Inside Democrats’ Scramble to Repel the G.O.P. Voting Push
The New York Times
Lacking effective legislative or legal ways to stop Republicans from introducing new voting limits, Democrats are applying pressure on their allies in Washington and trying to energize supporters.
Democrats are struggling to build a surefire legal strategy to block new Republican-backed restrictions on voting rights, relying on broadly worded warnings and urgent pleas that are designed, in part, to build political pressure on the White House, Congress and the Justice Department to act, as well as to engage their supporters to mobilize in advance of the 2022 midterm elections. The approach is aimed at persuading recalcitrant Senate Democrats in Washington to pass a sweeping federal elections bill, painting the new Republican laws in the news media as suspect on arrival, and convincing the swing voters who last year helped elect President Biden that the G.O.P. is more interested in fixing elections for itself than in winning those voters back. Locked out of power in the Republican-run states that are enacting laws making it harder to vote, Democrats are engaged in a partywide effort to push back against the legislation that has as much to do with winning hearts and minds outside courtrooms as it does legal victories inside them.
The move was preceded by wave of resignations of prosecutors, each refusing to sign the motion and some criticizing the Justice Department order to do so in scathing terms.
Andrew D. Lester, a Kansas City resident in his 80s, was charged with felonies in the shooting of Ralph Yarl, a teen who went to the wrong address.
After a lawsuit filed last week by 19 attorneys general, a judicial ruling temporarily blocked Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency from accessing the information.
Before Senator Thom Tillis voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, he worked with accusers to make the case against him in a bid to get G.O.P. leaders to scrap the vote altogether.
An intense storm caused flooding and forced evacuations in areas burned by wildfires.
Bored troops are standing watch, shelters have emptied from McAllen, Texas, to Tucson, Ariz., and border patrols speed through miles of frontier, finding no one in sight.
Spending that the White House does not like is being labeled fraudulent. At the same time, President Trump is rolling back anticorruption efforts and ethical standards for himself and allies like Elon Musk.
The remains of Edwin Echevarria, 65, were found floating in the East River on Feb. 5. His roommate, Christian Millet, 23, has been charged with second degree murder.
Even as they praise the president’s unilateral actions to slash federal spending, G.O.P. lawmakers have quietly moved to seek carve outs or exemptions for their own constituents.
The mayor discussed options to run for re-election in the Republican contest as recently as Monday. Asked for comment, he said he was running as a Democrat.
A lawsuit appears to be the first challenge to the constitutionality of an executive order barring trans athletes from girls’ and women’s sports teams.
The comptroller’s office, which first noticed the missing money, said that the federal agency had unilaterally taken the funds from the city’s accounts.
The executive order would ban citizenship for children born in the United States to foreign workers on visas that often lead to permanent residency.