Redistricting has caused a Kansas swing U.S. House district to tilt in partisan makeup towards the GOP.
Kansas’ Third Congressional district, long-considered a swing district, went from a D+4 partisan rating prior to redistricting to a R+3 according to Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight ratings system.
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Tennessee Republican Party Chair Scott Golden told The Tennessee Star, “I’m very optimistic about Nashville’s chances following the RNC’s site selection committee visit to Tennessee.”
The Star previously reported that Nashville is a finalist to be a host city for the 2024 Republican nominating convention.
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The Star News Network’s National Political Editor, Neil W. McCabe, visited Dunwoody, Georgia, on Wednesday and spoke to former Diversity Advisor Bruce LeVell under President Trump about why the president appealed to black voters.
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What did Barack Obama and Joe Biden know about the Russiagate collusion hoax their fellow Democrats ginned up to kneecap Donald Trump – and when did they know it? How much did their chicanery contribute to Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade the Ukraine?
Those questions are coming into sharp relief following a definitive report by my RealClearInvestigations colleague Paul Sperry last week that places the worst political scandal in our nation’s history and Putin’s brutal war directly inside the White House.
Drawing on a wide range of documents, many never previously reported, Sperry details how the Obama administration worked closely with the Clinton campaign and a foreign government – Ukraine – in a “sweeping and systematic effort” to interfere in the 2016 election. It turns out Democrats were guilty of every false charge they lodged against Trump.
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With U.S. and world food prices set to soar due to inflation and supply shortages stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a key GOP lawmaker is asking the Pentagon to study the potential for conflict if the global food supply shrinks by 5%.
U.S. farmers will pay $300-$400 more per acre to grow crops this year due to inflation and costs associated with the war in Europe, Georgia Republican Rep. Austin Scott warned Monday on the Just the News TV show.
Shipping is another issue, as trade is throttled by war-related disruptions and tough economic sanctions against Russia.
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Democrats voted down a motion to consider GOP legislation that would reverse several Biden administration energy policies, according to Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s office.
During the vote Wednesday evening, 219 Democrats voted against consideration of the American Energy Independence from Russia Act offered by Republican Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw, McCarthy’s office said. The legislation was introduced by Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Bruce Westerman on Feb. 28.
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The nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Friday shifted its forecasts for two 2022 Senate races in the direction of Republicans.
The report moved the North Carolina Senate race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Richard Burr moved from “toss-up” to “likely Republican.” And moved the Colorado Senate race, in which Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet is seeking a third term, from “solid Democrat” into the “likely Democrat” catagory.
The North Carolina GOP primary is now a competitive race between former President Trump-endorsed Rep. Ted Budd, former Gov. Pat McCrory and former Rep. Mark Walker, with (with Budd and McCrory currently deadlocked).
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In the election of 2016, Donald Trump appealed to citizenship, sovereignty, and borders. This was a direct entreaty to the people as the ultimate source of sovereign authority, bypassing the ruling-class elites that dominate the media and the universities; his appeal also ignored political experts, pollsters, and government bureaucracy. In the postmodern world, the nation-state is under attack everywhere as the source of all evil, the cause of war, selfishness, racism, white privilege, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and all the other irrational phobias that make up the universe of political correctness. The idea of the nation-state itself is said to be irrational and arbitrary.
All of this overwrought criticism of nationalism and the nation-state overlooks a very significant point developed in my new book, The United States in Crisis: Citizenship, Immigration, and the Nation State: the nation-state is the only form of political organization that can sustain constitutional government and the rule of law.
No empire has ever been a constitutional democracy or republic, nor will constitutional government exist in global government. If, as is widely alleged, the dialectic of History is inevitably tending toward global governance and universal citizenship, then it is also tending toward tyranny.
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The GOP-dominated Ohio Redistricting Commission has passed its third set of state legislative maps, a week after a court-ordered deadline and with one Republican objection.
The 4-3 commission vote means if the maps are approved by the Ohio Supreme Court, they last only four years rather than the traditional 10 that would have happened with bipartisan support on the commission.
Commission Co-Chair and House Speaker Bob Cupp, R-Lima, said the new maps, which were passed late Thursday, met all the constitutional requirements established when voters created the commission and twice when the court ruled previous maps were unfairly gerrymandered to benefit Republicans.
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Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed Public Affairs Specialist and all-star panelist Clint Brewer in studio to weigh in on recent Democratic lawsuit filed in response to Middle Tennessee’s redistricting.
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Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Scott Golden told The Tennessee Star that the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) site selection committee for the 2024 Republican National Convention will be heading to visit Nashville “in the next week or so.”
Chairman Golden, who has attended three of the last four Republican National Conventions, said that a unique aspect of Nashville is that, if Nashville were to win the bid to host the 2024 Republican National Convention, the bulk of official convention business would take place in a small area, where most activities are within walking distance of each other.
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The inspector general for the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) has opened a formal investigation into allegations that the law enforcement agency has been improperly spying on Republican members of Congress, their staff, and visitors to their offices, the Federalist reported on Tuesday.
Concerns that the USCP have overstepped their bounds have been simmering for months, with some Republican lawmakers alleging that the Capitol Police have been transformed into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “personal Praetorian Guard.”
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Nashville continues to be in the hunt to host the 2024 Republican National Convention.
The four final cities under consideration to host the 2024 GOP presidential nominating convention were Nashville, Salt Lake City, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh.
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Rep. Lance Gooden, a Texas Republican whose district has been overrun by the surge in illegal immigration, says the border insecurity that Joe Biden unleashed isn’t just impacting border states. It’s spreading to the interior of the country, and with it the temptation to impeach the president if Republicans gain control of Congress next year.
“I really believe that impeachment could be on the table,” Gooden told Just the News in a recent interview. “And I would support that, certainly.”
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As part of his Contract with America, House Speaker (and my former boss) Newt Gingrich helped first introduce the Child Tax Credit (CTC), passing it in 1997. Originally the idea of President Ronald Reagan, the CTC was founded on the conservative principles that raising children is God’s work, and parents should not be punished or held back for choosing family in a country that is always moving forward. President Trump continued this tradition by doubling the CTC in 2017. As Speaker Gingrich said during a 1995 speech, “We believe that parents ought to have the first claim on money to take care of their children rather than bureaucrats.”
Democrats reformed the CTC in 2021, as part of their wildly overdone American Rescue Plan. They’ve sought to continue their changes to the CTC in the even-more-overdone Build Back Better Act (BBB), a hulking Frankenstein of bad Democratic ideas. But the new version of the CTC may be an exception. It continues fulfilling Speaker Gingrich’s contract, empowering families to work and earn, and to raise their children with their own values. The spirit and core of that policy is even better reflected by flat, poverty-busting monthly disbursement of the credit. It’s the only salvageable ship in the sinking BBB fleet.
The CTC – in its 2021 form – does not stray too far from the $500-per-child tax cut that was initially passed in 1997. The payments, which provided eligible families with up to $300 per month for each qualifying child under age 6 and up to $250 per month for each qualifying child aged 6 to 17, stimulated regional economies, protected families from rising costs, provided direct cash relief, and removed bureaucratic hurdles.
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Even as President Biden strives to project a more police-friendly posture in public amid a historic surge in urban violence, his administration is quietly planning sweeping, unilateral executive action, GOP senators suspect, that is “tantamount to defunding the police” and “would only further demoralize law enforcement.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged this week that there’s been “a surge [in] crime over the last two years,” adding that the “underfunding” of police departments is partially to blame.
“The Department of Justice has announced $139 million in grants to cities for community policing, which will put 1,000 more officers on the streets,” Psaki said. “[Biden has] also proposed doubling those grants, and he’s called for an additional $750 million for federal law enforcement.”
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Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich is warning of possible jail time for Jan. 6 committee members should Republicans reclaim the House majority during the upcoming midterm election.
“You’re gonna have a Republican majority in the House, a Republican majority in the Senate. And all these people who’ve been so tough and so mean and so nasty are going to be delivered subpoenas for every document, every conversation, every tweet, every email,” Gingrich told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday.
“I think when you have a Republican Congress, this is all going to come crashing down. The wolves are gonna find out they’re now sheep, and they’re the ones who are, in fact, I think, going to face a real risk of going to jail for the kind of laws that they’re breaking,” said Gingrich, though he did not specify which laws he believes have been broken.
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More than 40 House Republicans are calling for the ouster of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona after a report of his apparent role in a national schools group’s calling some concerned parents “domestic terrorists,” while 24 GOP senators are asking the nation’s top education official for answers.
The push comes after Fox News reported earlier this week on emails indicating that Cardona solicited a highly publicized letter to President Joe Biden from the National School Boards Association asking that officials apply the Patriot Act and other counterterror tools to dissenting parents.
An NSBA email said the letter to Biden was a “request from the secretary.” Cardona denied having anything to do with the group’s letter.
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Lanhee Chen, an educator and GOP policy adviser to presidential candidates, could have reconsidered his plans to run for state controller in California after the recall election against Gov. Gavin Newsom flopped so badly in September.
Despite false poll-driven drama over the summer, Newsom easily sailed to victory in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two to one and Republican registrations have continued to dwindle in recent years.
Chen, 43, certainly doesn’t need the unglamorous and usually thankless job. In recent years, the statewide-elected controller post, California’s top bean-counter and auditor, has mainly operated outside the media spotlight even though the office holder is considered the state’s chief financial officer. That could change if the next controller is willing to shake up business as usual in Sacramento— exactly what Chen is pledging to do.
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Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan is the most likely candidate to take over the House Judiciary Committee if the GOP wins back Congress next year. Ask him what he wants to investigate and who he wants to subpoena, and he doesn’t hesitate. Not even for even a second.
“Fauci,” he told Just the News, referring to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. infectious disease specialist overseeing America’s pandemic response.
While the many conflicting messages and reversals of the pandemic response are ripe for investigation, Republicans like Jordan also want to press Fauci about why America was funding China’s bat research on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology through a U.S. nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance and why NIH revived a dangerous form of experimentation known as gain of function in 2017.
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Georgia Speaker of the House David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge) said this week that members of the state’s GOP will suffer a “bloodbath” in 2022 if they continue to allege voter fraud occurred during the 2020 elections. Ralston made those remarks to the Atlanta-based WABE, which is affiliated with National Public Radio.
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New polling from Axios and Generation Lab shows that Democrat college students are far more likely than their Republican classmates to refuse to date, work for, or even be friends with someone who voted for the other party’s presidential candidate.
71 percent of Democrats in college said they would not go on a date with someone who voted for the GOP presidential candidate. 41 percent would not shop at a business owned by the same. 37 percent would not be friends with someone who voted for that candidate, and 30 percent would not work for that person.
Republicans in college were far more tolerant of those with differing views. Though 31 percent said they would not go on a date with someone who voted for the opposing presidential candidate, only 7 percent said they would not work for or support a business owned by the same. 5 percent of Republicans in college said they would not be friends with someone who voted for the Democratic presidential ticket.
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In Florida, for the first time in modern political history, the number of registered Republican voters outnumber registered Democrats, raising concerns about whether donors, Washington Democrats and others will focus their efforts elsewhere.
At the same time, Republicans control most of Florida state government, and nationally recognized GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis is headed into a reelection cycle with a huge amount of campaign cash.
Among Democratic ranks, there is a concern that big donors and national Democrats have now come to view Florida as a solidly red state. Despite a $100 million injection from Michael Bloomberg during the 2020 election, former President Trump carried the state and the GOP picked up statehouse and congressional seats.
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Former President Donald Trump struck a deal this past weekend to clear the crowded field in North Carolina’s Republican primary for Senate for Rep. Ted Budd, his preferred candidate, a source close with Budd and familiar with the meeting confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Budd, who joined the fray in April and received Trump’s endorsement two months later, has failed to emerge as the frontrunner in a GOP primary that includes former Gov. Pat McCrory and former Rep. Mark Walker. One recent poll conducted for the conservative group Club for Growth, which has also backed Budd, found the congressman slightly behind McCrory even as Budd’s popularity rose in recent months, while Walker remained in a distant third.
An internal poll from McCrory’s campaign, however, showed the former governor up by 15 points.
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The nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Friday shifted eight high-stakes gubernatorial races toward Republicans as Democrats continue to face political headwinds.
Ratings in Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada, three pivotal battleground states, shifted from “Lean Democratic” to “Toss Up.” Each has a first-term Democratic incumbent — Govs. Gretchen Whitmer, Tony Evers and Steve Sisolak, respectively — fighting to win reelection in a state that President Joe Biden won by fewer than four points in 2020.
Other states that saw changes were Maine, New Mexico, Oregon, Iowa and South Carolina. While Democrats remain favorites in the first three, Cook noted, the ratings in Iowa and South Carolina both moved from “Likely Republican” to “Solid Republican.”
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Bob Dole, a son of the prairie from Russell, Kan., who survived grievous injuries during World War II to battle for decades as a Republican Senate leader and presidential candidate, died Sunday at the age of 98 after a battle with lung cancer.
His death was announced by the Elizabeth Dole Foundation founded by his wife and former North Carolina senator.
“Senator Robert J. Dole died early this morning in his sleep. At his death, at age 98, he had served the United States of America faithfully for 79 years,” the statement said.
The family had announced in February he was diagnosed with lung cancer and was beginning treatments.
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On Friday, Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers vetoed five bills restricting abortion that were passed by the Republican-majority state legislature.
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again today: as long as I’m governor, I will veto any legislation that turns back the clock on reproductive rights in this state—and that’s a promise,” Evers tweeted.
He said he firmly opposed all five bills, which would have restricted abortion by allowing third parties to pursue damage claims in cases of unwanted abortions and requiring more stringent reporting requirements on patients and providers, according to The Hill.
One of the bills, the Shield the Vulnerable Act, would have banned abortions performed on the basis of race, sex, or disability diagnosis of the unborn baby. It would have also allowed third parties such as a spouse, partner, or family member of a woman to bring damages to court if they did not want her to have the abortion, the news outlet reported.
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Michigan businessman Kevin Rinke on Monday formally launched his campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2022.
Rinke, who enters a crowded and growing GOP field, has pledged to self-fund his campaign, unlike his other Republican opponents.
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During the dizzying days after the November 2020 election, the Homeland Security cyber-security chief was fired by a frustrated President Donald Trump, then went on national TV to insist the election was fully secure.
“There was no indication or evidence that there was any sort of hacking or compromise of election systems on, before or after November 3,” ex-Cyber-Security and Infrastructure Agency Chief Chris Krebs declared on “60 Minutes.”
On Thursday, nearly a year later, federal prosecutors in New York unsealed a dramatic indictment that conflicts with that clean bill of health.
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It would be an understatement to say that former President Donald Trump changed the Republican Party. Whatever one’s view of Trump, most observers can agree that Trump forced a break-up between the GOP and big business. Within conservative circles, debate persists over whether this is a good thing. On one side, writers like Oren Cass urge conservatives to embrace an essentially anti-free market approach. Even some Republican politicians, like Senator Josh Hawley, have expressed support for this path. On the other side, publications like the Washington Times and The Federalist call for conservatives to continue to support the free market. Others view the GOP as only selectively anti-big business, or using the idea for rhetorical purposes only.
Populism, Conservatism, and Trump
It is important to reflect on what has fueled this “anti-business” view in some conservative circles. To sum it up in one word: populism. It’s no secret that Trump’s political identity is centered around populism – but does populism always mean being anti-free market? Trump’s conservatism has been about more than just pro-tariff and anti-immigration policies. Under Trump, both inside and outside his administration, conservatives have pursued further privatizing education. The Trump administration made it easier for big business to classify workers as independent contractors, and conservative blogs attacked California for passing a law that did the opposite. The Trump administration pursued several policies that sought to reign in the Affordable Care Act.
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Monthly polling of Arizonans shows Independents have shifted to align more with Republicans in terms of handling the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the pandemic-related mitigations began in early 2020, registered Independent voters in Arizona have treaded evenly between Republican opinions on how to mitigate the spread of the virus and those of Democrats.
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On Saturday, a meeting of the Wyoming Republican Party led to the passage of a resolution expelling Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from the party and no longer recognizing her as a member, as reported by CNN.
The resolution was passed by the Wyoming GOP Central Committee, by a vote of 31 to 29. Although the measure does not actually wield any direct power over Cheney, it marks the latest symbolic blow to the incumbent representative as a result of her frequent anti-Trump statements, which have all but eroded her popular support in her own state.
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In his most recent column, George Will, dean of serious American political commentators and high priest of Trump-hate, broke new ground in the reconciliation of buyer’s remorse over last year’s election and visceral aversion to Donald Trump. Will counseled Joe Biden’s entourage to tighten the cocoon that protects him from journalistic scrutiny or any form of spontaneity in public, lest Trump be reelected in 2024.
I have agreed with Will on almost everything between the 1964 and 2016 elections, and we have been cordial acquaintances for 40 years, although among its other regrettable side effects, the Trump phenomenon seems to have paused contact between us. George Will now purports to believe that the disappearance of Trump, which he had assured himself and his readers was inevitable if it were only possible to evict him from office last year, is necessary for the restoration of two-party rule.
With respect, I offer an alternative view. Trump is instrumental in the restoration of two-party rule.
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Former President Donald Trump on Monday endorsed John Gibbs, a former member of his administration, in a GOP primary challenge against Representative Peter Meijer (R-MI-03).
Trump, who has remained critical of Meijer after the incumbent supported an impeachment resolution against the former president, said that Gibbs would better represent the district.
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There are thirteen House and Senate races targeted so far by former President Donald Trump’s revenge tour to unseat GOP incumbents who voted to impeach him in January or to support Biden administration policies.
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) voted to impeach President Trump after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Trump was ultimately acquitted by the U.S. Senate.
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Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski announced Friday that she will seek reelection in 2022, setting up another tough primary battle that includes efforts by former President Trump to unseat her.
A campaign video for Murkowski does not directly mention the challenge from Trump but warns voters about the race attracting much outside interest.
“In this election, lower 48 outsiders are going to try to grab Alaska’s Senate seat for their partisan agendas. They don’t understand our state and frankly, they couldn’t care less about your future,” she says.
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In a 15-page letter obtained by American Greatness and prepared by his attorney, Jeffery Clark, the acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil division in President Trump’s last few months of office, invoked executive privilege today before the January 6 Select Committee.
Clark, who has been under intense media scrutiny for attempting to address election illegalities in the 2020 presidential election, was subpoenaed by the committee on October 13. Committee chairman Bennie Thompson (D- Miss.) claimed Clark thwarted “the peaceful transfer of power.” Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee last month prepared a lengthy report accusing Clark of working with Donald Trump to overturn the election results.
Harry W. MacDougald, Clark’s lawyer, explained to Thompson why Clark would not testify. “Because former President Trump was properly entitled, while he held office, to the confidential advice of lawyers like Mr. Clark, Mr. Clark is subject to a sacred trust—one that is particularly vital to the constitutional separation of powers,” MacDougald wrote. “As a result, any attempts—whether by the House or by the current President—to invade that sphere of confidentiality must be resisted.”
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While all the media and talking heads were atwitter over the statewide contests in Virginia last week, the real story and the real threat was on the local level. When the dust settled, the GOP had gained 7 net seats in the Virginia Assembly, enough in theory to give them control of the House. With control of the Virginia House of Delegates and through that the Committee Chairmen — coupled with the Governor and a very closely divided Senate and the tiebreaker being newly elected Republican Lt Governor Sears – the hope of repealing the radical agenda of the Democrats from the last two years would appear very possible.
But conservatives should not count their chickens before they are hatched. You see, the vote in the Congress on Friday is a warning that all of us who want to see liberty installed in the Commonwealth need to heed. While the Democrats were unable to push through their wasteful “infrastructure bill,” 13 RINOs came to their rescue. Yes, 13 so-called Republicans voted with Nancy Pelosi and saved the Biden agenda item.
And, unless there is a mobilization now, this week, in Virginia, that same rotten, despicable tactic will be used to steal our majority in Virginia.
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Democrats in the Virginia House of Delegates conceded control of the chamber to Republicans several days after the state’s off-season elections saw massive Republican gains in the state.
Democratic Del. Eileen Filler-Corn publicly announced the transfer following the concession of Democratic Del. Martha Mugler in a hotly contested race in the state’s Hampton Roads region.
“While the results of the election were not in our favor, our work for the people of Virginia goes on,” Filler-Corn said in a statement.
Democrats over the past two years had wielded majorities in the state House and Senate, as well as control of the state’s governorship, to pass a large package of progressive policies, including marijuana decriminalization and gun control.
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The 2021 elections are filled with key lessons for Republicans.
Vice President Kamala Harris had already warned in a Virginia visit late in the campaign that “what happens in Virginia will in large part determine what happens in 2022, 2024 and on.”
If Republicans learn the lessons of 2021 – and apply them to 2022 and 2024 – they can prove Harris was truly prophetic.
It is already clear that the Democrats’ power structure in Washington has learned nothing. In 2009, after losing Virginia and New Jersey, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed through Obamacare four days later. Remember, she said cheerfully “Congress [has] to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it.”
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Surrounded by states that have legalized sports betting, some Minnesota lawmakers will push to create additional tax revenue and entertainment next session.
Rep. Zack Stephenson, DFL-Coon Rapids, held a press conference to announce his plan to pursue legalized sports betting.
“Minnesotans deserve the chance to engage in safe and legal sports betting right here in Minnesota,” Stephenson said. “That is why I am announcing I will lead an effort to legalize sports betting during the next regular session of the Legislature.”
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Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) is calling for Republicans to break from big business in policy and polities when he spoke at the National Conservatism Conference yesterday. He also penned an op-ed in the Orlando Sentinel saying America’s largest companies have peddled “anti-American ideologies” and “wokeness” which has contributed to America’s growing partisan divide.
Rubio comments from the conference were pared down into another op-ed posted in The American Conservative where he said if conservatives do not fight back using “corporate patriotism,” Rubio said “we would lose America.”
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One of the delights of living in Montana under complete Republican governance is that even though your state can be mercilessly trashed by the arrogant blue state corporate media, they can’t do much to stop you or your neighbors from living your best lives.
I kept that in mind this week with the simultaneous appearance of not one, but two extended hit pieces on the poor, benighted, ignorant, awful, rednecks in Montana: one in Jeff Bezos’ propaganda fishwrap, the Washington Post, and the other in the failing New York Times.
I had low expectations before reading each, and in that sense the articles did not disappoint; but they are worthy of forensic examination, because both, in different ways, provide sterling examples of the arrogant ignorance that epitomizes our failing elite class, and the hysterical desperation they feel as both power and the narrative slip from their grasp.
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Surprising no one, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer vetoed several GOP election reform bills on Friday.
“Access to the ballot box is a right, and I will continue to fight any attempt to limit the right to vote,” Whitmer tweeted.
She vetoed Senate Bill (SB) 303, 304, and House Bill 5007.
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Illinois GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger announced Friday that he will not be seeking reelection next year.
The congressman will leave Capitol Hill after 12 years in office and a final term that was dominated by his vocal criticism of former President Donald Trump.
In a video announcing the end of his House career, Kinzinger spoke about his first race, in which he unseated the Democratic incumbent in 2010. He was told then by supporters to “be my own man and to never do what they tell you to do,” he recalled.
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There’s no shortage of Republicans who say the head of Wisconsin’s Elections Commission must resign.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos led the chorus of Republicans who said WEC Administrator Meagan Wolfe must resign following claims from the Racine County sheriff that the commission broke state law last year.
“People’s trust in Wisconsin’s elections has been tested. Many Wisconsinites feel elections are not safe and secure, and now the Racine County Sheriff’s investigation found clear violations and law-breaking within the Wisconsin Elections Commission,” Vos said. “Clearly there is a severe mismanagement of WEC, and a new administrator is needed. I am calling for the resignation of Meagan Wolfe as Elections Commission Administrator.”
Vos said there are a series of “red flags” that cannot be ignored.
Sheriff Christopher Schmaling said Thursday that the WEC broke four state laws, first by suspending what are called special voting deputies for nursing homes across the state, then by advising workers in those same nursing homes to assist voters by filling out ballots for people who cannot vote themselves.
Schmalling says one woman, referred to in the investigation as Judy, complained that staffers at the Ridgewood Care Center in Racine took advantage of her elderly mother by filling out an absentee ballot in her mom’s name. Judy says her mother had diminished mental capacity and could not have communicated anything about voting to anyone.
State Rep. Joe Sanfelippo, R-New Berlin, said not only does Wolfe need to go, but any and all staffers involved in the Racine case need to be fired as well.
“I am calling for the immediate dismissal of Meagan Wolfe as the Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator as well as the WEC staff who gave advice to break the law and members of the Elections Commission who voted to break the law. Those actions are the very definition of malfeasance in office,” Sanfelippo said. “And if the Wisconsin Attorney General continues to refuse to uphold the law then he should resign, too.”
Wolfe has not responded to the calls, or to the claims from Racine County’s sheriff.
The chairwoman of the WEC, Ann Jacobs, did respond on Thursday.
“To put it simply, we did not break the law,” said Commission Chair Ann Jacobs, an attorney from Milwaukee. “In fact, without action from the Commission, many residents in Wisconsin care facilities could have and would have been disenfranchised and not able to vote in the 2020 elections.”
Gov. Tony Evers rebuked Vos and the Republicans over their criticism of Wolfe.
“Elected officials can – and often do – disagree on plenty. But what is beneath the offices we hold and the responsibility entrusted to us is using our platforms to publicly and baselessly disparage and singularly belittle public servants,” the governor said. “Speaker Vos’ comments are unbecoming of his office and the people we serve. It’s my expectation – and one Wisconsinites share – that elected officials in this state treat others with civility and respect. The speaker’s behavior today fell woefully short of those expectations.”
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s 2022 campaign funds have grown to about $12.6 million after raking in $3.1 million between July 21 and Oct. 20.
The Democratic governor has continued claiming an exemption to accept contributions above the state-imposed limit of $7,150 from an individual throughout the entire election cycle. Whitmer’s campaign says it can do this, citing a loophole by which donors may exceed campaign funding limits if their candidate of choice is facing a recall election. Despite several past recalls against the governor over the past three years, none are currently active.
The GOP has challenged this strategy in court, where an Oct. 13 court filing suggests roughly $3.4 million in excess donations must be returned or given to a charity since no recalls are active. New large contributions include Whitmer’s father, Richard Whitmer ($40,000), billionaire George Soros ($25,000), and Vice-Chair of the Detroit Pistons Arn Tellem ($25,000).
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News that the Bethesda, Maryland-based National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded Gain-of-Function research in Wuhan, China has prompted certain members of Tennessee’s congressional delegation to condemn Anthony Fauci as a liar and to demand drastic changes. Representative Diana Harshbarger (R-TN-01) tweeted about the matter on Thursday.
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Before the 2018 midterm elections, Trump’s political advisors were thinking about the president’s re-election bid and noticed a curious commonality among incumbent presidents who didn’t get re-elected: they all faced challengers from within their own party.
Five U.S. presidents since 1900 have lost their bids for a second term. William Taft lost to Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover lost to Franklin Roosevelt, Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton. While each election is determined by unique factors, all five of these failed incumbents dealt with internal party fights or serious primary challenges.
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Democrats in Illinois’ state legislature Friday released a new map that would shore up all of their party’s incumbents in Congress and likely eliminate two of the state’s five Republicans.
The proposal would give Democrats a 14-3 advantage in the state, compared to the current 13-5 map. Illinois is one of several states losing a congressional seat this upcoming decade, and the new map, if adopted, would shore up Democrats in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs and create a winding Democratic seat that stretches from East St. Louis up through the middle of the state.
That district includes much of what is now held by Republican Rep. Rodney Davis, and includes Springfield, the state’s capital, Decatur and Champaign, home to the University of Illinois. The new map also shores up Rep. Cheri Bustos’ northern Illinois seat by having it encompass Bloomington, home to Illinois State University.
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