Tag: takeaways

5 takeaways from liberals’ big election-night win in Wisconsin

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Here are five takeaways from the biggest election of 2023 (so far).
A new era for Wisconsin Democrats
Although Tuesday’s election was technically nonpartisan, the biggest winner on Tuesday night was likely the state Democratic Party.
Democrats invested bigly into Protasiewicz’s campaign — they were the single largest contributor — and the win is a payoff for the state party’s now-formidable organizing machine.
Perhaps the biggest impact will be in the state’s legislative and congressional delegations. Despite the close-to 50/50 makeup of the state, Republicans have a near-supermajority in both legislative chambers, as well as a solid hold on the congressional delegation.
Tuesday’s election could be the beginning of the end of that. Protasiewicz regularly called the state’s political maps unfair on the trail, and Democratic-aligned groups are likely itching to bring a case looking to challenge them as illegal political gerrymanders.
A win for liberals isn’t a panacea — there are major questions in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on what role state judiciaries can play in federal redistricting, and Democrats have some geographic challenges as well in the state — but it could open the door, at least, for a case.
“I think it’s entirely possible that there might be” challenges to the map ahead of 2024, Ben Wikler, the chairman of the state Democratic Party, said before the election. But, he noted, the timeline stretches far beyond that. Protasiewicz “is going to be in office in 2031, when the next redistricting process happens. So we’re talking about the maps through 2041.”
WOW oh WOW
The counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington — collectively known as the WOW counties — have been the centerpiece of any Republican victory in Wisconsin for decades.

But they brought mostly bad news for Republicans on Tuesday.
The counties, which surround Milwaukee, have been emblematic of the shift in the state during the Trump era. They collectively have not voted for a Democrat for president since Lyndon Johnson, but have gradually trended more Democratic over the last decade.
On Tuesday, former state Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly was still on track to win all three of those crucial counties. But the margins continue to shrink for Republicans there — a bright red, flashing warning side for the GOP ahead of the 2024 elections.
Notably, Protasiewicz came dangerously close to outright winning in Ozaukee County, trailing Kelly by roughly five points in a county that Mitt Romney won by roughly 30 points a decade ago.
And perhaps even more concerning for Republicans: A special election for a red-leaning state Senate seat in the WOW counties on Tuesday is a nailbiter. Should Jodi Habush Sinykin, the Democratic candidate, eventually pull off the win, it would flip the seat for Democrats — and prevent Republicans from picking up a supermajority in the state Senate.
Tuesday’s election brought even more good news for Democrats elsewhere in the state.
Dane County, which is home to Madison, is one of the fastest growing regions. The area saw incredibly high turnout on Tuesday for a spring off-year election — and Protasiewicz won the county by a lopsided margin. The area is quickly turning into Democrats’ mini blue wall in the state.
We haven’t seen the end of Dobbs’ impact on elections yet
Protasiewicz’s win is a big sign that abortion is still a significant motivating factor for voters to show up — albeit in low-turnout, off-year elections — and to pull the lever for liberals.
Wisconsin has a 19th-century law on the books right now that bans abortion in nearly all circumstances in the state, and providers have stopped performing the procedure.
Protasiewicz’s campaign and her Democratic allies in the state heavily emphasized this message; roughly a third of the TV ads from her side mentioned abortion, according to data from the ad tracking firm AdImpact.
A heavy rotation of ads highlighting the issue means that voters aren’t turned off by this message — at least not yet.
Turnout for the race was also tracking through the roof on Tuesday, and has a chance of setting a record.
Protasieiwicz’s victory “is sending a clear message: don’t attack our rights as Wisconsinites,” said Sarah Godlewski, the state’s recently-appointed Democratic secretary of state who hosted rallies on abortion rights in the state.
Godlewski argued that Tuesday’s results showed that the issue on abortion rights “has only gotten stronger” as a motivating issue for voters in the state. “If anything, we are seeing how the attack on abortion and on reproductive freedom is really only strengthening people’s resolve to fight and use their voice and vote,” she said.
What happened to Republicans’ electoral advantages?
The pre-Trump Republican coalition was reliable. Voters showed up to vote no matter what — in the presidential, in midterms, and in off-years.
But bigger shifts in the composition of the parties — accelerated by Trump — indicate that may no longer be true.
Liberal judges have now won three of the last four state Supreme Court elections in Wisconsin, and broadly the party has overperformed expectations in the previous two midterms. Suburban voters nationally have gone from solid Republican voters to more than Democratic Party-curious. As a result, Republicans may be losing at least some of their stranglehold in some key swing states.
“The faithful, traditional Republican who votes in every election, some of those people are the type that’s turned away from the party and stayed home,” one former Walker aide admitted. “In Wisconsin, we’ve been able to resist that because of a strong state party.”
Another challenge for Republicans is that the rank-and-file has largely abandoned voting in any way other than in-person on Election Day.
At least 435,000 people voted early for this election — either via the mail or with in-person absentee voting — and that group is expected to lean heavily Democratic. Party officials estimated that Protasiewicz banked at least a 100,000 vote lead from those early voters.
That puts Republicans in a major hole well before most of their voters headed to the polls. That is a psychological and financial disadvantage for Republicans — the Democratic Party doesn’t have to spend last-minute resources to turn voters out, and can use those resources instead to target lower propensity voters.
The Wisconsin state GOP has been trying to flip that trend in the state, with a page on their website practically begging for their supporters to vote early. But Tuesday’s election shows they still have a long way to go.
Big money is here to stay in state elections
Spending in Tuesday’s election came in truckloads, and it wasn’t particularly close. Some $45 million has been spent on the contest as of late last week, according to WisPolitics.com, roughly tripling the previous state judicial race record.
Big money in federal races is nothing new, but that has increasingly trickled down into downballot contests. During the midterms, secretaries of state contests saw a record amount of spending, which is now making its way even further down the ballot.
It looks like state Supreme Courts are next.
The spending in Wisconsin “is more than every state Supreme Court election that occurred in 2018 combined,” said Douglas Keith, who tracks Supreme Court races for the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice.
Keith argued that the increased spending in Wisconsin “is a direct response to recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have made clear how important state high courts are,” noting that the nation’s top court have punted issues like abortion back to the states.
Another test of big spending in state Supreme Court races will likely come this year in Pennsylvania. There, the court has a 4-2 Democratic majority, with one vacant seat. There are primaries in May for a November general election for that vacant seat.
And while that race won’t determine the majority of the court, it will still likely attract a significant amount of attention given the state’s role as a perennial swing state.
“This election makes all past cycles and state Supreme Court elections seem quaint by comparison,” Keith said of Wisconsin. “I think what this race suggests is that we are really in a new era for judicial elections.”
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#takeaways #liberals #big #electionnight #win #Wisconsin
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 5, 2023
Sununu swipes at DeSantis, Dems rally to Biden: 5 takeaways from The Fifty: America’s Governors

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Here are five takeaways from the day:
Democrats throw down gauntlet on abortion
Worried about the prospect of a national abortion ban, and being surrounded by states that have restricted access to the procedure, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, all Democrats, forcefully pledged themselves to its defense.
“We’re an oasis,” Pritzker said. “People come to Illinois to exercise what are their fundamental rights that are being denied in other states, every state around us, and another ring of states around them.”
Prtizker argued for a federal law protecting abortion access, adding, “If it were me, I would write it into the U.S. Constitution.”
Cooper’s tenure as governor has almost entirely been about facing down a Republican majority in the legislature. And after the 2022 midterms, the GOP is just one seat away from a two-chamber supermajority.
In an environment where flipping just one Democrat in the state House could trump his veto pen, Republican lawmakers have floated restricting abortions after six weeks of pregnancy — around the time a fetus begins to show cardiac activity — or after the first trimester.
But Cooper said he’s not backing down.
“We have become a critical access point in the Southeast and we need to hold the line to protect women’s health,” he said.

Inslee railed against state governments pursuing “vigilante justice” by trying to track down women seeking abortions in Washington, calling them “a clear and present danger.” He insisted that abortion rights will remain a top election issue for Democrats until reproductive rights are secured through legislation.
“The vast, vast majority of Americans do not want politicians ordering women into forced pregnancies, and that’s what this is,” he said.
Inslee argued that abortion right supporters need to now focus on “increasing privacy protections” through stronger state laws, to prevent patients from being targeted via their medical or retail data, or other online activities
Biden clears the field — Democrats back President for a second term
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, said Democratic efforts to bump New Hampshire out of its first-in-the-nation slot in the party’s primary calendar will only invite challengers to Biden.
“You think no Democrat is going to step up and come to New Hampshire and get all that free press, all that earned media, all that excitement? Of course they are,” Sununu said.
Despite Sununu’s best efforts to suggest division among Democrats over the presidential race, Democratic governors lined up to applaud Biden after his State of the Union address.
Pritzker, who is widely viewed as a presidential contender, swatted away a question about his own ambitions, saying he’s “pleased” to support Biden’s yet-to-be-announced reelection bid.
“President Biden has done a superior job,” Pritzker said. “So much progress has been made in a partisan environment.”
Cooper lauded Biden as energetic and engaged: “He met the moment.”
Inslee, of Washington, who competed against Biden for the Democratic nomination in 2020 said he was “ecstatic” about the president’s address, which “showed that he is quick on his feet,” and “euphoric” about the infrastructure and clean energy investment authorized by Congress during the past year.
Republicans don’t know who their leader is
Former President Donald Trump’s loosening grip on the Republican Party after its lackluster showing in the midterms was also teased at.
While some Republicans are ready to move on from Trump, they weren’t willing to say who they think the party’s next leader should be.
“President Trump’s very popular in North Dakota,” said the state’s Gov. Doug Burgum, before quickly adding “there are people that are wanting to look to the future as opposed to looking to the past.” The question of party leadership, he said, is “an open debate.”
Sununu sees a group of leaders — the party’s would-be presidential contenders, himself included — but said “you never pin leadership of a party on one individual, you really can’t.”
The governors were clearer on what they don’t want to see from their party going forward: The heckling some Republican lawmakers did during Biden’s State of the Union speech.
“The Republicans, frankly, were rude. There’s no doubt about it,” Sununu said, describing Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ response to Biden’s address as “very politically driven” and “unhelpful” in its suggestion that “all Democrats are crazy.”
Alexa Henning, Huckabee Sanders’ communications director, rejected Sununu’s criticisms. “That isn’t what she said,” Henning said, “so it’s actually Chris that assumes half the country is crazy.”
Sununu 2024, definitely maybe, sorta
Don’t call him a moderate. Sununu made it clear Thursday, as he mulls a 2024 presidential bid, that he’s as conservative — if not more conservative — than any Republican discussing a presidential bid.
“I’m ranked the most fiscally conservative governor in the country. I’m No. 1 in personal freedoms. Sorry, Ron, you’re No. 2,” Sununu said in a knock on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who’s considered a presidential frontrunner.
The libertarian-leaning Cato Institute ranked Sununu second-most fiscally conservative, behind Iowa’s GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds. DeSantis was ranked 20th, behind some Democrats, including Cooper.
“Am I more moderate on social issues? Yeah, maybe,” Sununu, who typically describes himself as “pro-choice,” said. “But I’ve gotta stand for management. I’m a manager. I’m a CEO.”
Sununu has a seemingly built-in advantage if he runs for president: New Hampshire remains the first primary for Republicans. But it can also be an albatross.
“If I didn’t win New Hampshire, I’d be done,” Sununu said, adding that the pressure would be immense even if he’s successful. “If I win New Hampshire, everyone’s going to say it wasn’t by enough.”
Democrats agree: The best climate message is jobs and economic opportunity
Democratic governors admitted the party has often tripped over itself in trying to convince independent and conservative voters on the need to tackle climate change and other policy action.
Cooper, of North Carolina, said he has no choice but to use pragmatic climate messaging: “You gotta do whatever it takes to get the job done,” he said, lamenting “my predecessor Republican governor didn’t allow people in his administration to even say the word [climate change],” he said.
It helps to have partners in that messaging: “We all agree that economic development and great paying jobs are good for North Carolina,” Cooper said, but now auto company CEOs are “falling all over themselves” to make electric vehicle investments.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, said he’s proud of working to convert the threat of climate change into economic opportunities, even as neighboring North Dakota looks to overturn Minnesota’s new clean energy targets through a lawsuit.
“Fighting against the ability to create more clean jobs and reduce carbon emissions, and suing your neighbor. I don’t think it looks very good,” Walz said.
Inslee, of Washington, said “clean energy jobs are moving so rapidly I can’t turn over a rock without finding some new company that’s hiring people,” offsetting tech layoffs in the state, which is home to big tech companies including Microsoft and Amazon.
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#Sununu #swipes #DeSantis #Dems #rally #Biden #takeaways #Fifty #Americas #Governors
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 10, 2023
Fed’s Powell warns of more pain ahead: Key takeaways

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“We have more work to do,” he said. “We’re going to be cautious about declaring victory and sending signals that we think the game is won.”
Still, Wednesday’s move, the smallest rate increase since last March, brings policymakers another step closer to an expected pause in their inflation fight sometime this year — and stock markets rose on the day. The Fed’s main borrowing rate now sits between 4.5 percent and 4.75 percent, up from near zero early last year.
Unemployment is still at modern lows, even after all the aggressive rate hikes, feeding hopes that the U.S. may be able to avoid a recession — a crucial goal for President Joe Biden before the 2024 election. But that will hinge on how much more the central bank increases rates and then how long it waits to lower them again.
Powell gave some hints on what the Fed might do. Here are some key quotes from the Fed chief and what he meant:
“We are not yet at a sufficiently restrictive policy stance, which is why we say that we expect ongoing hikes will be appropriate.”
The central bank has raised interest rates high enough to bite into economic growth, but Powell says it needs to go further to bring inflation to heel. The key word here is “ongoing,” which suggests it will be more than one additional increase. He later signaled that could mean “a couple more” — which would be consistent with what officials had forecast in December.
According to those forecasts, the Fed expects to raise rates to about 5 percent before stopping, but that will depend on whether inflation continues its downward trend. Powell also held open the possibility that rates could rise even more if incoming data starts to look worse.
“Finding out in six or 12 months that we actually were close but didn’t get the job done, inflation springs back and we have to go back in … This is a very difficult risk to manage.”

The message here is that it’s better to err on the side of whipping inflation a little too soundly — even if it means throwing the economy into a painful recession — than risk that the price surges come roaring back. But his best guess right now is that no downturn is in store — a view that clashes with that of many economists and Wall Street CEOs.
The economy grew at a healthy 2.9 percent annualized pace in the last three quarters of the year, suggesting the U.S. is still far from dipping into a recession. But there’s always a lag in the impact of monetary policy, and growth could slow further as the Fed’s rate moves feed through to economic activity.
A closely watched survey on Wednesday showed that manufacturing is contracting, and the housing market has been hammered for months by high mortgage rates, though the job market has remained resilient.
“Generally, it is a forecast of slower growth, some softening in labor market conditions and inflation moving down steadily, but not quickly. And in that case, if the economy performs broadly in line with those expectations, it will not be appropriate to cut rates this year.”
Powell and his fellow officials have been struggling to convince markets that rate cuts are unlikely later this year. This matters because the Fed wants market-set rates to remain high and stock prices to stay muted, as part of its efforts to restrain spending and investment. Investors haven’t bought into that message though and are overwhelmingly betting on rate cuts in 2023.
Here he seems to be striking a balance by saying that he expects inflation to come down only slowly, which will mean holding rates higher for longer. That could also come alongside fewer job openings, slower wage growth and higher unemployment — euphemistically called “softening in labor market conditions.”
But he also left the door open to rate cuts if inflation comes down more quickly.
“We are neither pessimistic nor optimistic.”
Powell repeatedly acknowledged that inflation is coming down but also said the fight isn’t over. The prices of goods like furniture and cars have dropped, he said, while there are signs that rents may be slowing their ascent. But surging prices are still a concern in core services sectors, where labor costs are often the biggest expense.
Here he is saying that Fed officials are trying to watch how the economy evolves and not assume how close they are to beating inflation yet.
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#Feds #Powell #warns #pain #ahead #Key #takeaways
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 2, 2023
Five takeaways from Supreme Court leak investigation

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Here are five takeaways on other key findings of the much-anticipated report:
Did investigators interview the justices?
The report indicates Curley’s aides conducted formal interviews of nearly 100 Supreme Court employees and focused on 82 people who had access to either electronic or hard copies of the opinion. All denied involvement in the leak.
The report acknowledges in passing that, unsurprisingly, the justices also had access to the draft. However, the report is silent on whether the nine justices on the court last term were interviewed as part of the investigation, which the court called “diligent” and Chertoff described as “thorough.” It’s unclear whether the court or the chief justice would have the authority to force such interviews.
A Supreme Court spokesperson did not respond to a request to clarify whether the justices or their spouses were interviewed.
The leak was “unlikely” to have been a hack.
There has been speculation that the draft opinion might have emerged as a result of the Supreme Court’s networks, email systems or servers being penetrated by hackers. It’s not an entirely improbable scenario because the federal courts have been the subject of repeated cyberattacks.
Last year, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) announced that “three hostile foreign actors” attacked the electronic filing system used by lower federal courts.
But the Supreme Court’s investigation into the disclosure of the draft opinion scoured system logs and netted no evidence of electronic intrusion of the court’s devices, networks or systems.
“The Court’s IT department did not find any indications of a hack,” the report said.

Social media sleuthing turned up nothing.
In the wake of the article in May, online sleuths fingered several law clerks as potential leakers. The court’s investigators followed up on those claims but got nowhere. The team “assessed the wide array of public speculation, mostly on social media, about any individual who may have disclosed the document,” the report said.
The report doesn’t describe precisely how the investigators pursued those claims, but asserts that the wide array of social media allegations didn’t lead anywhere.
“In their inquiries, the investigators found nothing to substantiate any of the social media allegations regarding the disclosure,” the report said.
Court personnel breached policy by telling their spouses or partners.
A few court employees interviewed in the course of the probe acknowledged they told loved ones how divided the court was in private discussions about the Dobbs case—splitting 5-4 in favor of overturning the federal constitutional right to abortion the court announced 50 years ago in Roe v. Wade.
“Some individuals admitted to investigators that they told their spouse or partner about the draft Dobbs opinion and the vote count, in violation of the Court’s confidentiality rules,” the report said. “Several personnel told investigators they had shared confidential details about their work more generally with their spouses and some indicated they thought it permissible to provide such information to their spouses.”
Some staffers said they didn’t realize that was prohibited, though an existing code of conduct for law clerks says: “The temptation to discuss interesting pending or decided cases among friends, spouses, or other family members, for example, must be scrupulously resisted.”
The report does not indicate whether any employee intentionally shared the full text of the draft opinion with a spouse or partner.
The court is increasing its security.
Investigators concluded that many of the court’s practices for handling physical and electronic copies of opinions and internal communications were too casual and archaic, leaving little way to trace potential leaks.
Provisions allowing many staff to work from home during the pandemic exacerbated these weaknesses, the report found.
The court’s official statement did not address any steps taken to tighten security, but Chertoff said in his letter that the court had “already taken steps to increase security.” Curley also indicated she’d made some recommendations regarding security, but those were not released publicly Thursday.
“While there is not sufficient evidence at present for prosecution or other legal action, there were important insights gleaned from the investigation that can be acted upon to avoid future incidents,” Chertoff added.
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#takeaways #Supreme #Court #leak #investigation
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

January 20, 2023