More than two-thirds of people in Northern Ireland believe big changes are required to the power-sharing institutions created by the Good Friday agreement, research commissioned by a parliamentary committee has found.
The same proportion of the population, 70%, think the peace accord of 1998 has failed to deliver stable governance with the Stormont assembly not sitting for nine of the 25 years that have elapsed since the Belfast agreement was struck.
The research was conducted by YouGov and Ohio State University for the House of Commons Northern Ireland affairs committee.
That level of scepticism about the deal’s success in delivering stability remained consistent across age, religion and political affiliation.
The committee chair, Simon Hoare, said the poll provided an “important snapshot” of current thinking in the region.
The devolved government sitting in Stormont was created under strand one of the Belfast Good Friday agreement, which was considered an ingenious way of getting previously warring sides, republicans and loyalists to run the country together.
Under the power-sharing system, elected politicians are required to self-designate as unionists, nationals or “other” to ensure laws could only be passed that worked for all communities.
A quarter of a century on, and three-quarters of the respondents in the survey consider the requirement that key decisions have to have support from both nationalist and unionist sides gives the DUP and Sinn Féin an effective veto, with growing parties such as Alliance locked out.
Stormont was collapsed for three years after a Sinn Féin walkout in 2017 and has been suspended for more than a year after the DUP pulled the plug in a protest over Brexit.
Support for reform is widespread but Bertie Ahern, one of the architects of the peace deal, has said it could only happen once the DUP was back in Stormont. The party, led by Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, said it would not be “browbeaten” into a return and few are expecting it to resume power-sharing until September.
Donaldson faced a cacophony of calls to return to Stormont in Belfast last week with leading figures involved in the peace deal, including Bill Clinton, urging politicians to face down “ugly” moments and “get the show on the road”.
“I ask you not to be discouraged, this is human affairs, there are very few permanent victories or defeats in human affairs. All these old ugly problems are always rearing their heads. You just have to suck it up and beat it back and deal with it,” Clinton told a conference at Queen’s University.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Hyderabad: Telangana chief secretary of Urban Development Arvind Kumar, on Friday called for the recognition of more historic places in the city as world heritage sites by UNESCO.
Arvind Kumar participated in the 14th edition of the Institute of Indian Interior Designers (popularly called I.I.I.D) Design Awards 2022, held at the JRC Convention Center in Filmnagar. and handed lifetime achievement awards to Sona Chatwani and Raaj Sree Ram for their effort in the field of Interior Designing.
Chairman, IIID, Manoj Wahi said that the Awards known to be the oldest industry awards in the interior designing industry were given under 12 various categories honouring interior design professionals in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
He also urged the government of Telangana that IIID wants to have its own Center for Excellence as it is a long-felt need.
Speaking on the occasion, Arvind Kumar said “Hyderabad is a fast-growing city. Recently the famous photographer Raghu who visited Hyderabad made a very good observation claiming that the buildings in city were different from the rest of the country.”
“They have music in them, and they speak. We would like to document this. HMDA has tied up with Raghu Rao to bring out a Coffee Table book in the next year,” added Arvind Kumar.
“Since TS B-Pass, Telangana layout and building permission approval along with self-certification system, we have given sanctions to 1,96,544 building plans to date,” said the secretary.
Highlighting the recent developments in the state, Arvind said, “we have recently announced a cool roofing policy and made EV charging facility mandatory in some buildings while making 25 percent of the parking space earmarked for EV Charging.”
Seeking IIID-HRC to uptake lake restoration in the city, Arvind said, “we have identified 185 lakes to be restored. 90 of them were adopted. We need more to be adopted.”
“The adoption includes strengthening the bund, creation of greenery, beautification and utilisation of open spaces,” said Arvind urging interior designers, architects, and builders in the audience to come forward to adopt them.
Similarly, he said 85 traffic junctions have been improved. work on 114 is in progress. “Under HMDA limits itself there are 126 traffic junctions. If there are any traffic junctions in your locality, please encourage them to be adopted,” he told the audience.
“We are also working on reviving the heritage structures, and step-wells. The ideal mix of old and new structures makes a city a healthy one,” claimed Arvind adding that a total of 24 step wells are either restored or under restoration.
Speaking further Arvind Kumar added that if design intervention happens in public spaces, the city would turn more vibrant.
During the event, the senior bureaucrat of the municipal administration mooted the idea of an MoU with IIID to make Hyderabad a better place.
SRINAGAR: Apni Party President Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari on Thursday called on people from all walks of life to unite against the ongoing drug menace in the Kashmir and protect the young populationfrom falling prey to this grave evil. He emphasised that society can no longer afford to lose youngsters to drugs and urged everyone to play his/ her role in eradicating the menace.
While talking to reporters on the sidelines of an event, Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari said, “Apni Party has decided to take a range of initiatives, including skill development training for the youth, with the aim of empowering the youngsters and protecting them from the ongoing drug abuse in J&K.”
He said, “We are not taking these initiatives for political benefits or electoral gains; rather, this is a sincere effort to shoulder our responsibility towards society. Given the severity of the drug menace and its impact on society, I think every one of us ought to play his/her role in eradicating this destructive evil.”
Apni Party President made a promise that he would extend his assistance in rehabilitating the drug victims. He said that if anyone approaches him seeking help for the rehabilitation of an addict, he will provide support while ensuring the victim’s identity remains confidential.
Bukhari urged the administration to take serious measures to nab each and every person who is responsible for the smuggling and sale of drugs in society.
He said these criminals are playing with the lives of people, and they must face severe punishment.
Riyadh: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Haj and Umrah said that it is not required to obtain a permit to pray in the Grand Mosque in Makkah and the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah during the last ten days of the holy month of Ramzan, local media reported.
The Beneficiary Care Service Department under the ministry made this announcement through its official Twitter account in response to inquiries in this regard.
The statement clarified that worshippers do not need to obtain a permit to offer prayers at the two holy mosques with the condition that they do not have a COVID-19 infection or contact with a person infected with the virus.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Haj revealed that a permit is mandatory for performing Umrah or visiting Rawda Sharif, and if a person is not confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 or has been in contact with an infected person, they can get a permit for the same through Nusuk application or Tawakalna application.
For those who plan to observe Itekaf during the last ten days of Ramzan, registration is open and will continue until the tenth of Ramzan, according to the statement of the General Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques.
This year, Ramzan is expected to start on March 23 in the UAE, but the exact date is likely to be announced by the moon sighting committee on the night of March 22.
Eid-Al-Fitr is expected to be on Friday, April 21, 2023.
Eid holidays will be from Ramzan 29 until Shawwal 3 – based on the Islamic calendar. The exact date of the start of Ramzan and Eid-Al-Fitr will be confirmed closer to the date, based on the moon-sighting tradition.
Vast stretches of open ocean cover two-thirds of the globe and the entire space surrounding our earth is virtually no man’s land. There are hardly any rules or regulations applying to the over-exploitation of the sea for fish and other animal and plant resources besides mining the seafloor for oil, gas, and other elements. Similarly, countries keep sending satellites to space and space debris mostly consisting of defunct satellite parts keeps revolving around the earth without check.
Caution the environmentalists, one must not forget that sea as also space is not limitless resource, and we must use it sustainably so that it lasts for generations to come.
A step in that direction has been taken for the first time after years with nearly two hundred nations signing a treaty under the aegis of the United Nations for the protection of the ocean and its biodiversity.
Each nation has jurisdiction over a little bit of ocean near its coast, its EEZ( Exclusive Economic Zone), for which the country was responsible. But the high seas being under no single country’s control were free for all, open for anyone to go for deep-sea drilling, overfishing, and bioprospecting, not caring at all for any environmental repercussions or any law because rules of no country applied here.
However, all that is to change now.
The new Treaty is all set to provide legal protection to the marine life of the seas.
The developed industrialized nations though preferring freedom of the high seas where “might is right” eventually succumbed to the demand of large number of other nations that high seas were a “common heritage of mankind” and if we have to create a sustainable long lasting ocean for the whole world for years to come, we should all agree on certain basic rules and regulations for the sea. However, the high seas belonging to no one, certain freedoms of the high seas would have to be maintained including the freedom of marine scientific research.
One of the most important aspects of the U.N. High Seas Treaty is that it agreed that certain areas of the ocean will be declared as Marine Protected areas to help preserve and conserve the enormous amount of biodiversity found in the seas.
The Treaty guarantees that profits from any commercialized products derived from the high seas will be shared.
It also says that programs to strengthen marine research in developing countries will be strengthened by providing access and facilities for deep sea research so that such research is not confined to rich industrialized nations creating a level playing field.
Importantly, the Treaty is not just platitudes but has binding agreements thus making it legally tenable.
Once the High Seas Treaty is implemented it would not be possible to carry out commercial activities in the sea without proper Environmental Assessment studies. The treaty is rightfully detailing the rules which must be followed if anyone wants to carry out commercial activity even in the High seas.
Secondly, the enforcement of the Treaty guidelines would mean that all those who are carrying out commercial activities in the sea will have to see to it that the biodiversity in the sea is not endangered.
The environment of the seas has been ruined by its over exploitation by large scale fishing, mining, and pollution from chemicals and plastics.
The comprehensive treaty will help not only guard the concerns of the different marine species but also see to it that the coastal community’s livelihood and economy dependent on marine resources is not hampered.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has appreciated the “breakthrough” leading to the agreement on the Treaty, called it a “victory for multilateralism and for global efforts to counter the destructive trends facing ocean health, now and for generations to come”.
This kind of coming together of rich and poor countries as one human family can help us successfully challenge any insurmountable global crisis.
Even while the UN members sign the High Seas Treaty came a demand by scientists of a similar treaty for Space – the ultimate frontier.
The growing clutter and debris in space of innumerable satellites cannot be left alone anymore without any kind of a regulatory system to check the mess.
Space junk orbiting the Earth is increasing manifold over the years.
According to an estimate, 48,000 human-made objects are orbiting the earth with nearly 90 percent being just junk or parts of broken satellites. Some estimate satellite fragments floating around in trillions.
With growing satellite launches, working satellites in orbit are likely to become more than 60,000 by the year 2030.
The fear is that the “space garbage” left in the orbit, circling at speeds more than 17,000 miles per hour could become very dangerous if they strike any working satellite or new satellite launched. Such incidents have happened leading to huge amounts of debris.
The answer to this would be a Treaty by all nations agreeing to minimizing single use satellites, besides using recyclable and multi-use satellites. Will the nations accept to keep the space above us clean, another common heritage of all mankind.
Barak, who served as prime minister from 1999 to 2001, appeared on Zakaria’s program with Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli Justice minister and former vice prime minister.
A former Defense minister and chief of staff of the military, Barak raised the possibility of the Israeli military refusing to accept orders from Netanyahu’s government if it improperly seizes more power.
“We do not have a contract with a dictatorship and once there is a de-facto dictatorship in Israel, we do not have a contract with them,” he said of the military. (Barak clarified that he was certain soldiers would obey orders if the country’s survival was in jeopardy.)
Netanyahu’s package of judicial reforms would essentially strip his nation’s Supreme Court of its independence and defang the nation’s courts by making it possible for the government to pass legislation that can’t be reviewed in the courts. Netanyahu and his backers say the legislation is necessary to curb the power of renegade judges.
Opponents of the measure, some of whom have taken to the streets to protest over the last 10 weeks, insist the legislation could undermine the democratic nature of the country by eliminating safeguards.
“These are not judicial reforms,” Livni told Zakaria. “It is about changes of the nature of Israel as a democracy.”
She added: “The politicians in the government and the parliament can legislate, but the Supreme Court could and should supervise human rights.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Indore: The Indore Development Authority in Madhya Pradesh has pulled up a private firm for allegedly cutting 257 more trees than what was mandated to build a Rs 57 crore flyover in the state’s commercial capital, also the country’s cleanest city for several years in a row.
While 1,320 trees were to be relocated 15 kilometres away to build the flyover at Khajrana Square and 2,640 saplings were to be planted as compensation, the private firm has gone ahead and cut and reduced to stumps 257 trees apart from the marked ones, IDA chairperson Jaypal Singh Chawda said after inspecting the site on Friday.
“It has come to our notice the private firm has cut down 257 more trees than what was needed. IDA will not pay money to the private firm for translocation of these stumps. We had asked them to follow a scientific way of cutting and relocating 10 trees at a time,” Chawda said.
The removal of trees has made the heat unbearable at Khajrana Square, with several labourers at the site ruing the lack of shade.
“We are unable to find shade in this area, especially now when it is so hot and humid,” Rama Bai, a labourer, said.
MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had laid the foundation stone of the flyover in November last year and work is scheduled to be completed in 18 months, an IDA official informed.
Bengaluru: IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on Saturday said there is an urgent need to strengthen the international financial architecture, especially in the area of debt resolution and Global Financial Safety Net at a time when global growth is set to slow in 2023.
Terming India a relative bright spot, she said, it is an important engine of growth for the world economy, representing about 15 per cent of global growth in 2023.
India’s remarkable progress on Digital Public Infrastructure provides a strong basis to secure robust and inclusive growth over the medium term, she said at the first G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) meeting under India Presidency here.
“With global growth set to slow in 2023 and remain below its historical average, too many people in too many countries are struggling to make ends meet a point that I highlighted in my recent blog on policy priorities for G20. The international community, therefore, has a responsibility to come together to find solutions for the most vulnerable members of our global family,” she said.
This calls for urgent action to strengthen the international financial architecture, especially in the area of debt resolution and strengthening Global Financial Safety Net, she added.
Global Financial Safety Net is a set of institutions and mechanisms that provide insurance against crises and financing to mitigate their impact.
In light of rising debt vulnerabilities in many countries, she said, there is a need to strengthen the debt architecture and improve the speed and effectiveness of debt resolution.
Sovereign debt vulnerabilities, already elevated before the pandemic, have been exacerbated by the shocks stemming from Covid-19 and Russia’s war against Ukraine, she said, adding, this is particularly the case for developing and low-income countries with very limited policy space and huge development needs.
It is therefore imperative for G20 to strengthen the debt architecture and G20 did so in 2020 with Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) and by establishing Common Framework (CF) for debt resolution, she said.
“Since then, the CF delivered a debt operation for Chad. It is now critical to complete Zambia’s debt restructuring, establish a Creditor Committee for Ghana, and advance work with Ethiopia. Nonetheless, more predictable, timely, and orderly processes are needed both for countries under the CF and for those not covered by it, including Sri Lanka and Suriname,” she said.
“This means that we must enhance dialogue and collaboration on debt issues. This is the goal of the new Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable (GSDR): to bring together creditors official, old and new, and private and debtor countries to discuss key issues that can facilitate the debt resolution process.
“We launched the GSDR under the auspices of India’s G20 Presidency last week at the deputies’ level, followed by an engaged and constructive principals meeting earlier today. We will further build on this discussion during the World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings in April,” she said.
Being the centre of Global Financial Safety Net, she said IMF has been scaling up lending as members confront the significant economic challenges that the past few years have brought.
In a world of great uncertainty and repeated turbulence, it is critical to further bolster IMF’s capacity to support its members, she said.
“This applies most urgently to our concessional financing for low-income countries through our Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGT). Demand for PRGT support has reached unprecedented levels and can only be met if matched by an increase in PRGT loan and subsidy resources,” she said.
In addition, she said, a successful quota review which IMF’s membership has committed to complete by December 2023 is critical for a strong Global Financial Safety Net.
“The latter has always been important for global stability and is even more important in today’s challenging global environment, especially for the most vulnerable countries and people. Our common interest is to secure a well-functioning and integrated global economy, for the sake of a more secure and prosperous world,” she said.
Deep underneath the sodden soils and the berms of snow that now coat California, fuels for fire are waiting to sprout. Grasses and other quick-growing vegetation, spurred by the downpours that saturated the state at the start of the year, quickly turn to kindling as the weather warms.
“When that rain comes – and it came last month – that results in significant fuel load increases,” said Isaac Sanchez, a CalFire battalion chief. “[Plants] are going to grow, they are going to die, and then they are going to become flammable fuel as the year grinds on.”
While experts say it’s still too early to predict what’s in store for the months ahead and if weather conditions will align to help infernos ignite, it’s clear the rains that hammered California this winter came as a mixed blessing, delivering badly needed relief while posing new risks. Along with seeding the tinder of tomorrow, the inclement weather hampered efforts to perform essential landscape treatments needed to mitigate the risks of catastrophic fire.
“That is now the reality of the environment in the state that we live in,” Sanchez, added. “We are constantly facing a double-edged sword.”
Reservoirs are more robust than they have been in years. The snowpack, which will slowly release moisture into thirsty landscapes through the spring and summer, is 134% of its average for April, giving the state an important head start. The rains also bumped California out of the most extreme categories of drought, according to the latest analysis from the US Drought Monitor.
But the storms also left behind a dangerous mess.
Strong winds ripped trees from their roots and tore down branches, littering ignition opportunities throughout high-risk areas. Through the slopes and mountainsides, saturated earth crumbled, chewing gaps through roads and highways and hindering access. If these issues linger into the summer and autumn months, they could augment fire dangers.
A tree which toppled during recent storms sits next to the road on 11 January, in Santa Cruz, California. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images
The deluges also washed out winter plans for prescribed burning – which are often years in the making.
“Those big rains effectively shut down our ability to broadcast burning across the landscape,” said Scott Witt, deputy chief of pre fire planning at CalFire, a division that focuses on mitigation. Adding controlled fire to landscapes is a proven strategy that both creates healthier, more resilient forests and also reduces fuels that can escalate fire severity, but conditions have to be right before they are set.
Landscapes that are too wet won’t burn and high moisture levels can also increase smoke output during a burn, putting the plan at odds with air quality control. Stormy conditions – especially wind – can make them too hard to control.
Other types of treatments, including those that use machines to clear vegetation from overgrown landscapes, were less affected but the storms caused issues with access, Witt said. “We have had areas that have been damaged to the point where roads were washed out, so roadwork needs to be done prior to us bringing resources in,” he said. “The heavy rains do have the potential of limiting or adjusting where we do our treatments.”
Data from the agency, published on Friday, shows the number of treatments conducted by the state and its affiliates in December and January is roughly 50% lower than it was the year prior.
There may still be time to amp up the work if conditions are favorable through the spring, and the state was able to do more work than expected during a dry fall. But there is a lot of ground to cover and the state is already playing catch-up after more than a century of fire suppression left forests overgrown and primed to burn.
One of the many rockslides on highway 154 after the storms that shut down the highway between Santa Barbara and Solvang/Santa Ynez. Photograph: Amy Katz/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock
Now, the climate crisis turned up the dial. Spiking temperatures now pull more moisture out of plants, landscapes and the atmosphere, setting the stage for once-healthy ignitions to turn into infernos. The sisyphean task of treating and retreating the lands is a daunting one, especially now that there’s even more fuel on the ground after the storms – and time is running short.
It takes just days for smaller plants to dry after the rain stops, Witt said, “and dead grasses will start to dry out within an hour or two”. It’s not yet clear whether California will get much more of a dousing before spring. The heavy snowpack could help delay the onset of risks but “if we continue to stay in a dry pattern – even though we had a really strong beginning of winter,” Witt said, “we could easily have an early fire season”.
Noting the urgency, Adrienne Freeman, a spokesperson with the United States Forest Service who is based in California, said the outlook was not as grim as it might appear. There was still a lot that could happen before the onset of high-risk weather.
The cold, rainy conditions also helped forests recover from the drought, which will make them more burn-resistant. Water tables are looking far better and bug species that wreak havoc on vulnerable trees are being better kept at bay. “There is a lot of good news ecologically and we can’t separate that,” she said, noting that the boost may not go as far as it might have in a world without climate change.
“And as far as getting the work done, we just have to remember it is a long-term process,” she added, emphasizing that the effects of landscape treatments must be measured across decades, not years. “It took 150 years to happen, and it is not going to be fixed in a season.”
The 132,000-acre Rancho San Fernando Rey, 100 miles north of Los Angeles, now has a lush and abundant river running through it, thanks to the rains that filled the usually dry valley. Photograph: Amy Katz/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock
Acknowledging that the storms affected the agency’s ability to conduct landscape treatments this winter, she said there’s still a lot of work being done. “It doesn’t really have any bearing on what we will be able to do in the spring or how fire season will look in the summer and fall,” she said. “It is way too early for us to anticipate how this is going to affect fire season.”
What will have greater bearing on fire risks this year is the conditions that align come summer and fall – and those are harder to predict.
“There’s a lot left to luck,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the Northern California Prescribed Fire Council, echoing Freeman. Last year, when risks were high and the winter was dry, timing fell in California’s favor. Fewer catastrophic fires erupted and, while there were high-severity burns that were deadly and destructive, the acreage scorched by the end of the year was only a fraction of what it was in years past.
This year the conditions are very different. Going into spring with more snow, and wetter soils, different kinds of risks remain. “It speaks to our need to continually think about fire,” Quinn-Davidson said. While the weather will do what it will, more than can be done to prepare for the worst. That includes building on the growing momentum to perform more prescribed burns and other treatments, to champion fire-ready communities, and listen to and learn from Indigenous leaders who performed cultural burns for centuries before white colonizers disrupted essential and natural cycles on the lands.
With harder-to-predict weather patterns, agencies and organizations charged with this work will have to be nimble. “We really need to be ready when the windows present themselves to take advantage of them,” she said, adding that this is where community-based fire management groups – which are sprouting up all over the state – shine.
That’s what gives her hope. Even if some conditions can be left up to chance, there is a lot that can be done. “We have a lot of power and ownership,” she said, noting that landscapes are shaped by people. It will be up to people and communities to ensure the tools are in place to prevent the worst kinds of fires from erupting “We just have to have our hearts in the right place.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
The postmortems that Barnes’ aides undertook were similar to the ones that advisers to other high-profile Black Senate candidates conducted after an election in which Democrats fared well, but those contenders fell short. While there are numerous reasons why none of the Black candidates trying to flip seats won, they’ve gravitated to a common theme, one that’s more personal than a typical after-action campaign report: Black candidates needed more trust — and, with it, funding — from the Democratic Party’s infrastructure.
“Hindsight is always 20/20 and there’s no doubt that Cheri Beasley and Val Demings were in tough races, but given the right investment they both could have won,” said Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat and chair emeritus of the Congressional Black Caucus, referencing the two Democratic Black women who ran for Senate in North Carolina and Florida.
Lee may be speaking out of self-interest. She has told colleagues that she plans to run for the Senate. And in Demings’ case, it’s unclear how more funding could have overcome a decisive 16-point loss. But her analysis overall of the 2022 results was echoed by 10 elected officials, strategists and campaign operatives who spoke to POLITICO. They don’t just see the issue as one of campaign money but, rather, of Black candidates getting the same institutional support as their white peers.
“Generally speaking what I’ve seen since I’ve gotten here is not enough Black unity across the country, from a political perspective, and not a strong enough Black political infrastructure to support Black candidates across the country,” said Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), who is Black. “That’s something that’s very concerning to me. And something I want to use my voice and platform to help build going forward.”
At the beginning of the midterm election cycle, many Democrats were optimistic about the Black Senate contenders on the ballot, even with the historical challenges the party faced given that it controlled the White House and Congress.
Past high-profile Black candidates — like Sen. Raphael Warnock, Stacey Abrams, Jaime Harrison and Barack Obama — had been some of the party’s star fundraisers. And there was a sense that the long-standing belief that Black candidates couldn’t compete financially with their white counterparts had finally been put aside.
The numbers ended up supporting that theory. Barnes raised $42 million compared to Johnson’s $36 million in the 2022 election cycle, according to newly released data from the Federal Election Commission. Beasley brought in nearly $39 million in 2022, versus Republican opponent Ted Budd’s almost $15 million. Demings, meanwhile, was the third-best Senate fundraiser of the cycle, bringing in $81 million, while Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) collected about $51 million. And it wasn’t just Democrats. Two Black Republicans, Sen. Tim Scott and Senate challenger Herschel Walker, also smashed fundraising expectations, raising roughly $54 million and $74 million, respectively
But in the modern political system, raising money is only one component of a successful campaign. Getting outside help is the other. And as the 2022 cycle came to a close, operatives on some of the high-profile races said they felt ill-equipped to compete against GOP super PACs as Democratic Party groups looked to protect incumbents and poured money into other races, like Pennsylvania.
Barnes, for one, was hit with $62 million in outside spending from Republican groups including the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC tied to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), according to an analysis of general election spending by OpenSecrets. By contrast, Democratic outside groups, including the top Senate Democratic super PAC Senate Majority PAC, spent $41 million on the Wisconsin race.
September was particularly difficult for Barnes, according to his campaign. That month, Democrats were outspent $28 million to $20 million on the airwaves in the Wisconsin Senate race, per AdImpact, which tracks campaign media spending, including broadcast, cable, radio, digital and satellite. The vast majority of GOP spending came from its outside groups.
Barnes’ aides didn’t point fingers at any specific group — they said the extra money they needed could have come from super PACs or to their own campaign — but said the key fact is they were outmatched.
“People were seeing three negative ads for every one good thing they were seeing about the lieutenant governor. That has a pretty significant impact,” said Kozloski. “Unfortunately, it certainly cost us 26,000 votes.”
The Pennsylvania Senate contest, another major midterm battleground, received the most outside spending of all federal elections in 2022, according to OpenSecrets. Almost $113 million was spent on now-Sen. John Fetterman’s behalf by Democratic outside groups, while GOP organizations bolstered Mehmet Oz with more than $95 million in the general election. Fetterman was the only candidate to flip a Senate seat in 2022, where he won by almost 5 percent of the vote, and received investments from both Senate Democrats’ campaign arm and its super PAC ally, Senate Majority PAC, as well as other outside groups.
Beasley, for her part, was the only Democratic Senate candidate in a state that Trump carried in 2020 to receive outside spending help from Senate Majority PAC, which invested about $13 million in her race, according to its FEC filings. Other outside groups spent almost $9 million more backing her in the general election, according to OpenSecrets.
But there wasn’t a direct expenditure from the DSCC in the contest. (According to a DSCC aide, the group sent out tandem emails for direct fundraising and bundled money on her behalf.) And the total outside spending in the general for Beasley didn’t match what the GOP did for Budd.
Republican outside groups spent almost $62 million, with money coming from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Senate Leadership Fund and other organizations, according to OpenSecrets.
Demings received no outside support from the DSCC or Senate Majority PAC. Like with Beasley, the DSCC sent tandem fundraising emails and bundled money for her, the DSCC aide said. But in Demings’ case, Democrats were not outspent. Outside groups invested just under $3 million on Demings’ behalf, while Republican organizations spent more than $3 million to help Rubio during the general election, according to OpenSecrets.
A Demings spokesperson declined to comment. A person close to the campaign said that while Demings didn’t struggle with a spending disparity in her own contest, that wasn’t the case in the Florida governor’s race, where the GOP dominated in spending and earned media. In their view, that blew back on Demings.
“Anything that we talked about was sort of a sideshow, which is pretty unusual in a Senate race,” the person said.
Democratic officials noted that, as a rule, party committees and outside groups prioritize protecting incumbents. While Barnes, Beasley and Demings were all either challengers or open-seat contenders, Warnock was running for reelection and receiving the full-throated support of Democratic outside groups. Georgia Honor, which is tied to Senate Majority PAC, spent more than $60 million in the race, according to the FEC. The DSCC also invested nearly $11 million in opposing Walker.
“We’re proud to have invested over $62 million in Wisconsin and North Carolina this cycle—and to have helped level the playing field for our candidates as they faced an avalanche of fear-mongering attacks from a handful of right-wing billionaires,” said Senate Majority PAC spokesperson Veronica Yoo. “In the end, SMP’s strategic investments accomplished our mission: defending and expanding our Democratic Senate majority against the odds.”
Those officials have also defended their funding decisions by noting that, in some cases, Black Senate candidates in 2022 were competing in difficult states. While Wisconsin is a perpetual toss-up, Florida has been trending redder in recent years. And North Carolina has been just out of grasp for Democrats in many statewide elections. Beasley lost by 3 points. Demings fell short by 16 points.
Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), head of the DSCC, said that there wasn’t any more support that the group could have given to the non-incumbent Black candidates. “We provided support. In Wisconsin, we provided major support,” he said, referring to the group’s $3 million independent expenditure to oppose Johnson.
“I think they’re the strongest candidates that we could have had in each of those states,” Peters said. “I was very excited about all of them. But part of the problem was just that they were running in challenging states. They’re just difficult states for a Democrat to win. They all had great runs and came close. And Barnes, in particular, came really close.”
Democrats who object to complaints about spending decisions also note that outside group support isn’t as important as a candidate’s own fundraising. That’s because candidates receive discounted rates to air their advertising while outside groups have to pay market rates, allowing a candidate’s money to stretch further on the airwaves.
But other veterans of the 2022 cycle, including those who worked for those high-profile Black Senate candidates, said that significant outside investment can help provide additional messaging that has a cumulative impact for voters.
“Republicans decided that their path to victory involved tearing down this incredibly accomplished woman,” said Travis Brimm, Beasley’s campaign manager. “And they were going to spend as much money as they needed to get across that finish line. And ultimately, to be in a position to get through that and win in a Trump state, we were going to need outside investment to be a lot closer to parity.”
In addition to boosting candidates in outside spending, some Black politicians and strategists believe there should be more tailor-made support to help Black candidates’ campaigns. Bowman, for one, said more infrastructure should focus on grassroots organizing and communicating Democrats’ positive message to voters.
He said that after the midterm elections, he and Harrison, who is now Democratic National Committee chair, discussed diversity issues in the party, including supporting more Black candidates and better ways to campaign for Black voters.
“You know, we both have bald heads, but we go to barbershops all the time. And we have conversations at barbershops about how people feel,” Bowman said. “And you know, people have felt like Democrats aren’t fighting hard enough — for Black men in particular.”
In the wake of his loss, Barnes has decided to take on that initiative as well. He has launched a new PAC called The Long Run to support diverse candidates running for office. Though he proved to be an adept fundraiser, his aides said that he had to contend with the fact that donors routinely questioned his electability.
“There’s always this question to younger candidates, candidates of color. You know, when you don’t look like the majority of the electorate, there’s always the question: ‘Can you win?’” Barnes told POLITICO. “I get it. That’s valid, ‘Can you win?’ is a valid question. But there comes a certain point where it’s like, you’ve proven that you can actually win, where you have done the work. And, you know, the question still exists.”
Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), herself a one-time Senate candidate, said that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, DSCC and DNC could all be doing more to support the specific needs of Black candidates, and candidates of color generally.
“People have to see Black candidates as, you know, Senate leaders,” Bush said, talking about Democratic organizations and voters. “I remember my very first race, I ran for U.S. Senate, and what they said to me was, ‘You’re a Black woman. Black women, Black people don’t win statewide in Missouri.’”
As she gears up for her own Senate run, Lee said she has had similar experiences. When she first ran for Congress, she recalled being told not to do so because it was too difficult.
“There’s no doubt that Black women have the highest systemic barriers to success,” said Lee. “Smaller donor networks, less organizational support, and more barriers to entry. The other more establishment and overly-funded candidates have the resources, but we are the backbone of the party.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
