Texas Republicans Targeting Voting Access Find Their Bull’s-Eye: Cities
The New York Times
In Houston, election officials found creative ways to help a struggling and diverse work force vote in a pandemic. Record turnout resulted. Now the G.O.P. is targeting those very measures.
HOUSTON — Voting in the 2020 election presented Zoe Douglas with a difficult choice: As a therapist meeting with patients over Zoom late into the evening, she just wasn’t able to wrap up before polls closed during early voting. Then Harris County introduced 24-hour voting for a single day. At 11 p.m. on the Thursday before the election, Ms. Douglas joined fast-food workers, nurses, construction workers, night owls and other late-shift workers at NRG Arena, one of eight 24-hour voting sites in the county, where more than 10,000 people cast their ballots in a single night. “I can distinctly remember people still in their uniforms — you could tell they just got off of work, or maybe they’re going to work; a very diverse mix,” said Ms. Douglas, 27, a Houston native.
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.
The Trump administration’s order to drop the charges against Mayor Eric Adams was the most pronounced example of the president using his power to determine the city’s future.
President Trump had already pardoned his adviser in a similar federal case, which accused him of skimming money from donations to build a southern border barrier.
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes it illegal for companies that operate in the United States to pay foreign government officials to secure or keep business deals.
Representative Dan Goldman’s support may help Mr. Myrie, a state senator from Brooklyn, to emerge from a pack of progressive Democrats.
The new tone of the department, current and former officials say, appears to promise a campaign of intimidation against career employees viewed as insufficiently loyal.