charter.

    The Charter states that all U.N. member nations “shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state,” and must settle disputes peacefully.

    The draft calls on U.N. member states and international organizations “to redouble support for diplomatic efforts” to achieve peace on those terms.

    The proposed resolution reiterates the General Assembly’s previous demand that Russia “immediately, completely, and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces” from Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders. And it reaffirms that no territory acquired by the threat or use of force will be considered legal.

    The draft demands that all prisoners of war, detainees and internees be treated in accordance with the Geneva conventions and calls for the “complete exchange” of prisoners of war, the release of people unlawfully detained, “and the return of all internees and of civilians forcibly transferred and deported, including children.”

    The proposed resolution urges all countries “to cooperate in the spirit of solidarity to address the global impact of the war on food security, energy, finance, the environment, and nuclear security and safety.”

    It would deplore “the dire human rights and humanitarian consequences of the aggression against Ukraine, including the continuous attacks against critical infrastructure across Ukraine with devastating consequences for civilians.” And it would call for full adherence to international humanitarian law on the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure.

    Zelenskyy’s 10-point plan is far more specific, including establishing a special tribunal to prosecute Russian war crimes, building a European-Atlantic security architecture with guarantees for Ukraine, restoring Ukraine’s damaged power infrastructure and ensuring safety around Europe’s largest nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia.

    The resolution adopted by the General Assembly on Oct. 12 condemning Russia’s “attempted illegal annexation” of four Ukrainian regions and demanding its immediate reversal got the highest vote of the five resolutions – 143-5 with 35 abstentions.

    The first resolution adopted by the assembly on March 2, 2022, days after the invasion, demanded an immediate Russian cease-fire, withdrawal of all its troops and protection for all civilians and received a strong vote – 141-5 with 35 abstentions. Three weeks later, on March 24, the assembly voted 140-5 with 38 abstentions on a resolution blaming Russia for Ukraine’s humanitarian crisis and urging an immediate cease-fire and protection for millions of civilians and the homes, schools and hospitals critical to their survival.

    But the assembly voted by a far smaller margin April 7 to suspend Russia from the U.N.’s Geneva-based Human Rights Council over allegations Russian soldiers in Ukraine engaged in rights violations that the United States and Ukraine have called war crimes. That vote was 93-24 with 58 abstentions.

    And its last resolution adopted Nov. 14 calling for Russia to be held accountable for violating international law by invading Ukraine, including by paying reparations for widespread damage to the country and for Ukrainians killed and injured during the war was approved by a similar vote — 94-14 with 73 abstentions.

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  • Vote to block Georgia spaceport upheld by state’s high court

    Vote to block Georgia spaceport upheld by state’s high court

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    SAVANNAH, Ga. — Georgia’s highest court Tuesday upheld an election in which coastal residents voted overwhelmingly last year to block their county government from building a launchpad for blasting commercial rockets into space.

    The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously rejected a legal challenge by Camden County commissioners who sought to have the referendum last March declared invalid. The officials argued Georgia’s state constitution doesn’t allow citizens to veto decisions of county governments.

    The court strongly disagreed, ruling that the state constitution’s language “plainly grants repeal and amendment powers to the electorate” over county ordinances and resolutions. The opinion by Justice Carla Wong McMillian said the county’s reading of the same provisions “would violate well established tenets of constitutional interpretation.”

    The court’s ruling could be the final blow for Camden County’s pet economic development project. Elected commissioners for the county of 55,000 residents at the Georgia-Florida line has spent the past decade and $11 million seeking to build Spaceport Camden. They say the project would bring economic growth not just from rocket launches, but also by attracting related industries and tourists.

    Opponents say the project poses potential environmental and safety hazards that outweigh any economic benefits. The county planned to build the spaceport on an industrial plot formerly used to manufacture pesticides and munitions.

    The proposed flight path would send rockets over Little Cumberland Island, which has about 40 private homes, and neighboring Cumberland Island, a federally protected wilderness visited by about 60,000 tourists each year. Residents and the National Park Service have said they fear explosive misfires raining fiery debris could spark wildfires near homes and people.

    In March, opponents forced a referendum on the project after gathering more than 3,500 petition signatures from registered voters saying they wanted the spaceport on the ballot.

    The result was a big defeat for the spaceport. The final tally showed 72% of voters sided with halting the project by overruling commissioners’ prior decision to buy land for the spaceport.

    Despite the project’s defeat at the polls, county officials had tried to keep the project moving forward while their legal challenge was pending before the state Supreme Court.

    The owner of the 4,000-acre (1,600 hectare) site on which the county planned to build the launchpad announced in July — four months after the referendum — it was no longer offering the property to Camden. County commissioners then filed suit, seeking to force the landowner to sell.

    The legal issues before the Georgia Supreme Court had nothing to do with job growth or safety. Instead, they involved how much power the state’s constitution gives people to overrule decisions made by their county governments.

    The Georgia constitution lays out a means for citizens to call special elections to make “amendments to or repeals of (county) ordinances, resolutions, or regulations.” To force a referendum, citizens must collect petition signatures from at least 10% of a county’s registered voters.

    Attorneys for Camden County unsuccessfully argued the state constitution restricts the scope of those elections, only allowing voters to alter powers and responsibilities delegated to county governments by state law.

    The Association County Commissioners of Georgia, which represents elected officials across the state’s 159 counties, joined Camden County in challenging the referendum. Both Camden County and the association said allowing voters to directly overturn decisions of county officials could lead to instances of a single issue being repeatedly approved by a county and then repealed by voters.

    The Supreme Court dismissed that argument in its ruling, saying: “There is little evidence that such a parade of horribles would occur, given that a county’s governing authority, which is comprised of elected officials, would be unlikely to routinely disregard the will of the electorate.”

    Both sides in the legal battle over the spaceport acknowledged that the citizen referendum power is rarely used in Georgia.

    Lawyers for spaceport critics who gathered signatures calling for the referendum noted it took roughly two years until enough people had signed their petition to force a vote on the project.

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  • Indigenous senator quits party over Australian referendum

    Indigenous senator quits party over Australian referendum

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    CANBERRA, Australia: — An Indigenous senator in Australia quit the minor Greens party on Monday in a disagreement over a referendum to be held this year that would create an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

    Sen. Lidia Thorpe’s resignation illustrates deep divisions among Indigenous Australians on the referendum and increases the difficulty for the government in getting legislation through the Senate.

    The Greens have suggested they will support a referendum likely to be held this year that would enshrine in the constitution a body representing Indigenous people to advise Parliament on policies that effect their lives. It would be known as the Indigenous Voice.

    Thorpe had argued that Australia should first sign a treaty with its original inhabitans that acknowledged that they had never ceded their sovereignty to the British colonists.

    She said after quitting the Greens that the party’s support for the Voice was “at odds with the community of activists who are saying treaty before Voice.”

    “This country has a strong grassroots black sovereign movement full of staunch and committed warriors and I want to represent that movement fully in this Parliament,” Thorpe told reporters. “It has become clear to me that I can’t do that from within the Greens.”

    Another high-profile Indigenous Sen. Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has also spoken out against the Voice, arguing it would divide the nation along racial lines. Her conservative party, the Nationals, took an official position in November to oppose the referendum, prompting a senior lawmaker and Voice advocate Andrew Gee to quit the party.

    Bipartisan support has long been regarded as a prerequisite for a referendum’s success. But despite the divisions, an opinion poll published by The Australian newspaper on Monday found 56% of respondents in favor of the Voice. Opponents accounted from 37% and 7% were undecided.

    The survey of 1,512 voters nationwide was conducted from Feb. 1 to 4. It had a 3 percentage point margin of error.

    Indigenous people accounted for 3.2% of Australia’s population in the 2021 census. Indigenous Australians are the most disadvantaged ethnic group in Australia. They die younger than other Australians, are less likely to be employed, achieve lower education levels and are overrepresented in prison populations.

    Greens leader Adam Bandt and his deputy Mehreen Faruqi said they were sorry Thorpe had decided to leave their progressive party.

    Bandt said he had told Thorpe that the party’s constitution allowed her to take a different position on the Voice from her colleagues.

    Pakistan-born Faruqi said she and Thorpe had worked together as “strong allies against white supremacy and racism in all its forms.”

    “I know that we will continue to work together, this work of decolonization, as well as working for climate justice,” Faruqi said.

    Thorpe said she would continue to work with the Greens on their climate policy. The Greens want Australia to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 75% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.

    The center-left Labor Party government enshrined in law a 43% target after it was elect in May last year.

    Labor has relied on the Greens’ 12 senators to pass legislation through the upper chamber that the conservative opposition party opposes.

    With the Greens’ support, Labor had only needed to enlist the vote of a single unaligned senator. With Thorpe’s departure, Labor now will need the support of two unaligned senators.

    Bandt said the government would continue to rely on the Greens to get its legislative agenda through the Senate.

    “The situation remains now still more or less the same in the Senate. The Greens are central in the balance of power in the Senate,” Bandt said.

    Thorpe has proved a radical and divisive element in the Senate. She was criticized for referring to the then-British monarch during a Senate swearing in ceremony in August last year as “the colonizing, her majesty Queen Elizabeth II.”

    She resigned as the Greens deputy leader in the Senate in October over what Bandt called a “significant lack of judgment” in failing to declare an intimate relationship she had with a former president of a biker gang.

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  • Election-denying lawmakers hold key election oversight roles

    Election-denying lawmakers hold key election oversight roles

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    HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Republican lawmakers who have spread election conspiracy theories and falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential outcome was rigged are overseeing legislative committees charged with setting election policy in two major political battleground states.

    Divided government in Pennsylvania and Arizona means that any voting restrictions those GOP legislators propose is likely to fail. Even so, the high-profile appointments give the lawmakers a platform to cast further doubt on the integrity of elections in states that will be pivotal in selecting the next president in 2024.

    Awarding such plum positions to lawmakers who have repeated conspiracies and spread misinformation cuts against more than two years of evidence showing there were no widespread problems or fraud in the last presidential election. It also would appear to run counter to the message delivered in the November midterm elections, when voters rejected election-denying candidates running for top offices in presidential battleground states.

    At the same time, many mainstream Republicans are trying to move past the lies told by former President Donald Trump and his allies about his loss to President Joe Biden.

    “It is an issue that many Americans and many Pennsylvanians are tired of seeing litigated and relitigated over and over,” said Pennsylvania state Sen. Amanda Cappalletti, the ranking Democrat on the Senate committee that handles election legislation. “I think we’re all ready to move on, and we see from audit after audit that our elections are secure, they are fair and that people’s votes are being counted.”

    Multiple reviews and audits in the six battleground states where Trump disputed his loss, as well as dozens of court rejections and repeated admonishments from officials in his own administration, have underscored that the 2020 presidential results were accurate. There was no widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines that would have altered the result.

    The legislative appointments in Pennsylvania and Arizona highlight the divide between the two major parties over election law. Already this year, Democratic-controlled legislatures are moving to expand access to voting and heighten penalties for intimidating voters and election workers, while many Republican-led states are aiming to pass further restrictions, a trend that accelerated after Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.

    Democratic governors and legislative victories last fall will blunt the influence of Republicans who took steps or pushed rhetoric seeking to overturn the 2020 election.

    But in Arizona and Pennsylvania, two lawmakers who dismiss the validity of that election — not to mention other elections since then — will have key positions of influence as the majority chairs of legislative committees that oversee election legislation.

    In Arizona, Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers takes over the Senate Elections Committee after being appointed by an ally, Senate President Warren Petersen. He was one of two lawmakers who signed subpoenas that led to Senate Republicans’ widely derided audit of the 2020 election.

    Rogers, who has gained a national following for spreading conspiracy theories and questioning elections, has faced repeated ethics charges for her inflammatory rhetoric, support for white supremacists and conspiracy-filled social media posts.

    She now will be a main gatekeeper for election and voting bills in Arizona, where election changes are a top priority for some Republican lawmakers. Some want to eliminate voting by mail and early voting options that are used by more than 80% of the state’s voters.

    She has scheduled a committee meeting for Monday to consider bills that would ban unmonitored drop boxes, prohibit drive-through voting or ballot pickup and impose what voting-rights advocates say are additional burdens on early voting.

    In Pennsylvania, Republican Sen. Cris Dush takes over as chair of the Senate State Government Committee after pushing to block the state’s electoral votes from going to Biden in 2020. Dush also mounted an election investigation that he hoped would use the Arizona-style audit as a model.

    He was appointed by the Senate’s ranking Republican, President Pro Tem Kim Ward, whose office explained Dush’s appointment only by saying that seniority plays a role and that members have priority requests.

    In the first weeks of this year’s session, Dush has moved along measures to expand voter identification requirements and add a layer of post-election audits. Both are proposed constitutional amendments designed to bypass a governor’s veto by going to voters for approval.

    Dush said he also plans to develop legislation to require more security measures for drop boxes and ballots.

    “I’m going to make a promise to the people of Pennsylvania: The things that I’m doing here as chair of State Government, it’s going to be things that will be conducted in a fair, impartial manner,” Dush said in an interview. “You know, we’ve just got to make sure that we can ensure the integrity of the vote and people aren’t disenfranchised.”

    Arizona and Pennsylvania have newly elected Democratic governors who presumably would veto hard-line GOP bills opposed by Democrats.

    Still, Democrats, county election officials and voting-rights advocates in both states want changes to election laws that, with Dush and Rogers in place, may never see the light of day.

    Alex Gulotta, the Arizona director for the voting rights group All Voting is Local, said he anticipates the Legislature there will pass a lot of “bad elections bills.” He said moderate Republican lawmakers who might have voted down problematic measures under a Republican governor now might let them pass because they know Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs will likely veto them.

    “This is performative,” Gulotta said. “This isn’t substantive.”

    The question, he said, is whether Rogers and other Arizona lawmakers can cooperate on “small fixes” where there is consensus. That, he said, will take “real statesmanship.”

    Liz Avore, a senior adviser to the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab, said the organization expects another busy period of lawmaking related to voting and elections ahead of the 2024 presidential vote, even as candidates who repeated Trump’s lies about a stolen 2020 election lost bids for governor, secretary of state and attorney general in key battleground states.

    Democratic and Republican-led states are often moving in opposite directions, but some bipartisan consensus has emerged around certain aspects of election law, such as restoring voting rights to felons and expanding early in-person voting, Avore said.

    Republican proposals, such as expanding voter identification requirements, are popular and have majority support, as do some Democratic proposals to broaden access, said Christopher Borick, a political science professor and pollster at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

    But to be successful with voters, Republicans need to mind the lessons from 2022. Denying the outcomes of fair elections, he said, “is a loser for the Republican Party. Straight up.”

    ___

    Cooper reported from Phoenix.

    ___

    Follow Marc Levy on Twitter: http://twitter.com/timelywriter

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  • Several Election-Denying Lawmakers Hold Key Vote Oversight Roles

    Several Election-Denying Lawmakers Hold Key Vote Oversight Roles

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    HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Republican lawmakers who have spread election conspiracy theories and falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential outcome was rigged are overseeing legislative committees charged with setting election policy in two major political battleground states.

    Divided government in Pennsylvania and Arizona means that any voting restrictions those GOP legislators propose is likely to fail. Even so, the high-profile appointments give the lawmakers a platform to cast further doubt on the integrity of elections in states that will be pivotal in selecting the next president in 2024.

    Awarding such plum positions to lawmakers who have repeated conspiracies and spread misinformation cuts against more than two years of evidence showing there were no widespread problems or fraud in the last presidential election. It also would appear to run counter to the message delivered in the November midterm elections, when voters rejected election-denying candidates running for top offices in presidential battleground states.

    At the same time, many mainstream Republicans are trying to move past the lies told by former President Donald Trump and his allies about his loss to President Joe Biden.

    “It is an issue that many Americans and many Pennsylvanians are tired of seeing litigated and re-litigated over and over,” said Pennsylvania state Sen. Amanda Cappalletti, the ranking Democrat on the Senate committee that handles election legislation. “I think we’re all ready to move on, and we see from audit after audit that our elections are secure, they are fair and that people’s votes are being counted.”

    Democratic governors and legislative victories last fall will blunt the influence of Republicans who took steps or pushed rhetoric seeking to overturn the 2020 election.

    But in Arizona and Pennsylvania, two lawmakers who dismiss the validity of that election — not to mention other elections since then — will have key positions of influence as the majority chairs of legislative committees that oversee election legislation.

    In Arizona, Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers takes over the Senate Elections Committee after being appointed by an ally, Senate President Warren Petersen. He was one of two lawmakers who signed subpoenas that led to Senate Republicans’ widely derided audit of the 2020 election.

    Multiple reviews and audits in the six battleground states where Trump disputed his loss, as well as dozens of court rejections and repeated admonishments from officials in his own administration, have underscored that the 2020 presidential results were accurate. There was no widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines that would have altered the result.

    The legislative appointments in Pennsylvania and Arizona highlight the divide between the two major parties over election law. Already this year, Democratic-controlled legislatures are moving to expand access to voting and heighten penalties for intimidating voters and election workers, while many Republican-led states are aiming to pass further restrictions, a trend that accelerated after Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.

    Rogers, who has gained a national following for spreading conspiracy theories and questioning elections, has faced repeated ethics charges for her inflammatory rhetoric, support for white supremacists and conspiracy-filled social media posts.

    She now will be a main gatekeeper for election and voting bills in Arizona, where election changes are a top priority for some Republican lawmakers. Some want to eliminate voting by mail and early voting options that are used by more than 80% of the state’s voters.

    She has scheduled a committee meeting for Monday to consider bills that would ban unmonitored drop boxes, prohibit drive-through voting or ballot pickup and impose what voting-rights advocates say are additional burdens on early voting.

    In Pennsylvania, Republican Sen. Cris Dush takes over as chair of the Senate State Government Committee after pushing to block the state’s electoral votes from going to Biden in 2020. Dush also mounted an election investigation that he hoped would use the Arizona-style audit as a model.

    He was appointed by the Senate’s ranking Republican, President Pro Tem Kim Ward, whose office explained Dush’s appointment only by saying that seniority plays a role and that members have priority requests.

    In the first weeks of this year’s session, Dush has moved along measures to expand voter identification requirements and add a layer of post-election audits. Both are proposed constitutional amendments designed to bypass a governor’s veto by going to voters for approval.

    Dush said he also plans to develop legislation to require more security measures for drop boxes and ballots.

    “I’m going to make a promise to the people of Pennsylvania: The things that I’m doing here as chair of State Government, it’s going to be things that will be conducted in a fair, impartial manner,” Dush said in an interview. “You know, we’ve just got to make sure that we can ensure the integrity of the vote and people aren’t disenfranchised.”

    Arizona and Pennsylvania have newly elected Democratic governors who presumably would veto hard-line GOP bills opposed by Democrats.

    Still, Democrats, county election officials and voting-rights advocates in both states want changes to election laws that, with Dush and Rogers in place, may never see the light of day.

    Alex Gulotta, the Arizona director for the voting rights group All Voting is Local, said he anticipates the Legislature there will pass a lot of “bad elections bills.” He said moderate Republican lawmakers who might have voted down problematic measures under a Republican governor now might let them pass because they know Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs will likely veto them.

    “This is performative,” Gulotta said. “This isn’t substantive.”

    The question, he said, is whether Rogers and other Arizona lawmakers can cooperate on “small fixes” where there is consensus. That, he said, will take “real statesmanship.”

    Liz Avore, a senior adviser to the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab, said the organization expects another busy period of lawmaking related to voting and elections ahead of the 2024 presidential vote, even as candidates who repeated Trump’s lies about a stolen 2020 election lost bids for governor, secretary of state and attorney general in key battleground states.

    Democratic and Republican-led states are often moving in opposite directions, but some bipartisan consensus has emerged around certain aspects of election law, such as restoring voting rights to felons and expanding early in-person voting, Avore said.

    Republican proposals, such as expanding voter identification requirements, are popular and have majority support, as do some Democratic proposals to broaden access, said Christopher Borick, a political science professor and pollster at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

    But to be successful with voters, Republicans need to mind the lessons from 2022. Denying the outcomes of fair elections, he said, “is a loser for the Republican Party. Straight up.”

    Cooper reported from Phoenix.

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  • Election-denying lawmakers hold key election oversight roles

    Election-denying lawmakers hold key election oversight roles

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    HARRISBURG, Pa. — Republican lawmakers who have spread election conspiracy theories and falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential outcome was rigged are overseeing legislative committees charged with setting election policy in two major political battleground states.

    Divided government in Pennsylvania and Arizona means that any voting restrictions those GOP legislators propose is likely to fail. Even so, the high-profile appointments give the lawmakers a platform to cast further doubt on the integrity of elections in states that will be pivotal in selecting the next president in 2024.

    Awarding such plum positions to lawmakers who have repeated conspiracies and spread misinformation cuts against more than two years of evidence showing there were no widespread problems or fraud in the last presidential election. It also would appear to run counter to the message delivered in the November midterm elections, when voters rejected election-denying candidates running for top offices in presidential battleground states.

    At the same time, many mainstream Republicans are trying to move past the lies told by former President Donald Trump and his allies about his loss to President Joe Biden.

    “It is an issue that many Americans and many Pennsylvanians are tired of seeing litigated and relitigated over and over,” said Pennsylvania state Sen. Amanda Cappalletti, the ranking Democrat on the Senate committee that handles election legislation. “I think we’re all ready to move on, and we see from audit after audit that our elections are secure, they are fair and that people’s votes are being counted.”

    Multiple reviews and audits in the six battleground states where Trump disputed his loss, as well as dozens of court rejections and repeated admonishments from officials in his own administration, have underscored that the 2020 presidential results were accurate. There was no widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines that would have altered the result.

    The legislative appointments in Pennsylvania and Arizona highlight the divide between the two major parties over election law. Already this year, Democratic-controlled legislatures are moving to expand access to voting and heighten penalties for intimidating voters and election workers, while many Republican-led states are aiming to pass further restrictions, a trend that accelerated after Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.

    Democratic governors and legislative victories last fall will blunt the influence of Republicans who took steps or pushed rhetoric seeking to overturn the 2020 election.

    But in Arizona and Pennsylvania, two lawmakers who dismiss the validity of that election — not to mention other elections since then — will have key positions of influence as the majority chairs of legislative committees that oversee election legislation.

    In Arizona, Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers takes over the Senate Elections Committee after being appointed by an ally, Senate President Warren Petersen. He was one of two lawmakers who signed subpoenas that led to Senate Republicans’ widely derided audit of the 2020 election.

    Rogers, who has gained a national following for spreading conspiracy theories and questioning elections, has faced repeated ethics charges for her inflammatory rhetoric, support for white supremacists and conspiracy-filled social media posts.

    She now will be a main gatekeeper for election and voting bills in Arizona, where election changes are a top priority for some Republican lawmakers. Some want to eliminate voting by mail and early voting options that are used by more than 80% of the state’s voters.

    She has scheduled a committee meeting for Monday to consider bills that would ban unmonitored drop boxes, prohibit drive-through voting or ballot pickup and impose what voting-rights advocates say are additional burdens on early voting.

    In Pennsylvania, Republican Sen. Cris Dush takes over as chair of the Senate State Government Committee after pushing to block the state’s electoral votes from going to Biden in 2020. Dush also mounted an election investigation that he hoped would use the Arizona-style audit as a model.

    He was appointed by the Senate’s ranking Republican, President Pro Tem Kim Ward, whose office explained Dush’s appointment only by saying that seniority plays a role and that members have priority requests.

    In the first weeks of this year’s session, Dush has moved along measures to expand voter identification requirements and add a layer of post-election audits. Both are proposed constitutional amendments designed to bypass a governor’s veto by going to voters for approval.

    Dush said he also plans to develop legislation to require more security measures for drop boxes and ballots.

    “I’m going to make a promise to the people of Pennsylvania: The things that I’m doing here as chair of State Government, it’s going to be things that will be conducted in a fair, impartial manner,” Dush said in an interview. “You know, we’ve just got to make sure that we can ensure the integrity of the vote and people aren’t disenfranchised.”

    Arizona and Pennsylvania have newly elected Democratic governors who presumably would veto hard-line GOP bills opposed by Democrats.

    Still, Democrats, county election officials and voting-rights advocates in both states want changes to election laws that, with Dush and Rogers in place, may never see the light of day.

    Alex Gulotta, the Arizona director for the voting rights group All Voting is Local, said he anticipates the Legislature there will pass a lot of “bad elections bills.” He said moderate Republican lawmakers who might have voted down problematic measures under a Republican governor now might let them pass because they know Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs will likely veto them.

    “This is performative,” Gulotta said. “This isn’t substantive.”

    The question, he said, is whether Rogers and other Arizona lawmakers can cooperate on “small fixes” where there is consensus. That, he said, will take “real statesmanship.”

    Liz Avore, a senior adviser to the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab, said the organization expects another busy period of lawmaking related to voting and elections ahead of the 2024 presidential vote, even as candidates who repeated Trump’s lies about a stolen 2020 election lost bids for governor, secretary of state and attorney general in key battleground states.

    Democratic and Republican-led states are often moving in opposite directions, but some bipartisan consensus has emerged around certain aspects of election law, such as restoring voting rights to felons and expanding early in-person voting, Avore said.

    Republican proposals, such as expanding voter identification requirements, are popular and have majority support, as do some Democratic proposals to broaden access, said Christopher Borick, a political science professor and pollster at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

    But to be successful with voters, Republicans need to mind the lessons from 2022. Denying the outcomes of fair elections, he said, “is a loser for the Republican Party. Straight up.”

    ___

    Cooper reported from Phoenix.

    ___

    Follow Marc Levy on Twitter: http://twitter.com/timelywriter

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  • Donald Trump Kicking Off 2024 Run With Stops In Early-Voting States

    Donald Trump Kicking Off 2024 Run With Stops In Early-Voting States

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    COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is set to kick off his 2024 White House bid on Saturday with visits to a pair of early-voting states, his first campaign events since announcing his latest run more than two months ago.

    Trump will be the keynote speaker at the New Hampshire GOP’s annual meeting before traveling to Columbia, South Carolina, where he is set to introduce his state leadership team. New Hampshire and South Carolina hold two of the party’s first three nominating contests, giving them enormous power in selecting the nominee.

    Trump and his allies hope the events will offer a show of force behind the former president after a sluggish start to his campaign that left many questioning his commitment to running again. In recent weeks, his backers have reached out to political operatives and elected officials to secure support for Trump at a critical point when other Republicans are preparing their own expected challenges.

    “The gun is fired, and the campaign season has started,” said Stephen Stepanek, outgoing chair of the New Hampshire Republican Party who served as co-chair of Trump’s 2016 campaign in the state.

    While Trump remains the only declared 2024 presidential candidate, potential challengers, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who was Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, are expected to get their campaign underway in the coming months.

    President Donald Trump gestures as he arrives to speak at a rally on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

    In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and several members of the state’s congressional delegation plan to attend Saturday’s event at the Statehouse. But Trump’s team has struggled to line up support from state lawmakers, even some who eagerly backed him during previous runs.

    Some have said that more than a year out from primary balloting is too early to make endorsements or that they’ are waiting to see who else enters the race. Others have said it is time for the party to move past Trump to a new generation of leadership.

    Republican state Rep. RJ May, vice chair of South Carolina’s state House Freedom Caucus, said he wasn’t going to attend Trump’s event because he was focused on that group’s legislative fight with the GOP caucus. He indicated that he was open to other candidates in the 2024 race.

    “I think we’re going to have a very strong slate of candidates here in South Carolina,” said May, who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. He added, “I would 100% take a Donald Trump over Joe Biden.”

    Dave Wilson, president of conservative Christian nonprofit Palmetto Family, said some conservative voters may have concerns about Trump’s recent comments that Republicans who opposed abortion without exceptions had cost the party in the November elections.

    “It gives pause to some folks within the conservative ranks of the Republican Party as to whether or not we need the process to work itself out,” said Wilson, whose group hosted Pence for a speech in 2021. He added: “You continue to have to earn your vote. Nothing is taken for granted.”

    Acknowledging that Trump “did some phenomenal things when he was president,” like securing a conservative U.S. Supreme Court majority, Wilson said South Carolina’s GOP voters may be seeking “a candidate who can be the standard-bearer not only for now but to build ongoing momentum across America for conservatism for the next few decades.”

    But Gerri McDaniel, who worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign and will be attending Saturday’s event, rejected the idea that voters were ready to move on from the former president.

    “Some of the media keep saying he’s losing his support. No, he’s not,” she said. “It’s only going to be greater than it was before because there are so many people who are angry about what’s happening in Washington.”

    The South Carolina event, at a government building, surrounded by elected officials, is in some ways off-brand for a former reality television star who typically favors big rallies and has tried to cultivate an outsider image. But the reality is that Trump is a former president who is seeking to reclaim the White House by contrasting his time in office with the current administration.

    Rallies are also expensive, and Trump, who is notoriously frugal, added new financial challenges when he deciding to begin his campaign in November — far earlier than many allies had urged. That leaves him subject to strict fundraising regulations and bars him from using his well-funded leadership PAC to pay for such events, which can cost several million dollars.

    Officials expect Trump to speak in the second-floor lobby of the Statehouse, an opulent ceremonial area between the House and Senate chambers.

    The venue has played host to some of South Carolina’s most notable political news moments, including Haley’s 2015 signing of a bill to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Statehouse grounds and McMaster’s 2021 signing of legislation banning abortions in the state after around six weeks of pregnancy. The state Supreme Court recently ruled the abortion law unconstitutional, and McMaster has pledged to seek a rehearing.

    Trump’s nascent campaign has already sparked controversy, most particularly when he had dinner with Holocaust-denying white nationalist Nick Fuentes and the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who had made a series of antisemitic comments. Trump also was widely mocked for selling a series of digital trading cards that pictured him as a superhero, a cowboy and an astronaut, among others.

    At the same time, he is the subject of a series of criminal investigations, including one into the discovery of hundreds of documents with classified markings at his Florida club and whether he obstructed justice by refusing to return them, as well as state and federal examinations of his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

    Still, Trump remains the only announced 2024 candidate, and early polling shows he’s a favorite to win his party’s nomination.

    Stepanek, who was required to remain neutral until his term as New Hampshire party chair ends at Saturday’s party meeting, dismissed the significance of Trump’s slow start, which campaign officials say accounts for time spent putting infrastructure in place for a national campaign.

    In New Hampshire, he said, “there’s been a lot of anticipation, a lot of excitement” for Trump’s reelection. He said Trump’s most loyal supporters continue to stand behind him.

    “You have a lot of people who weren’t with him in ’15, ’16, then became Trumpers, then became never-Trumpers,” Stepanek said. “But the people who supported him in New Hampshire, who propelled him to his win in 2016 in the New Hampshire primary, they’re all still there, waiting for the president.”

    Colvin reported from New York.

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  • House Republicans seek new restrictions on use of U.S. oil stockpile

    House Republicans seek new restrictions on use of U.S. oil stockpile

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    For the second time this month, House Republicans are seeking to restrict presidential use of the nation’s emergency oil stockpile — a proposal that has already drawn a White House veto threat.

    A GOP bill set for a vote Friday would require the government to offset any non-emergency withdrawals from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve with new drilling on public lands and oceans. Republicans accuse President Joe Biden of abusing the reserve for political reasons to keep gas prices low, while Biden says tapping the reserve was needed last year in response to a ban on Russian oil imports following President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Mr. Biden withdrew 180 million barrels from the strategic reserve over several months, bringing the stockpile to its lowest level since the 1980s. The administration said last month it will start to replenish the reserve now that oil prices have gone down.

    White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre attacked the latest GOP proposal, which follows a bill approved two weeks ago that would prohibit the Energy Department from selling oil from the strategic reserve to companies owned or influenced by the Chinese Communist Party.

    “House Republicans will vote to raise gas prices on American families … and help Putin’s war aims by interfering with our ability to release oil,” Jean-Pierre said, referring to the current GOP bill. “These extreme policies would subject working families to immense financial pain and balloon our deficit, all just to benefit the wealthiest taxpayers and big corporations.”

    Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, appearing with Jean-Pierre at the White House, said the bill would make it “harder to offer Americans relief in the future” from oil disruptions that could raise prices.

    Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee and sponsored the GOP bill, accused Granholm and the White House of multiple misleading claims, including an erroneous assertion that the bill could affect use of the reserve during a presidentially declared emergency.

    “At a time when gas prices are on the rise, Secretary Granholm and the Biden administration need to be transparent with the American people about their efforts to cover up how they’ve abused the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as an election-year gimmick,” McMorris Rodgers said.

    “Republicans want durable, long-lasting relief at the pump. The best way to do this is by unleashing American energy,” which her legislation helps accomplish, added McMorris Rodgers, of Washington state. 

    Though the measure may pass in the Republican-controlled House, it’s not likely to reach the floor in the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats.

    The heated rhetoric is part of a larger fight over oil drilling and climate change. Republicans say restrictions on oil leasing imposed by the Biden administration hamper U.S. energy production and harm the economy, while Democrats tout a sweeping climate law approved last year as a crucial step to wean the nation off fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas. The measure authorizes billions in spending to boost renewable energy such as wind and solar power and includes incentives for Americans to buy millions of electric cars, heat pumps, solar panels and more efficient appliances.

    Mr. Biden, citing the dangers of climate change, canceled the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline in his first days in office and suspended new oil and gas leases on federal lands. The moratorium has since been lifted, under court order, but Republicans complain that lease sales for new drilling rights are still limited.

    Mr. Biden campaigned on pledges to end new drilling on public lands, and climate activists have pushed him to move faster to shut down oil leasing. Fossil fuels extracted from public lands account for about 20% of energy-related U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, making them a prime target for emissions reductions intended to slow global warming.

    “Whether on land or at sea, oil drilling poses an unacceptable risk for our wildlife, wild places and waterways,” said Lisa Frank of Environment America, an advocacy group. “When we drill, we spill. At a time when we should be moving away from this destructive, dangerous practice — and expanding use of renewable power — this bill doubles down on the outmoded energy of the past.”

    Frank urged lawmakers to reject the GOP bill and instead move to permanently ban new drilling off U.S. coasts and in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

    Conservative and industry groups support the bill.

    “We can continue making the Strategic Petroleum Reserve the nation’s sole response to future disruptions, or we can also utilize more of the vast oil supplies sitting beneath the lands and offshore areas currently kept off limits by the president,” the Competitive Enterprise Institute and other conservative groups said in a letter to Congress.

    The Treasury Department estimates that release of oil from the emergency stockpile lowered prices at the pump by up to 40 cents per gallon. Gasoline prices averaged about $3.50 per gallon on Thursday, down from just over $5 per gallon at their peak in June, according to the AAA auto club.

    Morris Rodgers accused Mr. Biden of using the reserve to “cover up his failed policies” that she said are driving up energy prices and inflation. Average gas prices are up more than 30 cents from a month ago and are higher than when Biden took office in January 2021, she and other Republicans noted.

    “Millions of Americans are paying more at the pump as a result of the Biden administration’s radical ‘rush-to-green’ agenda that has shut down American energy,” McMorris Rodgers said.

    Granholm, citing thousands of unused leases by oil companies, said GOP claims of obstructionism on drilling were off-base. “There’s nothing standing in the way of domestic oil and gas production,” she said, a claim McMorris Rodgers disputed.

    “There are plenty of barriers to unleashing domestic oil and gas production, including burdensome regulations and this administration’s discouragement of financial investment in domestic oil and gas industries,” she said, noting that U.S. oil production is well below its 2019 peak of 13 million barrels of oil a day.

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  • GOP action on mail ballot timelines angers military families

    GOP action on mail ballot timelines angers military families

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    COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio’s restrictive new election law significantly shortens the window for mailed ballots to be received — despite no evidence that the extended timeline has led to fraud or any other problems — and that change is angering active-duty members of the military and their families because of its potential to disenfranchise them.

    The pace of ballot counting after Election Day has become a target of conservatives egged on by former President Donald Trump. He has promoted a false narrative since losing the 2020 election that fluctuating results as late-arriving mail-in ballots are tallied is a sign of fraud.

    Republican lawmakers said during debate on the Ohio legislation that even if Trump’s claims aren’t true, the skepticism they have caused among conservatives about the accuracy of election results justifies imposing new limits.

    The new law reduces the number of days for county election boards to include mailed ballots in their tallies from 10 days after Election Day to four. Critics say that could lead more ballots from Ohio’s military voters to miss the deadline and get tossed.

    This issue isn’t confined to Ohio.

    Three other states narrowed their post-election windows for accepting mail ballots last session, according to data from the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab. Similar moves pushed by Republican lawmakers are being proposed or discussed this year in Wisconsin, New Jersey, California and other states.

    Ohio’s tightened window for receiving mailed ballots is likely to affect just several hundred of the thousands of military and overseas ballots received in any election. Critics say any number is too great.

    “What kind of society do we call ourselves if we are disenfranchising people from the rights that they are over there protecting?” said Willis Gordon, a Navy veteran and veterans affairs chair of the Ohio NAACP’s executive committee.

    Republican state Sen. Theresa Gavarone, who championed the tightened ballot deadline, said Ohio’s previous window was “an extreme outlier” nationally. She said Ohio’s military and overseas voters still have ample time under the new law.

    “While there is certainly more work to do, this new law drastically enhances Ohio’s election security and improves the integrity of our elections, which my constituents and citizens across the state have demanded,” she said.

    Republicans’ claims that Ohio needs to clamp down in the name of election integrity run counter to GOP officials’ glowing assessments of the state’s current system. Ohio reported a near-perfect tally of its 2020 presidential election results, for example, and fraud referrals represent a tiny fraction of the ballots cast.

    Board of elections data shows that in the state’s most populous county, which includes the capital city of Columbus, 242 absentee ballots from military and overseas voters were received after Election Day last November. Of that, nearly 40% arrived more than four days later and would have been rejected had the new law been in effect.

    In 2020, a federal survey administered by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission found that Ohio rejected just 1% of the 21,600 ballots cast by overseas and military voters with the 10-day time frame in place. That compared with 2.1% nationally, a figure attributed mostly to voters missing state ballot deadlines.

    All states are required to transmit ballots to registered overseas and military voters at least 45 days before an election, or as soon as possible if the request comes in after that date.

    Former state Rep. Connie Pillich, an Air Force veteran who leads the Ohio Democratic Party’s outreach to veterans and military families, rejects arguments that the relatively small number of affected ballots is worth the trade-off.

    “These guys and gals stationed overseas, living in the sandbox or wherever they are, doing their jobs, putting themselves in harm’s way, you’re making it harder for them to participate,” said Pillich, who led an unsuccessful effort to have GOP Gov. Mike DeWine veto the bill.

    “I can tell you everyone I’ve talked to is livid and upset,” she said.

    Those familiar with submitting military ballots said applying for, receiving and filling out a mailed ballot requires extra time for those who are deployed. Postal schedules, sudden calls to duty, even extra time needed to consult family back home about the candidates and issues are factors. Ohio’s new law also sets a new deadline — five days earlier — for voters to request a mailed ballot, a move supporters say will help voters meet the tightened return deadline.

    Neither the Ohio Association of Election Officials nor the state’s elections chief, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, asked lawmakers to shrink the existing 10-day window for receiving mailed ballots.

    Aaron Ockerman, a lobbyist for the election officials’ group, said the seven-day post-election window called for in an early version of the legislation was a compromise that county election directors decided they could live with.

    “They felt the vast, vast majority of the ballots have arrived within eight days,” he said. The group opposed making the window any shorter, on grounds that voters — including those in the military — would be disenfranchised.

    Research by the Voting Rights Lab shows Ohio joined three other states — Republican-controlled Arkansas and Iowa, and Nevada, where Democrats held full control at the time — in passing laws last year that shortened the post-election return window for mailed ballots. Five states lengthened theirs.

    Nationwide, a little more than 911,000 military and overseas ballots were cast in 2020. Of those, about 19,000, or roughly 2%, were rejected — typically for being received after the deadline, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

    The Secure Families Initiative, a national nonpartisan group advocating for military voters and their families, is trying to push state election laws in the other direction, toward broader electronic access to voting for service members and their families.

    Kate Marsh Lord, the group’s communications director, said they were “deeply disappointed” to see DeWine sign the Ohio bill.

    “In fact, I’m an Ohio voter — born and raised in Columbus — and I’ve cast my Ohio ballot from as far away as Japan,” she said. “HB458 set out to solve a problem that didn’t exist, and military voters will pay the price by having their ballots disqualified.”

    Marsh Lord, currently in South Carolina where her husband is stationed in the Air Force, said mail sometimes took weeks to reach her family when they lived in Japan.

    “Even if I were to get my ballot in the mail a week ahead of time, a lot of times with the military postal service and the Postal Service in general, there are delays,” she said. “So that shortened window doesn’t allow as much time for things that are really out of military voters’ control.”

    She said it’s even more challenging for active-duty personnel deployed to remote areas — “the people on the front lines of the fight to defend our democracy and our freedom and the right to vote around the world. Those are the people who will be most impacted by this change.”

    ___

    Fields reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta and Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey, contributed to this report.

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  • Biden highlights bipartisanship during House GOP chaos

    Biden highlights bipartisanship during House GOP chaos

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    COVINGTON, Kentucky — President Joe Biden on Wednesday held out the promised makeover of a dilapidated bridge over the Ohio River as a symbol of what can happen when Republicans and Democrats work together — even as he condemned what he labeled an “embarrassing” scene of GOP disarray back in Washington.

    The Democratic president’s trip to the Brent Spence Bridge, which is getting a load of federal cash under the bipartisan infrastructure law, came as Washington was gripped by the GOP’s inability to unify behind a candidate for House speaker.

    “To have a Congress that can’t function is just embarrassing,” Biden said before he left Kentucky to return to Washington. “We’re the greatest nation in the world. How could that be?” Earlier at the White House he said that the stalemate over who would succeed Democrat Nancy Pelosi as speaker now that the Republicans control the House was “not my problem.”

    But the discord is fresh evidence that Biden’s chances of securing massive, transformational legislation have all but evaporated in a divided Washington, where the focus is set to turn to GOP investigations of the Biden administration and battles over essentials like funding the government and meeting federal debt obligations.

    That has the White House and top Cabinet officials hoping to direct the country’s focus to Biden’s achievements during his first two years in office and demonstrating how the new laws directly affect Americans, while appealing to newly empowered Republicans to find additional areas of cooperation in the new Congress.

    The bridge visit is part of a renewed push by Biden to highlight the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, which contains $1 trillion for roads and bridges, broadband networks and water projects across America. The money will be critical not just for the communities getting the help but to the Democratic president’s political theory that voters are hungry for bipartisanship that delivers tangible results.

    “I believe it sends an important message, an important message to the entire country,” Biden said from a stage overlooking the soon-to-be-renovated bridge. “We can work together. We can get things done. We can move the nation forward, but just drop a little bit of our egos and focus on what is needed in the country.”

    Biden was joined by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell — a frequent foil of Democrats — who greeted the president at the local airport and and rode with him in his limousine to the riverfront. McConnell was one of 19 Senate Republicans to support the infrastructure law and has said repairing the Brent Spence has long been a priority.

    “We all know these are really partisan times. But I always feel that no matter who gets elected, once it’s all over, we ought to look for things that we can agree on and try to do those, even while we have big differences on other things,” McConnell said in brief remarks before Biden took the stage. The GOP senator called the bridge an example of bipartisanship that the “country needs to see.”

    Democrats’ stronger-than-expected showing in the midterms allowed their party to retain control of the Senate even as the House fell to Republicans.

    On Tuesday, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the ostensible GOP pick for speaker, failed to win the required majority on three ballots — the first time in a century that a speaker hasn’t been selected on the first ballot. Members-elect returned to the chamber on Wednesday for additional balloting with no clear path to a resolution.

    At the bridge, Biden made light of the House drama, quipping that a newly elected House member couldn’t attend the event because “he’s dealing with trying to figure out who’s gonna be the next speaker,” before appealing for lawmakers of both parties to search for common ground in the year ahead.

    “After years of politics being so divisive, there are bright spots across the country,” Biden said. “The Brent Spence bridge is one of them. A bridge that continues and connects different centuries, different states, different political parties — a bridge to the vision of America I know we all believe in where we can work together to get things done.”

    The perennially congested bridge connecting Kentucky and Ohio has frustrated motorists for decades. The infrastructure law will offer more than $1.63 billion in federal grants to Ohio and Kentucky to build a companion bridge that will help unclog traffic on the Brent Spence.

    Other top administration officials are holding similar events Wednesday and Thursday at other major bridges in the U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris was stopping by the collection of bridges crossing the Calumet River in Chicago; Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was appearing at the Gold Star Memorial Bridge in New London, Connecticut; and White House infrastructure coordinator Mitch Landrieu was to be at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco on Thursday with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

    All the bridges will get new funding under the infrastructure law, which is one of Biden’s marquee bipartisan accomplishments.

    After his speech, Biden’s motorcade drove over the dilapidated bridge after a stop at a Cincinnati barbecue restaurant.

    Landrieu told reporters on Air Force One that Biden’s appearance with McConnell was “really important to demonstrate that these two people who have been friends for a long time and who don’t always see eye to eye have put their country first.”

    The Brent Spence, which carries Interstates 71 and 75 between Cincinnati and northern Kentucky, was declared functionally obsolete by the Federal Highway Administration in the 1990s. It has become an outsized symbol of the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, with successive presidents from both parties singling out the aging span as they stumped for better roads and bridges.

    In 2011, President Barack Obama name-checked McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner, who represented the Cincinnati suburbs, as he stood near the Brent Spence and pushed the two Republican leaders to support a jobs package that would fix similarly ailing bridges. Six years later, President Donald Trump told a local Fox station that “I’ve already heard about the bridge. I love the area.”

    “We’re going to get it fixed,” Trump said about the Brent Spence, which he called “dangerous.”

    As for Biden, he said during a 2021 CNN town hall in Cincinnati that his administration would “fix that damn bridge of yours.”

    ___

    Miller reported from Washington.

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  • Biden: GOP speaker drama ’embarrassing,’ ‘not a good look’

    Biden: GOP speaker drama ’embarrassing,’ ‘not a good look’

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    President Joe Biden says House Republicans’ inability to unify behind a speaker candidate is “embarrassing” and “not a good look” for the country

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