Archives for category: Elections
« Older Entries

Hey, Hey, DOGE Boys, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2026 //
4

Back in the midst of the War in Vietnam, protestors used to torment President Lyndon B. Johnson by chanting, “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” Johnson became President after President Kennedy’s assassination, then was elected by a landslide in 1964. He had an ambitious domestic agenda, which sailed through Congress, but then got ensnared in pursuing the war, which was a disaster.

As soon as Donald Trump was re-elected, he invited his billionaire friend to slash the federal government. Trump created a fictional “department” called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Vivek soon left to run for governor of Ohio.

Musk and his little group of computer nerds ransacked the agencies, fired thousands of career employees, and copied confidential files from Social Security and the Treasury Department. Throughout this daring attack on our government, Republican majorities in Congress remained silent.

One of the first agencies killed by Musk was U.S. AID, which supplied food and medicine to impoverished people around the world. Musk celebrated his success and told the world that he had used a jeweled chainsaw to kill a program that saved lives and that bought billions of dollars of grain from American farmers.

It’s been reported that DOGE saved very little money, that many government agencies that lost employees had to rehire some, pay severance to others, and that dramatic savings never materialized.

And now we know that whatever savings were realized by Musk’s brief foray have been totally wiped out by the cost of the war in Iran.

What remains of the work of Musk and his DOGE?

Millions of deaths in countries where people died because U.S. AID stopped sending aid. Not only did people die of starvation and preventable diseases, but violence followed the AID cuts.

Science Advisor, published by Science magazine, reported:

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was once the world’s largest provider of foreign aid. Between 2021 and 2024, the agency—which operated in more than 100 countries—is estimated to have saved some 91 million lives, about a third of which were children under five. But just days after President Donald Trump took office in 2025, his administration began rapidly dismantling the organization. The sweeping cuts dealt a “ tectonic” blow to clinical trials around the globe, devastated agricultural research, and triggered a “ bloodbath” for HIV/AIDS relief programs. According to one study, this sudden removal of foreign aid could lead to more than nine million preventable deaths by 2030. Now, new research published in Science suggests that the destruction of USAID has also unleashed a wave of violent conflict across Africa.

Scientists merged two datasets, one that mapped worldwide foreign aid disbursements and another recording violent events. Cuts to USAID, the team reports, were associated with significant increases in violent conflict, armed clashes, protests and riots across a large swath of Africa. The effects began immediately after USAID withdrawal, persisted for months, and were most pronounced in areas that had previously relied the most on aid from the United States. “With the USAID shutdown, there was a rapid increase in the likelihood of violence, the severity of violence, and the lethality of violence,” study co-author Austin L. Wright told 404 Media.

As economist Axel Dreher wrote in a related Science Perspective, the findings reveal “the effect of a sudden and unexpected disruption,” which, beyond just removing resources, can open the door to civil unrest by interrupting ongoing initiatives and eroding trust in local governments. “A sudden cut can be destabilizing even if the aid program being cut was inefficient or unsustainable in the long run.”

Here is a link to the full paper.

Categories Cruelty, Elections, History, Musk, Elon

Why the Voting Rights Act Was Passed: Watch LBJ Explain

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2026 //
4

The U.S. Supreme Court recently rendered the Caillais decision, which effectively gutted the historic Voting Rights Act. As soon as the decision was released, the Southern states that once formed the Confederacy began to redraw district lines to eliminate Black representatives from Congress and the state legislature. In some of those former-slave states, there is likely to be no Black representation of the state in Congress.

The Confederacy rises again, thanks to the six members of the Supremr Court appointed by Republicans. Once again, Justice Clarence Thomas votes to strip rights from Black people.

Please read this commentary by teacher Ken Bernstein. He includes a speech by President Lyndon B. Johnson, explaining why the Voting rights Act was necessary for our democracy.

This decision makes the case for Supreme Court reform, either by enacting an age limit, term limits, or enlarging the Court.

Categories Civil Rights, Elections, Injustice, Racism, Republicans

Jamelle Bouie: The Voting Rights Act Was a High Point of Our Democracy

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2026 //
0

Jamelle Bouie, columnist for The New York Times, wrote several columns (see here) about the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act in its Callais decision. This one is titled “The Law They Hate Was a High Point of Our History.” The high court majority, six hard-right Republicans, decided that partisan redistricting is just fine, but redistricting that takes account of race is not. Thus, a state legislature dominated by one party can justly produce a voting map that gives every seat to its own party, but it may not permit districts created to encourage representation of racial minorities.

In the wake of the Callais decision, some states of the Confederacy quickly carved up districts to eliminate seats held by Democrats and by Blacks. Some of these states will have only white Republicans in Congress.

Bouie wrote:

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 wasn’t the top-down dictate of a rogue, liberal Supreme Court — if such a thing has ever existed.

It wasn’t the brainchild of out-of-touch bureaucrats in Washington, nor was it some kind of martial settlement imposed on the states of the former Confederacy.

It was, instead, an achievement of the most effective social movement of the postwar United States. The Voting Rights Act revitalized American democracy and stands as one of its great achievements.

This, somehow, has been lost in the discourse around the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais. The court’s clear hostility to the law, as well as the glee with which conservative Republicans have dismantled the South’s majority-minority congressional districts in its wake, makes it seem as if the V.R.A. was a handcuff placed on American politics by some outside force.

The truth is that the Voting Rights Act was conceived, crafted and passed in order to further realize American democracy. And it was, itself, the product of an explosion of democratic energy.

The V.R.A. was forced onto the national agenda by the tireless work of the grass roots activists in the Civil Rights Movement, who struggled, bled and put their lives on the line in a fierce fight to secure their fundamental rights as Americans. It was signed into law by a president who had won election in one of the largest landslides in American history. It was subsequently reauthorized by Congress, after Congress, after Congress, after Congress.

The most recent reauthorization in 2006 was nearly unanimous, and there was broad support from the public — so much that to justify the Supreme Court’s attack on the law in Shelby County v. Holder, Chief Justice John Roberts had to fabricate a constitutional doctrine about the “equal sovereignty” of states, and Justice Antonin Scalia had to characterize the reauthorization as an unfair “racial entitlement” that politicians would never remove for fear of backlash.

If there is any single law that you could plausibly say represents the general will of the American people, it might be one that was reaffirmed nearly every decade for 40 years by the people’s representatives.

This isn’t just a historical point or a piece of idle trivia. It is essential. And it gets to what is so egregious about the court’s campaign against the law.

The Voting Rights Act was an attempt by the people of the United States, affirmed across two generations of voters and lawmakers, to make good the 15th Amendment to the Constitution — itself the hard fought product of war and reconstruction. It was an attempt to wield the authority of the federal government to secure the fundamental right to vote as well as the fundamental right to representation. It stood for substantive equal protection — the chance to make democracy real.

The V.R.A. was not, contra John Roberts and the rest, an expression of colorblindness, indifferent to the social realities of the United States. It did not pretend to treat supposed neutrality as truly neutral, nor did it place racial inequality outside the remit of the Constitution. And it was not, as this court would have it, the bland expression of a bloodless commitment to anti-discrimination. In fact, it was the most significant attempt in this country’s history to realize the promise of political equality.

The Voting Rights Act has more — much more — democratic legitimacy than this Supreme Court has ever enjoyed. After all, most of this court’s conservative majority was appointed by presidents who entered office as winners of the Electoral College but not the popular vote.

It is that relative difference in democratic legitimacy that makes this court’s voting rights jurisprudence so offensive.

Those voting rights rulings, from Shelby County v. Holder in 2013 to Callais in 2026, come from a court that has placed itself above the people at large. It is a court that will, according to its whims, ignore the clear commands, directions and intent of Congress. It is a court that treats voters and legislators as errant children to be corralled and disciplined by wise jurists. It is a court that doesn’t answer hard constitutional questions as they arise as much as it imposes constitutional meaning based on its narrow interests and ideological preoccupations.

It is a court that is trying to shape the political system to its liking, despite the claims of the chief justice, with no limits other than its partisan preferences. It is a court, in other words, that is wielding a cramped and parochial vision of the Constitution against American democracy, rather than treating the Constitution as a tool for realizing our democratic aspirations.

There have been many frustrating decisions from this Supreme Court. Louisiana v. Callais may not even be its worst decision — that prize might still go to Trump v. United States, where the chief justice conjured, out of thin air, an anti-constitutional doctrine of criminal immunity for the president.

Callais, however, might be the most emblematic of this court’s decisions: a flashing warning that our democracy is being crushed underneath the imperial authority of an arrogant and reactionary juristocracy. We can either discipline that court — and put it in its place — or accept our fate as its subjects.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Civil Rights, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Injustice, Racism

Dan Froomkin: The Court’s Voting Rights Decision Was Intended to Disenfranchise Black Voters

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2026 //
2

Dan Froomkin writes “Press Watch,” a blog that covers the media. In this post, he criticizes the mainstream media for treating the U.S. Supreme Court’s Callais decision as a partisan issue. It is that, but it is at bottom a decision that destroys Black political power. It allows states to divvy up districts in ways that eliminates Black representation. And former Confederate states wasted no time in breaking up districts that elect Blacks to Congress.

He writes:

States across the South are redrawing election maps to eliminate majority-Black congressional districts.

Much of the major-media coverage is casting this in purely political terms – as just another part of the partisan battle for the House in November.

So for example, a May 9 Associated Press article headlined “What to know about the latest wave of changes to congressional districts,” started off this way:

The remaking of the U.S. political map accelerated this week in courts and legislatures, all of it in this round expected to boost Republicans in their attempt to keep control of Congress in November’s elections.

A May 13 New York Times article started off like this:

Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia on Wednesday called lawmakers back to the capital next month to redraw the state’s legislative districts for the 2028 election cycle, and to work on changes to the state’s voting system.

The call for a special session, which will begin on June 17, comes as Southern lawmakers have been rushing to reconfigure congressional maps to be more favorable to Republicans for this year’s midterms in response to the recent Supreme Court decision that weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

But in the South, the significance of redistricting goes far beyond any partisan issue.

So let me rewrite that for you:

In a stunning display of racism, white Republican leaders throughout the South are stripping Black people of their franchise in order to retain political power.

The catalyst was a 6-3 Supreme Court decision on April 29 that gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, landmark legislation that gave Black people the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.

Six right-wing justices insisted that intentional voting discrimination is a thing of the past. Southern legislators immediately responded by redrawing election boundaries to dilute the Black vote, in many cases making it virtually impossible for Black people to be elected to Congress.

What has happened in a matter of days amounts to a wrenching reversal of 60 years of racial progress — a revival of the Jim Crow era when Black people had no political power, no matter their number.

On a personal level, Black voters in the South are struggling with the repercussions of having one of their essential rights being brutally ripped away from them.

In states like Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi, where they make up more than 30 percent of the population, Black Americans will have little to no say in who is elected to Congress. And as the effects of the court decision trickle down to the local level, they may get shut out of some of those elections as well.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the white nationalist movement known as MAGA are celebrating. In some cases, their racism is expressed openly. “For too long, Tennessee politics has been dominated by cosmopolitan communists and race hustlers imposing their corrupt will on a deeply rural and conservative state,” Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee posted on social media.

For the authoritarian leaders of MAGA, the dilution and nullification of Black votes is a crucial step in their quest to remain in power — even as most voters have turned against them.

MAGA’s future depends on suppressing the votes of groups that don’t support its white-male dominated Christian nationalist ideology. Reducing minority representation, to them, is essential to destroying majority rule. Destroying Majority rule is how they win.

Gerrymandering that leads to Southern states being almost entirely represented by white, right-wing elected officials dramatically improves MAGA’s political calculus. In the short run, it improves the odds of retaining Congress in November. MAGA’ strategy to keep the White House in 2028 includes yet more Black disenfranchisement, through voter intimidation, deception and disruption.

So far, MAGA’s plan is working, raising the prospect that Trump and his successors may remain in power for the foreseeable future.

But another way to characterize the current drive to disenfranchise Black voters is that it is the desperate – and maybe final — act of a white nationalist party that is being rejected by increasing number of voters.

For American journalists, this ought to be epic, tectonic stuff, worth aggressive and ongoing coverage.

And keep in mind that in the mid- to late-20th century, the struggle for civil rights was the dominant story in American politics, the subject of vast amount of journalism, some of it heroic. Ultimately it was journalism that brought the civil rights marchers into the American public’s breakfast nooks and living rooms, forcing the country to reckon with a brutal and sordid history of racism, and, eventually, try to move beyond it.

But today, as in the early days of the civil rights movement, too much of the media is averting its eyes from the experience of Black people. Too much coverage treats this extraordinary and consequential display of racism and societal regression as if it were just an ordinary political battle.

Some Reporters Get It

Some mainstream journalists have recognized the racial element of redistricting, and their work provides models of better, more appropriate coverage.

As evidence that you can address both the racial and political nature of the Republican moves in a news article, consider Emily Cochrane’s reporting in the Times about a new Tennessee map “that slices up Memphis to scatter Black voters into neighboring districts, a move intended to eliminate the state’s last Democratic House seat.” After several paragraphs of partisan framing, she wrote:

Democrats, noting that about two-thirds of Memphis voters are Black, said it was a blatant attack on hard-won gains for fair representation in a state shaped by slavery, segregation and the civil rights movement.

She described the scene in the state capitol in Nashville during the special session to pass the new map:

Black lawmakers delivered emotional speeches about family members, friends and colleagues who endured segregation or struggled with barriers to voting in the 1960s. State Senator Charlane Oliver of Nashville, a Democrat, stood on her desk right before the vote, holding a banner reading “No Jim Crow 2.”

And she quoted an attendee:

“My race is who I am and it informs my politics,” said Danyelle Norment, 30, who woke up early to drive in from Memphis. “It’s not something that’s separate or can be left behind.”

She added, “it’s really, really important to have folks who can understand our lived experience.”

In the Washington Post, Justin Jouvenal profiled Press Robinson, an 88-year-old civil rights pioneer. “That law passed in 1965 was the bedrock of improvement of life in America for people of color,” Robinson told Jouvenal.

Now, Robinson fears a wipeout of Black political power, much like the one that occurred after Reconstruction.

“History is now repeating itself,” he said.

On PBS Newshour, Liz Landers covered the story as part of the network’s “Race Matters” series, bringing us the voice of Leona Tate, a civil rights activist:

So now we move backwards with the Supreme Court decision that will go down as one of the most racist rulings in our nation’s history.

Tate was 6 years old when she became one of the first students to desegregate a New Orleans school, Landers noted. Then Tate continued:

I had no idea what racism was at that time, but I knew by third grade that it was the color of my skin that made a difference. I just can’t believe that it’s still happening 66 years later. It’s cheating, to me. That’s how I feel. It’s really cheating. And it’s really illegal.

It does bring back that feeling from a long time ago, and it’s not a good feeling.

Read the Black Press

As in the 1950s and 60s, the Black press is revealing what the white press is slow to acknowledge.

Brandon Tensley, writing for Capital B, explained “How One Supreme Court Ruling Is Rewriting 60 Years of Voting Protections.” “Most Black Americans reside in the South,” he wrote. Lawmakers in former slaveholding states dismantling majority-Black districts “could change the balance of power and the complexion of leadership in this country.”

Gerren Keith Gaynor, writing for TheGrio, headlined the fact that “Black legislators lead the resistance as Republicans rush to redraw maps after gutting of Voting Rights Act.” “It’s disturbing and disgusting to see how this administration and the white leadership here are trying to codify white supremacy and dilute Black political voting power because that’s what’s happening,” Tennessee State Rep. Justin J. Pearson told Gaynor. “I think none of us should make any mistake about what is going on. The attempt to remove Black representation and our ability to elect representatives of our choice is one of the most significant attacks on Black voter participation and Black voter representation since the end of Reconstruction.”

TheRoot published a viral video of Louisiana resident Marshan Camese delivering a powerful speech at a state Senate hearing over redistricting. “I believe the country as a whole is rebuking your party. Y’all are in a death spiral,” he said. “That’s why y’all have to redistrict. That’s why y’all have to cheat.” MAGA, he said, “is the last breath of the Confederacy.”

Civil rights leaders are headed to Alabama tomorrow for a rally they’re calling “All Roads Lead to the South.” As I wrote in my Heads Up News newsletter this week, this could be the birth of a movement that combines the battle for voting rights with the battle for democracy.

“Black folks from across the country are gonna be busing in, flying in, to show up and to really begin organizing to turn out in the November election,” Wisdom Cole, the Senior National Director of Advocacy for the NAACP, told TheRoot. “This is such an important moment to activate all of us.”

Note: the rally in Alabama was held last Saturday.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Civil Rights, Democracy, Elections, Freedom, Inequity, Injustice, Media, Racism

The Sordid Details of Trump’s $1.776 Billion Slush Fund

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2026 //
7

Trump just pulled of his biggest heist of taxpayer money by settling a bogus lawsuit. He had sued the Treasury Department/IRS for the unauthorized release of his tax return, then agreed to settle if the Department of Justice created a fund to compensate anyone who had been injured by the “weaponization” of the law under President Biden.

Trump was projecting. Biden did not “weaponize” the Department of Justice. Trump did, directing his Attorney General to prosecute his political enemies, like Leticia James, James Comey, and John Brennan.

If anything, Merrick Garland was too timid in prosecuting the insurrectionists who tried to overturn the 2020 election and far too slow to appoint Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, whose investigation ran out of time.

Andrew Egger of The Bulwark describes the details of Trump’s political slush fund.

Basically, he has full control of the money. And he dies not have to disclose the recipients.

Egger wrote:

When I wrote Friday about the news that Donald Trump was about to drop his $10 billion IRS lawsuit in exchange for the creation of a $1.776 billion taxpayer-cash slush fund for his allies who claim the Biden administration “weaponized” the law against them, I noted that nothing was yet set in stone. At that moment, it still seemed possible that this obscene settlement—Trump’s biggest, most lawless, most brazen theft of taxpayer cash yet—might yet give them cold feet.

But no: Yesterday, they made the thing official. In fact, it’s somehow even worse than advertised.

It’s impossible to overstate this basic fact: Everything about the settlement fund, from the circumstances of its creation to the claims it makes about its own enforcement, is deliberately structured to short-circuit all outside accountability, government oversight, or judicial review. As I wrote Friday, there was a reason Trump’s guys (who happened to be both the plaintiffs and the defendants in the case) were hustling to reach the settlement quickly: The judge in the IRS case had been signaling her suspicion that Trump and his government were not actually on opposite sides of the claim, suggesting she was considering throwing out the case altogether. If they wanted to carry out the heist, time was of the essence.

The Justice Department’s enforcement order, released yesterday, and the settlement terms released last night carry on in this dubious fashion. According to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the United States loses custody and control of the $1.776 billion the minute it hits the settlement account created for the purpose: “Once the funds are deposited into the Designated Account,” he wrote in the order, “the United States has no liability whatsoever for the protection or safeguarding of those funds, regardless of bank failure, fraudulent transfers, or any other fraud or misuse of the funds.”

Meanwhile, the terms of the settlement fund make clear that the money’s disbursement—which, again, Trump’s United States government is trying to wash its hands of any liability for—will be a complete black box. “The Anti-Weaponization Fund shall have the power to determine its own procedures for submitting, receiving, processing, and granting or denying claims,” the settlement reads. “The Anti-Weaponization Fund may make those procedures public in whole or in part, at its discretion.”

Not only can the fund’s members keep secret how they’re making disbursement decisions, they can also keep a lid on who’s getting paid. The requirements for this are astonishingly open-ended: “To be eligible for relief,” the settlement states, a claimant must merely “assert at least one legal claim stating that the claimant was a victim of Lawfare and/or Weaponization.” Meanwhile, the only person the fund’s administrations will be required to brief on who got how much money is the attorney general—in a “confidential written report,” and even then only quarterly.

The cherry on top of this shit settlement sundae is this claim: “Because the claims process is voluntary, there shall be no appeal, arbitration, or judicial review of claims, offers, or other determinations made by the Anti-Weaponization Fund,” which is stated to be “enforceable and challengeable solely by Plaintiffs, Defendants, and the United States”—in other words, by Trump, Trump, and Trump.

The first opportunity to head off this disaster seems already to have passed. Nearly a hundred Democratic lawmakers signed an amicus brief filed in court Monday urging the judge not to dismiss the case as the parties requested, but to insist on weighing in on the terms of the settlement. But Judge Kathleen Williams ruled in a brief order yesterday that she lacked the power to do this—the settlement agreement was never docketed in the case, she said, so she had no authority to adjudicate it.

Once again, then, Trump’s aptitude for unprecedented shamelessness seems to have exposed yet another piece of our government that ultimately runs on the honor system: If a corrupt president wants to dip into the Treasury for literally any purpose whatsoever, all he has to do is sue the government, then settle with himself outside of court to create a payout fund for whatever purpose he might desire.

“It is Congress who appropriates money and it is the executive who spends it,” Matt Platkin, the former attorney general of New Jersey who is representing the Democratic lawmakers in the suit, told The Bulwark yesterday. “Put aside all of the potential corruption with this case—if the president can just sue himself and then settle with himself . . . and then spend huge amounts of money outside of that appropriations process, why would any president ever go to Congress for money ever again?”

It’s a great point—and one that reminds us that, ultimately, the responsibility for reining in this rampaging president falls not with the courts, but with Congress. It is not just the courts but Congress as well that Trump is cutting out of the loop with his obscene and indefensible settlement. Even here, Trump requires at least the legislature’s tacit permission to spend this money: They could pass a bill today to block a penny of that money from going out the door. Because of the funhouse-mirror world we live in and the villainous, power-hungry president we have, that bill would need to have the supermajority support required to overcome a presidential veto, but they do still have the power, if only they were to choose to exercise it.

But that funhouse-mirror reality is enough to prove on its own that just blocking the money wouldn’t go far enough. Trump is not merely asserting the power to jailbreak $1.8 billion from the Treasury to parcel out to his fans and allies. He is trying to create an upside-down new status quo where his single say-so is enough to overturn the will of two thirds of Congress minus one on all spending matters that really, really matter to him. It’s utterly un-American. It’s emperor stuff. If they had a shred of dignity left, they’d impeach the son of a bitch today.

Categories Accountability, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fraud, Trump

Georgia: Republicans’ $100 Million Primary for Governor

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2026 //
0

Today is primary day in Georgia. Jack Hassard offers as good an analysis of the Republican primary as you will see anywhere. Actually, better. Four men are running for the Republican nomination. They all rely on culture war issues, the red meat that gets voters excited, like immigration, crime, and low taxes. Most certainly, they are all conservative Christians. Sadly, none of them addresses the issues that matter most: the closing of hospitals, healthcare, education, the environment. They all embrace Trump, of course.

He blogs as “Citizen Jack.” He is a professor Emeritus of Science Education at Georgia State University.

Citizen Jack writes:

The Georgia primary is today, Tuesday, May 19. The three weeks of advance voting ended on Friday. Although  I didn’t vote on the Republican ticket, I’ve suffered through the continuous bombardment of TV ads by four white Christian pro-Trump men running to be on the November ballot for governor. 

No Limit on Spending

The Republican primary for governor in Georgia has become one of the most expensive and combative races in state history. Right now, according to AJC’s Greg Bluestein, the quad has spent over $100 million in the primary.  Attorney General Chris Carr, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, and billionaire businessman Rick Jackson are flooding television screens with nearly identical messages: they are Christian conservatives, loyal to Donald Trump, committed to cutting taxes, and determined to crack down on undocumented immigrants.  Here is what they’ve pored into the local TV stations. 

  • Chris Carr: Put in $4 million, raised $400,000, 2 million on hand
  • Bert Jones: Put in $16 million, raised &200,000, $2.1 million on hand
  • Rick Jackson: Put in $80 million, raised only $200,000, $7. million on hand. 
  • Brad Raffensperger: Put in $6 million, raised $217,000, $2.5 million on hand.

What They Avoid Saying

What is striking is not merely what these candidates say, but what they avoid discussing. 

Education funding, hospital closures, rising health-care costs, retirement insecurity, environmental threats, public transportation, affordable housing, and gun violence barely appear in their ads or debate rhetoric. 

Instead, the Republican field has narrowed Georgia’s future to culture-war symbolism and tax-cut promises.

That narrowing says a great deal about the current direction of Georgia Republican politics.

Chris Carr

Carr presents himself as the polished establishment conservative. As attorney general, he has aligned himself closely with national Republican priorities and emphasized law enforcement and conservative social policies. His campaign argues that lower taxes and a pro-business climate will keep Georgia economically strong. But Carr rarely discusses the deep inequalities beneath the state’s economic growth. 

Georgia continues to rank poorly in maternal mortality, rural health access, and educational equity. Thousands of Georgians live in counties with limited medical services, and many public schools remain underfunded. Carr’s campaign offers little indication that those issues are central to his agenda.

Brad Raffensperger

Raffensperger occupies a more complicated position. Nationally, he became known for refusing Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. Yet in the governor’s race, Raffensperger has attempted to reposition himself as a conventional conservative Republican emphasizing tax cuts, Christian values, and public safety.   His strategy appears designed to reassure Republican primary voters who still distrust him for defying Trump. Disappointingly he claimed he blocked Joe Biden and Stacey Abrams from trying to make it legal for illegal immigrants to vote. Simply not true, Brad. And he borrowed a campaign strategy used by Governor Kemp–a shotgun. 

Among the four major candidates, Raffensperger is perhaps the least inflammatory rhetorically. Yet even he has largely avoided bold proposals on expanding health care, addressing climate risks, or improving public education. 

His campaign reflects the reality that Republican primaries increasingly punish policy moderation and reward ideological conformity. Rather than using his independent reputation to broaden the debate, Raffensperger has mostly adapted himself to the same narrow framework as his rivals.

Bert Jones

Jones has campaigned as the most openly Trump-aligned candidate. Backed by Trump himself, Jones emphasizes immigration enforcement, conservative cultural themes, and tax elimination.   His ads frame politics as a battle between “real Georgians” and threatening outsiders. Yet Georgia’s economy depends heavily on immigrant labor in agriculture, construction, hospitality, and logistics. Harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric may energize parts of the Republican base, but it risks deepening division while ignoring practical economic realities.

Jones also promotes eliminating the state income tax, a popular Republican talking point. But candidates rarely explain what services would be reduced to compensate for the lost revenue. Georgia relies on income tax revenue to fund schools, universities, transportation, and public safety. Promising massive tax cuts without explaining the consequences may be politically effective, but it is fiscally evasive.

Rick Jackson

Jackson, the billionaire outsider, has poured enormous sums of personal wealth into the race and attempted to position himself as a businessman who can “fix” government.   Like the others, he stresses deportation policies, conservative Christianity, and tax reductions. 

Yet Jackson’s campaign has already been shadowed by reports that undocumented workers were employed at his property despite his hardline immigration message.   The contradiction highlights a larger pattern in modern Republican politics: immigrants are politically useful as targets even while the economy quietly depends on their labor. Jackson has the most offensive immigrant ad of the four candidates. He uses one case to demonize and lie about immigrants. 

More broadly, Jackson’s candidacy reflects the growing influence of billionaire self-financed campaigns. When wealthy candidates can spend tens of millions of dollars on advertising, elections risk becoming less about democratic participation and more about financial saturation. That trend distances politics from the everyday concerns of working Georgians struggling with housing costs, child care, medical debt, and stagnant wages.

“Across all four campaigns, one theme dominates: symbolic politics over practical governance.”

There Are Real Issues 

Georgia faces serious long-term challenges. Rural hospitals continue to close. Teachers leave the profession because of burnout and low pay. Metro Atlanta struggles with traffic congestion and housing affordability. Climate change threatens coastal communities and increases severe weather risks. Yet these issues receive little sustained attention in the Republican primary.

Instead, voters are offered simplified narratives centered on religion, fear of immigrants, tax reduction, and loyalty to Trump. Christianity itself becomes less a moral framework than a campaign brand. Faith is invoked constantly, yet there is little discussion of poverty, health care access, or social responsibility — concerns traditionally associated with religious ethics.

The candidates’ silence on environmental issues is particularly revealing. Georgia’s coastline, water systems, and urban air quality face increasing pressure from development and climate change. Younger voters increasingly care about sustainability and clean energy, yet Republican candidates seldom mention these topics except to criticize federal regulations.

The same absence exists around retirement and aging. Georgia’s population is growing older, and many retirees face rising housing and medical costs. None of the leading Republican campaigns have made retirement security a central issue.

In the end, the Republican primary reveals a party focused more on ideological signaling than comprehensive governance. The candidates compete aggressively over who is most conservative, most pro-Trump, and toughest on immigration. But governing a complex and rapidly changing state requires more than slogans and tax pledges.

Georgia’s future will depend on schools, hospitals, infrastructure, environmental stewardship, and economic fairness as much as partisan identity. A campaign that neglects those realities risks serving political ambition more than the long-term interests of Georgians.

Categories Democracy, Economy, Elections, Environment, Georgia, Health, Immigration, Republicans, Trump

Democracy Docket Denounces Colorado Governor Polis’ Decision to Release Tina Peters

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2026 //
8

Governor Jared Polis stunned defenders of democracy and fair elections by commuting the prison sentence of Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk who was serving a nine-year sentence for her actions. She was sentenced in October 2024.

Peters first certified the 2020 elections as fair, then allowed fellow election deniers access to the voting machines in her county. She was tried by a jury of her peers in a Republican county by a Republican prosecutor and found guilty.

Trump pressured Polis to release Peters, even threatening to cut off federal funds to Colorado if Peters was not freed. Trump gave her a federal pardon, but it had no effect on her state conviction.

Last week, Governor Polis commuted Peters’ nine-year sentence. She will be free in a matter of days. He says he thought her sentence was too harsh.

Democracy Docket, a site established by attorney Marc Elias to monitor and report on voting rights and fair elections, denounced Polis’s decision to free Peters. His decision is a win for election deniers and Trump. It makes light of her dereliction of duty. She is likely to win a big reward from Trump’s slush fund of $1.7 billion for his allies, if that grift is approved by the Treasury Departnent and allowed to stand by the courts.

Democracy Docket released this statement:

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) announced Friday he is granting clemency to Tina Peters — the former election official convicted for her role in a voting system breach — cutting her sentence and making her eligible for parole as soon as next month.

The move marks a dramatic and controversial intervention in one of the most closely watched election interference cases to emerge after the 2020 election — and comes after months of sustained pressure from President Donald Trump and his far-right allies to secure Peters’ release.

“We condemn Governor Polis’ clemency grant. It is a gross injustice to our elections, election workers and democracy with far-reaching consequences,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) said in a statement. “This is a dark day for democracy.”

According to local reports, Polis is reducing Peters’ nine-year prison sentence, saying her guilt was not in dispute but that the punishment itself was excessive.

“She got a sentence that was harsh. It was a 9 year sentence,” Polis said in March. “So we always look at people’s sentences. And when you have people that are elderly, and we’re looking at this across a number of many people — people in their 70s or 80s in our system — how much of a threat to society are they and how do we balance that in a way that makes sure they can spend their last year few years at home?”

The decision leaves intact Peters’ felony conviction — but significantly shortens the consequences for a case that election officials and democracy advocates have pointed to as a clear example of accountability for tampering with election systems.

“It’s unfortunate to see the Governor of Colorado succumbing to the bullying tactics of election conspiracy theorists. He has thrown state and county election officials, Republicans and Democrats, under the bus after they resisted the corruption Ms. Peters engaged in and withstood attacks for many years as a result,” David Becker, executive director of Center for Election Innovation & Research, said. “Ms. Peters continues to express no remorse about her crimes and will likely now be a featured performer on the election grift circuit. It is a sad day for the rule of law and accountability.”

Peters was convicted in 2024 after prosecutors showed she facilitated unauthorized access to Mesa County voting equipment and helped expose sensitive system data, actions driven by false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. A jury found her guilty on multiple counts, and she was sentenced to nine years in prison.

“Tina Peters’ actions have made life harder, not only for election officials here in Colorado, but make no mistake, for election officials all across the country. Her conduct became a rallying point for election conspiracy movements that fueled hostility and distrust towards the very people responsible for administering free and fair elections,” Matt Crane, a former Republican clerk and executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, said. “Rather than standing with public service servants and defending one of our nation’s most cherished rights, the right to vote, Governor Polis is bending the knee to the same political forces and conspiracy movements that are actively undermining confidence in our democratic institutions. That choice carries consequences far beyond this single case.”

Polis’ clemency order follows an April ruling from a Colorado appeals court that upheld Peters’ conviction but ordered her to be resentenced.

Polis said he agreed that her political beliefs — including her promotion of election conspiracy theories — should not factor into the length of her punishment.

“Clerks have been intimidated. We’ve had clerks have their lives threatened. We had a clerk who was pregnant in 2022 have her unborn child threatened. We had an office in Colorado fire bombed last year,” Crane added. “So whether it’s Tina or somebody else who’s spreading false rumors and inciting people to do violent things, unfortunately, we have to spend a lot of time preparing for that.”

After Colorado officials refused to release Peters, Trump escalated his campaign on her behalf, issuing a symbolic presidential pardon that carries no legal force over state convictions and repeatedly attacking Colorado leaders. The administration also took punitive actions against the state, including moves affecting federal funding and the relocation of key federal assets.

At the same time, far-right figures and election deniers have increasingly framed Peters as a political prisoner, with some escalating to threats of violence and calls for direct intervention to free her — rhetoric that alarmed state officials and democracy watchdogs.

Polis had previously rejected any suggestion that Peters’ case would be influenced by political pressure.

“Tina Peters was convicted by a jury of her peers, prosecuted by a Republican District Attorney and in a Republican county of Colorado and found guilty of violating Colorado state laws including criminal impersonation,” Polis said in December. “No President has jurisdiction over state law nor the power to pardon a person for state convictions. This is a matter for the courts to decide, and we will abide by court orders.”

Matt Cohen contributed to this reporting.

Categories Colorado, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Trump

Robert Reich on America’s Madman-in-Chief

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2026 //
7

Robert Reich, who served as Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration, posted a provocative column overnight.

Friends,

My first quote of the week comes from Trump on Air Force One, on his way back from Beijing on Friday — telling David Sanger of The New York Times:

“I had a total military victory. But the fake news, guys like you, write incorrectly. You’re a fake guy. We had a total military victory. I actually think it’s sort of treasonous what you write. You should be ashamed of yourself. I actually think it’s treason.”

Note Trump’s use of the pronoun “I.” He didn’t say “we” had a military victory. Trump’s malignant narcissism is worsening. 

Also take note of his blatant lie. His war in Iran has been anything but a victory. His delusions and deceptions about the war are escalating. 

Americans are far worse off today than we were before Trump started his war. We’re now paying $1.50 a gallon more for gas, on average. Paying even more, indirectly, for the diesel fuel powering trucks that transport much of what we buy. Food costs are also rising because the fertilizer used to grow much of the food we eat can’t move through the Strait of Hormuz. The soaring cost of jet fuel is also being passed on to those of us who fly. 

And none of these costs will come down soon, even if the war ends tomorrow, because the price for oil is largely set in a global market, and much of the oil infrastructure of the Middle East is in ruins. 

Trump has made it harder for us to switch from oil and gas to renewable sources of energy, in which China is excelling. Trump loves fossil fuels — he’s subsidizing oil and gas and has ended subsidies for renewables (remember his election deal with Big Oil?) — but the future lies with wind, solar, and biomass, and the batteries that store them. 

And note the not-so-subtle threat Trump directed at Sanger — that Sanger could be accused of treason if he continued to report that Trump’s war is failing. Trump’s dangerous accusations are intensifying. 

“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all. That’s the only thing that motivates me.”

Which brings me to my other quote of the week — Trump’s comment just before leaving for China that:

I believe the first part, that Trump doesn’t think about Americans’ financial situation; he never has and never will. But it can’t possibly be that the only thing motivating him is preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon. 

I say this because we were much closer to achieving this goal when Iran was still observing the nuclear deal it struck with Barack Obama — in which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities, including reducing its enriched uranium stockpile and modifying reactors to prevent the production of weapons-grade plutonium. (In exchange, the United States, United Nations, and European Union agreed to lift international economic and financial sanctions on Iran.)

But Trump pulled out of that deal. And Iran’s new leadership is hellbent on creating a nuclear weapon. Trump’s and Israel’s aggression apparently have proven to Iran’s new (and more extremist) leaders how much they need it. And the Trump regime has no idea where Iran is storing its near-weapons-grade plutonium. 

Friends, a madman is in charge of American foreign policy — but almost no Republican member of Congress, no major CEO or university president or head of a major foundation, and certainly no member of Trump’s regime is willing to sound the alarm. They are all cowards. 

I mentioned to you earlier this week that I had dinner with a group of political operatives who gave 30 percent odds that JD Vance and Marco Rubio would lead a coup within the next three to four months, invoking the 25th Amendment to get rid of the madman. Those odds may be higher now. 

But you and I are not powerless. We can achieve the next best outcome — limiting Trump’s power to do more damage — by getting out the vote on or before November 3 and throwing the cowardly Republican senators and representatives out on their assets. 

We have less than six months to get the largest midterm turnout in American history — a blue tsunami that will start the process of repair, reform, and return to sanity. 

I know how frightening and discouraging all of this has been. I know how daunting the forces of cruelty and corruption can sometimes feel. I also know how hard you’ve been fighting, while at the same time working to keep yourself, your family, and your community on an even keel. And I thank you for it. 

Despite Trump, please do not feel shame in America. Feel pride in the ideals we share. Feel honored that you are an activist warrior on the right side of history. Feel strength in our conviction. Feel power in our cause.

Have no doubt: We will prevail against the madman-in-chief and his lawless regime. 

Categories Accountability, Character, Cruelty, Democracy, Elections, Environment, Extremism, History, Trump

Heather Cox Richardson: The Fight for Democracy, from Brown to Callais

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2026 //
2

Heather Cox Richardson sums up the struggle for equal rights since the Brown decision of May 17, 1954. The struggle has continued in the years since then, aided especially by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The VRA enabled Black Americans to have a voice, representation, and genuine political power. The U.S. Supreme Court decided on April 29, 2026, in Louisiana v. Callais that there is no longer any need for federal protection of voting rights for Black Americans, and they made a decision that is certain to lead to the loss of meaningful representation for Blacks, who–the Court majority decided–no longer needed federal protection. The former Confederacy proceeded to enact redistricting that will wipe out many Black-held seats in Congress. Racism is alive.

Richardson writes:

Seventy-two years ago tomorrow, on May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously decided Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. That landmark decision declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional because segregated schools denied Black children “the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Three years after the Brown v. Board decision, in the face of massive resistance to desegregation in the South, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 to protect the right of Black Americans to vote, using the federal government to overrule the state laws that limited voter registration and kept Black voters from the polls. To prevent the passage of the first federal civil rights legislation since 1875, South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond launched the longest filibuster in U.S. history, speaking for 24 hours and 18 minutes.

(Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) broke Thurmond’s record on March 31 through April 1, 2025, speaking for 25 hours, 5 minutes, and 59 seconds, but his speech was not a filibuster.)

Southern Democrats known as “Dixiecrats” managed to weaken the measure, but Senate majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson (D-TX) managed to wrestle the Civil Rights Act of 1957 through Congress, and Black Americans and their white allies began trying to register Black Americans to vote.

But the law proved too weak to force white registrars to allow Black voters onto the rolls, and by 1961, activists with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced “snick”) were at work in Mississippi to promote voter registration. In 1964 they launched the “Freedom Summer,” bringing college students from northern schools to work together with Black people from Mississippi to educate and register Black voters.

Just as the project was getting underway, three organizers—James Chaney, from Mississippi, and Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner from New York—disappeared outside Philadelphia, Mississippi. Lyndon Johnson, president by then, used the popular rage over the three missing voting rights workers to pressure Congress into passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, designed to try to hold back the white supremacists and to make it possible for Black Americans to register to vote. The measure passed, and on July 2, Johnson signed it into law.

On August 4, investigators found the bodies of the three missing men. Ku Klux Klan members working with local law enforcement officers had murdered them and then buried the bodies in an earthen dam that was under construction.

And still, white officials refused to accept the idea of Black voting. In Selma, Alabama, where the city’s voting rolls were 99% white even though Black Americans outnumbered white Americans among the 29,500 people who lived there, local Black organizers had launched a voter registration drive in 1963, but a judge stopped voter registration meetings by prohibiting public gatherings of more than two people.

Selma voting rights activist Amelia Boynton invited the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the city to draw national attention to its struggle, and he and other prominent Black leaders arrived in January 1965. For seven weeks, Black residents made a new push to register to vote. County sheriff James Clark arrested almost 2,000 of them on a variety of charges, including contempt of court and parading without a permit. A federal court ordered Clark not to interfere with orderly registration, so he forced Black applicants to stand in line for hours before taking a “literacy” test. Not a single person passed.

Then, on February 18, white police officers, including local police, sheriff’s deputies, and Alabama state troopers, beat and shot an unarmed man, 26-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson, who was marching for voting rights at a demonstration in his hometown of Marion, Alabama, about 25 miles northwest of Selma. Jackson died eight days later, on February 26. Black leaders in Selma decided to defuse the community’s anger by planning a long march—54 miles—from Selma to the state capitol at Montgomery to draw attention to the murder and voter suppression.

On March 7, 1965, the marchers set out. As they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, state troopers and other law enforcement officers met the unarmed marchers with billy clubs, bullwhips, and tear gas. They fractured the skull of young activist John Lewis and beat Amelia Boynton unconscious. A newspaper photograph of the 54-year-old Boynton, seemingly dead in the arms of another marcher, illustrated the depravity of those determined to stop Black voting.

On March 15, President Johnson addressed a nationally televised joint session of Congress to ask for the passage of a national voting rights act. “Their cause must be our cause too,” he said. “[A]ll of us…must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.” Two days later, he submitted to Congress proposed voting rights legislation.

Under the protection of federal troops, the Selma marchers completed their trip to Montgomery on March 25. Their ranks had grown as they walked until they numbered about 25,000 people. That night, Viola Liuzzo, a 39-year-old mother of five who had arrived from Michigan to help after Bloody Sunday, was murdered by four Ku Klux Klan members who tailed her as she ferried demonstrators out of the city.

A bipartisan majority of Congress passed the Voting Rights Act by a vote of 77–19 in the Senate and 333–85 in the House. Dr. King and Mrs. Boynton were guests of honor as President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on August 6. Recalling “the outrage of Selma,” Johnson said: “This right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies.”

And yet, on April 29, 2026, the Supreme Court gutted the protections for the Black-majority districts Congress provided for in the Voting Rights Act after years of weakening the law in other ways. In its wake, Republican-dominated southern state legislatures are rushing to redraw their district lines to dilute the votes of Black Democrats.

Today, thousands of Americans, including eighteen members of Congress, traveled to Selma and Mongomery to call Americans to action to protect voting rights. Pastor Kenneth Sharpton Glasgow told Joseph D. Bryant of Alabama news site AL, “This moment is bigger than Democrats or Republicans. This is about democracy itself. This is about whether Black communities, poor communities, rural communities, formerly incarcerated people, and marginalized voices will continue to have representation and political power in America.”

Speakers united around the theme that those trying to gerrymander their way into control of Congress in defiance of voters had reawakened a movement. “They think they can draw us out of power,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told an audience in Montgomery.

“They do not know the sleeping giant that they just awakened. Because it is not a coincidence, and our whole country must understand, that it was not until voting rights were ratified in this country that we got the Great Society. Because when Black Americans have the right to vote and that vote is protected, our schools get funded. When voted rights are protected, healthcare gets expanded. When voted rights are protected, our country moves forward. And Montgomery, that’s what they’re actually afraid of. They’re afraid of us coming together. They’re afraid of us protecting one another.”

—

Notes:

https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/research/online-documents/civil-rightAs-act-1957

https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2026/05/mass-mobilization-expected-in-selma-montgomery-this-weekend-after-supreme-court-decision.html

https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2026/05/church-buses-and-charter-buses-are-heading-to-selma-and-montgomery-for-a-reclamation-of-power.html

https://www.booker.senate.gov/senator-bookers-marathon-speech

Bluesky:

indivisible.org/post/3mlyzqeapbs2g

Categories Bigotry, Civil Rights, Democracy, Elections, Extremism, History, Inequality, Injustice, Racism

Colorado: Governor Polis Releases Tina Peters from Jail

By dianeravitch
May 15, 2026 //
8

We are all familiar with Trump’s efforts to rewrite the history of January 6, 2021, as a peaceful protest objecting to a “rigged” and “stolen” election. Even now, Trump continues to try to seize state ballots to prove that he beat Biden in 2020.

The election wasn’t even close, neither in the popular vote nor the electoral college. Trump was in charge of the federal government. Republicans in Georgia recounted the ballots three times. More than 60 courts turned down Trump’s demands because he had no evidence of fraud.

One of the most prominent election deniers was Tina Peters in Colorado. Trump gave her a federal pardon, but she was convicted in a state court.

Tina Peters was County Clerk of Mesa County in Colorado from 2019 to 2023. Mesa County conducts a bipartisan audit after elections to assure there were no irregularities. Peters signed off on the audit. However, she met with individuals who insisted the results were rigged, and she allowed an unauthorized person to access the county’s Dominion voting machines and copy their hard drives. She was arrested, charged, and found guilty of seven charges, four of which were felonies.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis just commuted her sentence but did not pardon her.

The New York Times reported:

Tina Peters, perhaps the most prominent 2020 election denier who remains behind bars, is set to go free after Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado, a Democrat, commuted her sentence on Friday.

The remarkable development cuts short the roughly nine-year sentence that Ms. Peters, a former county clerk in Mesa County, Colo., was given after being convicted in 2024 for her role in a brazen plot to examine voting machines under her control after the 2020 election. Ms. Peters had tried to prove that the machines had been used to rig the contest against President Trump.

In an interview at the Colorado State Capitol, the governor said his commutation was not an attempt to placate Mr. Trump, who has leveled a barrage of funding cuts and policy attacks at Colorado in a hostile effort to free Ms. Peters.

Instead, Mr. Polis said he believed that Ms. Peters, a nonviolent first-time offender, had received too harsh a sentence because of her embrace of conspiracy theories about Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss.

“She committed a crime; she deserves to be a convicted felon,” said Mr. Polis, who noted that he was not pardoning Ms. Peters. But, he added, “she was given an unusually harsh sentence.”

Mr. Polis called Ms. Peters’s beliefs about the 2020 election “dangerously incorrect,” but said they should not have been an element of her original sentencing.

“I think it’s an important message we send out, that supports free speech in our country,” he said.

Ms. Peters will be released on parole on June 1, the governor said.

Her impending freedom is the latest example of the steady erosion of efforts to hold supporters of Mr. Trump accountable for attempts to overturn the 2020 election. On his first day back in the White House last year, he granted clemency to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Investigations into his actions, by both federal investigators and local law enforcement officials in Georgia, quickly collapsed.

But forcing the release of Ms. Peters, who was convicted of a state crime and not a federal one, had proved to be more challenging for Mr. Trump, who issued her a symbolic pardon. Her continued imprisonment undercut the president’s sweeping attempt to rewrite the history of the 2020 election.

The commutation by Mr. Polis was one of the most agonizing decisions about justice and punishment he has faced in his two terms as an against-the-grain Democratic governor. He has previously irked fellow Democrats by supporting the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health secretary and by vetoing dozens of bills passed by Colorado’s Democrat-controlled legislature.

Polis and Senator John Fetterman are both against-the-grain Democrats.

Categories Accountability, Colorado, Elections, Extremism, Trump
« Older Entries