Author: PolitCens

“In a democracy, the number of voters you have should determine the number of representatives you can elect,” James Gilmore, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told VOA. “But that’s not the case in Louisiana and many other U.S. states. The latest redistricting maps are proof of that.”

Redistricting is the decennial process in which congressional districts are redrawn to reflect changes in the population as determined by the U.S. census.

“The strength of the system is that it balances the size of districts so that they all have roughly equal populations,” explained Robert Collins, professor of urban studies and public policy at Dillard University in New Orleans. “That, in theory, means everyone has equal influence with their vote.”

But how those maps are drawn can benefit or disadvantage certain groups and the political parties they support. Manipulating the contours of congressional districts to give a political party an advantage at the ballot box — and, ultimately, greater numbers in the U.S. House of Representatives — is known as gerrymandering, a practice almost as old as America itself.

Louisiana’s Republican-led Legislature devised new congressional maps that sparked an outcry from Democrats and voting rights groups. Republicans insist they balanced multiple considerations fairly.

“I took our population, I took our geography of the state, I took our communities of interest, I took the will of the public, the will of the Legislature, and I balanced all of that with the law,” said Representative John Stefanski, the lead Republican in the Louisiana House’s redistricting efforts.

But opponents insist the resulting maps don’t accurately reflect changes in the state’s demographics, particularly the growth of its minority population.

“Louisiana is now made up of one-third Black residents, and the Black population has been a principal driver of the state’s overall growth,” said Liza Weisberg, voting rights staff attorney at Southern Poverty Law Center. “But the new redistricting maps don’t meaningfully increase opportunities for Black voters to elect candidates of their choosing. That’s a broken system.”

The system

How political maps are drawn also has important implications for residents other than representation in Washington. The delineation of state and local government districts can bring consequences.

“African Americans make up more than 50% of the population of Baton Rouge, but the way the maps are drawn, we’re still outnumbered by white Republicans on the school board, on City Council and throughout local government,” said Gilmore, who is African American. “So it’s no wonder those boards and councils keep voting to have the new schools, new hospitals, new housing, new public transportation — I can go on forever — put in the part of town that happens to be white and Republican. Meanwhile, when my mother had a stroke, I had to drive her 26 minutes to the nearest hospital and carry her inside myself. If redistricting was done fairly, we’d have fair representation and we couldn’t be treated like this.”

Redistricting became a requirement in 1967, with the passage of the Uniform Congressional District Act. The law required states to use the U.S. census, conducted every 10 years, to ensure voting districts consisted of approximately the same number of residents.

“Before the 1960s, you might have had one state senator representing a district of 10,000 residents, while another senator in the same state represented 100,000 residents,” said Robert Hogan, professor and chair of the political science department at Louisiana State University.

This ensures every resident’s vote can have the same strength. But redistricting has also been used to both consolidate and dilute political power.

That’s because it often falls to a state’s legislature to draw redistricting maps. Though the legislature can pass that responsibility to a less partisan committee, the majority party typically chooses to do this consequential work itself.

“Historically, the process has been used by the majority party as a way to further consolidate power,” Weisberg told VOA.

That power is on full display in Louisiana, where even though nearly 4 out of 10 voters cast their ballots for Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, Democrats hold only one of the state’s six seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“It’s a weakness of the redistricting system,” Hogan said. “The minority party suffers at the hand of the majority party that draws districts in a way that ultimately reduces the number of seats their opponent can win. Republicans want to keep their five incumbent seats rather than having to give another to Democrats.”

Hogan says while the strategy is meant to help the majority party at the expense of the opposition party, it’s not just the minority party that feels its effects.

“The redistricting process can also be harmful to racial and ethnic minority populations as well,” he said.

Majority-minority districts

In a majority-minority district, Black Americans and other minority groups make up the majority of a district’s electorate. Louisiana currently has only one majority-minority district, but when the 2020 census revealed that the African American population in Louisiana had risen to one-third of the state’s total population, there was hope that redistricting would add a second.

This, supporters of a second majority-minority district said, would allow Black voters to choose representatives to both the Louisiana State Legislature and the U.S. Congress who more fairly represented their growing numbers in the state.

The idea had the backing of Louisiana’s Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards, but not that of key Republican state lawmakers.

Democrats, voting rights advocates and many African Americans were infuriated with what emerged.

“More than two dozen versions of maps that included a second majority-minority district were presented to the Legislature, and Republicans rejected all of them,” Nora Ahmed, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, told VOA.

Republicans have defended the maps they ultimately selected, saying Louisiana’s African American population is spread out across rural parts of the state. If they had created a second majority-minority district, they said, it could have weakened the influence Black voters currently have at the ballot box.

During a special redistricting session last month, Republican state Senator Sharon Hewitt called the desire for a second majority-Black district “a great risk,” alleging it would reduce the percentage of minority voters in Louisiana’s only current majority-minority district from 61% to 53%.

Some dispute Hewitt’s assertions.

“At the time of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Black majority congressional districts had to consist of 80% to 90% Black voters,” Dillard University’s Collins explained. “That’s no longer the case. With modern voting patterns, if a district is between 48% to 50% Black, it gives a fair opportunity to elect an African American candidate because getting some crossover votes from white voters is now more possible.”

At a standoff

Last month, the Louisiana State Legislature concluded its special redistricting session by passing a set of maps that left opponents unhappy with the projected level of minority representation.

“They could have passed a map that, after decades, finally gave fair representation to African American voters,” Gilmore said. “But they didn’t, and we’ll have to pay the price while those who are represented in government get the benefits.”

But the battle isn’t over. Earlier this month, Edwards vetoed the map creating the state’s six seats in the U.S. House of Representatives on the ground that it did not include a second majority-minority district.

“This map is simply not fair to the people of Louisiana and does not meet the standards set forth in the federal Voting Rights Act,” Edwards said in a statement.

Similar maps creating voting districts to determine representatives to the state Legislature were not vetoed, however. Edwards said that even though he felt those maps were not sufficiently representative, he didn’t think the Legislature had the time to redraw them during a busy legislative session.

Advocacy groups have already filed lawsuits against the maps, saying they dilute the voting strength of minorities.

Hewitt disagreed.

“Nothing in the [Voting Rights Act] establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population,” she said during last month’s redistricting debate.

While Republicans attempt to get the votes to overturn Edwards’ veto, opponents hope the courts will intervene to ensure fairly drawn district maps ahead of midterm elections in November, when all seats in the U.S. House of Representatives will be decided.

Whether drawn by the Legislature or the court system, Gilmore says the consequences for minority voters will be substantial.

“Our ability to vote for officials who represent us hangs in how these maps are drawn. I hope they do the right thing here, because it will affect a whole lot of people.”
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Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent weeks of text messages imploring White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to act to overturn the 2020 presidential election — furthering then-President Donald Trump’s lies that the free and fair vote was marred by nonexistent fraud, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News. 

The 29 messages the pair exchanged came in the weeks after the vote in November 2020, when Trump and his top allies were still saying they planned to go to the Supreme Court to have its results voided. 

The Post reported that on November 10, three days after the election and after The Associated Press and other news outlets declared Democrat Joe Biden the winner, Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist, texted to Meadows: “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!! … You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.” 

Copies of the texts — 21 sent by her, eight sent in reply by Meadows — were provided to the House select committee investigating the deadly insurrection that saw a mob of mostly Trump supporters overrun the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The AP attempted to get the same information from the committee, but it declined to comment. 

The texts do not directly reference Thomas’ husband or the Supreme Court. But she has previously admitted to attending the Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Capitol riot. Virginia Thomas also has previously denied conflicts of interest between her activism and her husband’s place on the high court. 

Still, the messages show she was urging the top levels of the Trump administration to try to throw out the 2020 election results, and even offering coaching to Meadows on how best to do so. Thomas urged lawyer Sidney Powell, who promoted false claims about the election, to be “the lead and the face” of the Trump legal team. 

Meadows’ attorney, George Terwilliger III, told the Post and CBS that neither he nor Meadows would comment on individual texts, adding, “nothing about the text messages presents any legal issues.” 

Justice Thomas, 73, has been hospitalized for treatment from an infection. He and his wife did not respond to the news outlets’ request for comment. 

In February 2021, the Supreme Court rejected challenges to the election. Justice Thomas dissented, calling the ruling not to hear arguments in the case “befuddling” and “inexplicable.” 

In a November 5 message to Meadows, Virginia Thomas quoted material that had appeared on right-wing fringe websites: “Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition.” 

In a subsequent text the next day, Thomas wrote to Meadows, “Do not concede.” 

The messages also suggest that Meadows was willing to continue pursuing ways to overturn the election. He replied to one message from Thomas: “I will stand firm. We will fight until there is no fight left. Our country is too precious to give up on. Thanks for all you do.” 

The texts between Thomas and Meadows stop after Nov. 24, 2020. But the committee received another message sent on Jan. 10, 2021, four days after the mob attack on the Capitol, according to the Post and CBS. 

“We are living through what feels like the end of America,” Thomas wrote to Meadows in it. 

 
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Idaho on Wednesday became the first state to enact a law modeled after a Texas statute that bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy and that can be enforced through lawsuits to avoid constitutional court challenges.

Republican Governor Brad Little signed into law the measure that allows people who would have been family members to sue a doctor who performed an abortion after cardiac activity had been detected in an embryo. Still, he said he had concerns about whether the law was constitutional.

“I stand in solidarity with all Idahoans who seek to protect the lives of preborn babies,” Little wrote in a letter to Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin, who is also president of the Senate.

Yet he also noted: “While I support the pro-life policy in this legislation, I fear the novel civil enforcement mechanism will in short order be proven both unconstitutional and unwise.”

The law in the conservative state is scheduled to take effect 30 days after the signing, but court challenges are expected. Opponents call it unconstitutional, noting six weeks is before many women know they’re pregnant.

Advanced technology can detect the first flutter of electric activity within an embryo’s cells as early as six weeks. This flutter isn’t a beating heart; it’s cardiac activity that will eventually become a heart. An embryo is termed a fetus after the eighth week of pregnancy, and the actual heart begins to form between the ninth and 12th weeks of pregnancy.

The law allows the father, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles of a “preborn child” to each sue an abortion provider for a minimum of $20,000 in damages within four years after the abortion. Rapists can’t file a lawsuit under the law, but a rapist’s relatives could.

‘Vigilante aspect’

“The vigilante aspect of this bill is absurd,” said Idaho Democratic Representative Lauren Necochea. “Its impacts are cruel, and it is blatantly unconstitutional.”

A Planned Parenthood official called the law unconstitutional and said the group was “committed to going to every length and exploring all our options to restore Idahoans’ right to abortion.”

“I want to emphasize to everyone in Idaho that our doors remain open. We remain committed to helping our patients access the health care they need, including abortion,” said Rebecca Gibron of Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana and Kentucky, which operates Idaho’s three abortion clinics.

Backers have said the law was Idaho’s best opportunity to severely restrict abortions in the state after years of trying. Most recently, the state last year passed a six-week abortion ban law, but it required a favorable federal court ruling in a similar case to take effect, and that hasn’t happened.

The law is modeled after a Texas law that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to remain in place until a court challenge is decided on its merits. The Texas law allows people to enforce the law in place of the state officials who normally would do so. The Texas law authorizes lawsuits against clinics, doctors and anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion that is not permitted by law.

Other states are pursuing similar laws, including Tennessee, which introduced a Texas-styled abortion bill last week.

The Biden administration knew the Texas law would lead to other states passing similar laws, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, and called on Congress to send the president a bill to “shut down these radical steps.”

“This development is devastating for women in Idaho, as it will further impede women’s access to health care, especially those on low incomes and living in rural communities,” Psaki said in a statement Wednesday.

Republicans in Idaho have supermajorities in both the House and Senate. The measure passed the Senate 28-6 and the House 51-14 with no Democratic support. Three House Republicans voted against the measure.

Governor’s concerns

Little on Wednesday noted his concerns with the legislation.

“Deputizing private citizens to levy hefty monetary fines on the exercise of a disfavored but judicially recognized constitutional right for the purpose of evading court review undermines our constitutional form of government and weakens our collective liberties,” he wrote.

He said that he worried some states might use the same approach to limit gun rights.

He also noted his concern with the part of the law allowing a rapist’s relatives to sue.

“Ultimately, this legislation risks retraumatizing victims by affording monetary incentives to wrongdoers and family members of rapists,” he wrote.

He concluded the letter by encouraging lawmakers to fix those problems to avoid unintended consequences “to ensure the state sufficiently protects the interests of victims of sexual assault.”

Little is facing a primary challenge from the far-right in McGeachin, the lieutenant governor, who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

Republican state Representative Steven Harris, the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement after the vote on March 14: “This bill makes sure that the people of Idaho can stand up for our values and do everything in our power to prevent the wanton destruction of innocent human life.”
…

An elected official from New Mexico has been found guilty of two misdemeanor charges for his role in the January 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol that allegedly attempted to disrupt certification of the 2020 election results.

Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin was found guilty of illegally entering the U.S. Capitol but was acquitted of engaging in disorderly conduct.

The trial, presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden, lasted one day without a jury.

McFadden, who was appointed by former president Donald Trump, said Griffin, who crossed over three barricades, knew he was in a restricted part of the building but stayed.

“All of this would suggest to a normal person that perhaps you should not be entering the area,” McFadden said from the bench.

When acquitting Griffin, a founder of the group “Cowboys for Trump,” of a more serious disorderly conduct charge, McFadden said Griffin was “trying to calm people down, not rile them up.”

Griffin could face up to two years in jail. Sentencing is scheduled for June 17.

Griffin’s trial was the second of hundreds of federal cases resulting from the January 6 riots.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
…

Confirmation hearings opened with Democrats largely praising nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, while Republicans telegraphed tough questioning ahead 
…

In the first of four days of scheduled hearings to discuss the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee revealed that their treatment of Jackson would break along partisan lines, with Democrats highlighting her qualifications and Republicans raising questions about her record.

Currently a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Jackson is the first Black woman, and only the third Black person overall, to be tapped for a seat on the nation’s highest court.

The first day of hearings consisted of the roughly twenty members of the committee delivering opening statements, as did Jackson herself. Some lawmakers used those statements to praise Jackson or to make broad statements about their feelings about the role of the Supreme Court in U.S. society. Others used their time to telegraph the sort of questions they will ask Jackson during the second and third days of hearings.

The hearing Monday, which lasted nearly five hours, was merely a warm-up. On Tuesday, each member will get 30 minutes to question the nominee, in a process expected to last from morning until evening.

Democratic leaders

The most senior members on the committee, on both sides of the aisle, made sure to praise Jackson’s service as a judge, which began with her confirmation in 2013 to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She has also served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission; worked as a public defender; clerked for more senior judges, including current Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, whom she has been designated to replace; and worked in private practice.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, a Democrat, used his opening statement to point out the historic nature of her nomination.

“In its more than 230 years, the Court has had 115 justices,” he said. “One hundred and eight have been white men. Just two justices have been men of color. Only five women have served on the Court — and just one woman of color. Not a single justice has been a Black woman. You, Judge Jackson, can be the first.”

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, the Senate’s longest-serving member, noted that he has participated in the confirmation of 20 other Supreme Court justices in his tenure, saying, “In Judge Jackson, I have found a distinguished nominee with an unassailable record that merits our respect, regardless of party.”

Leahy added, “Despite all the darkness in the world and the political brinksmanship that has unfortunately become a hallmark of Congress in recent years, your nomination fills me with hope — hope for the Court, hope for the rule of law, hope for the country.”

Republican leaders

Senator Chuck Grassley, the most senior Republican on the panel, pledged to “conduct a thorough, exhaustive examination of Judge Jackson’s record and views.”

Members of his party, he said, will “ask tough questions about Judge Jackson’s judicial philosophy. In any Supreme Court nomination, the most important thing we look for is the nominee’s view of the law, judicial philosophy and view on the role of a judge. I’ll be looking to see whether Judge Jackson is committed to the Constitution as originally understood.”

Republican Senator Lindsay Graham promised that the hearings would be “challenging” for Jackson. However, he spent much of his time criticizing Democrats’ treatment of recent Supreme Court justices nominated by Republicans, specifically current Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose hearing in 2018 was marked by allegations of sexual assault decades in the past.

Pledging that members of his party would not personalize the hearings, he added, “You’re the beneficiary of Republican nominees having their lives turned upside down.”

Likely topics of questioning

Through their opening statements, Republicans on the panel signaled some of the areas of questioning that Jackson will likely face. Some were fairly general promises to probe her view of the proper role of the judiciary in the formation of public policy. Others were more specific.

Republican Senator John Cornyn said that he would raise the issue of Jackson’s work defending terrorism suspects who were, at the time, detained at the U.S. military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Jackson’s representation of defendants there was part of her work as a federal public defender.

“As someone who has deep respect for the adversarial system of justice, I understand the importance of zealous advocacy,” Cornyn said. “But it appears that sometimes this zealous advocacy has gone beyond the pale. And in some instances, it appears that your advocacy has bled over into your decision-making process as a judge.”

Jackson and her supporters have pointed out that not all of the four Guantanamo detainees she was assigned to represent while serving as a federal public defender were even charged with crimes. Those who were charged eventually had those charges dropped. All four were eventually released.

Child pornography decisions

In the days leading up to the hearing, Republican Senator Josh Hawley had tweeted out accusations that in her judicial decisions, Jackson had a record of being “soft” on child pornography defendants.

Hawley’s claims faced serious pushback in the media, even from opponents of Jackson’s nomination. Many, including conservative attorney and former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, claimed that he was misrepresenting Jackson’s record. Writing in The National Review, McCarthy called the claims “meritless to the point of demagoguery.”

Nevertheless, Hawley on Monday raised the issue in his opening remarks, saying he would address seven separate cases in which Jackson issued rulings. “What concerns me is that in every case, in each of these seven, Judge Jackson handed down a lenient sentence that was below what the federal guidelines recommended and below what the prosecutors requested.”

In remarks last week meant to blunt Hawley’s criticism, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “In the vast majority of cases involving child sex crimes broadly, the sentences Judge Jackson imposed were consistent with or above what the government or U.S. probation recommended.”

Jackson’s remarks

After several hours of opening statements by senators, Jackson was allowed to deliver her own remarks, which she prefaced by noting that her nomination was a great honor and by introducing her extended family, who were in attendance at the hearing.

“If I am confirmed, I commit to you that I will work productively to support and defend the Constitution and the grand experiment of American democracy that has endured over these past 246 years,” Jackson said.

“During this hearing, I hope that you will see how much I love our country and the Constitution, and the rights that make us free,” she continued.

Jackson invoked the name of Judge Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to be appointed to a federal judgeship.

“Like Judge Motley, I have dedicated my career to ensuring that the words engraved on the front of the Supreme Court building — ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ — are a reality and not just an ideal,” Jackson said. “Thank you for this historic chance to join the highest Court, to work with brilliant colleagues, to inspire future generations, and to ensure liberty and justice for all.”
…

The U.S. Supreme Court is made up of nine justices. Like all federal judges, they are appointed for life. When a justice chooses to step down, or dies in office, the process begins to select a replacement.
…

WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee is beginning historic confirmation hearings Monday for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who would be the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.

Barring a significant misstep by the 51-year-old Jackson, a federal judge for the past nine years, Democrats who control the Senate by the slimmest of margins intend to wrap up her confirmation before Easter.

Jackson is expected to present an opening statement Monday afternoon, then answer questions from the committee’s 11 Democrats and 11 Republicans over the next two days. She will be introduced by Thomas B. Griffith, a retired judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Lisa M. Fairfax, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.

Jackson appeared before the same committee last year, after President Joe Biden chose her to fill an opening on the federal appeals court in Washington, just down the hill from the Supreme Court.

Her testimony will give most Americans, as well as the Senate, their most extensive look yet at the Harvard-trained lawyer with a resume that includes two years as a federal public defender. That makes her the first nominee with significant criminal defense experience since Thurgood Marshall, the first Black American to serve on the nation’s highest court.

In addition to being the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, Jackson would be the third Black justice, after Marshall and his successor, Justice Clarence Thomas.

The American Bar Association, which evaluates judicial nominees, on Friday gave Jackson’s its highest rating, unanimously “well qualified.”

Janette McCarthy Wallace, general counsel of the NAACP, said she is excited to see a Black woman on the verge of a high court seat.

“Representation matters,” Wallace said. “It’s critical to have diverse experience on the bench. It should reflect the rich cultural diversity of this country.”

It’s not yet clear how aggressively Republicans will go after Jackson, given that her confirmation would not alter the court’s 6-3 conservative majority.

Still, some Republicans have signaled they could use Jackson’s nomination to try to brand Democrats as soft on crime, an emerging theme in GOP midterm election campaigns. Biden has chosen several former public defenders for life-tenured judicial posts. In addition, Jackson served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an independent agency created by Congress to reduce disparity in federal prison sentences.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., highlighted one potential line of attack. “I’ve noticed an alarming pattern when it comes to Judge Jackson’s treatment of sex offenders, especially those preying on children,” Hawley wrote on Twitter last week in a thread that was echoed by the Republican National Committee. Hawley did not raise the issue when he questioned Jackson last year before voting against her appeals court confirmation.

The White House pushed back forcefully against the criticism as “toxic and weakly presented misinformation.” Sentencing expert Douglas Berman, an Ohio State law professor, wrote on his blog that Jackson’s record shows she is skeptical of the range of prison terms recommended for child pornography cases, “but so too were prosecutors in the majority of her cases and so too are district judges nationwide.”

Hawley is one of several committee Republicans, along with Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who are potential 2024 presidential candidates, and their aspirations may collide with other Republicans who would just as soon not pursue a scorched-earth approach to Jackson’s nomination.

Biden chose Jackson in February, fulfilling a campaign pledge to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court for the first time in American history. She would take the seat of Justice Stephen Breyer, who announced in January that he would retire this summer after 28 years on the court.

Jackson once worked as a high court law clerk to Breyer early in her legal career.

Democrats are moving quickly to confirm Jackson, even though Breyer’s seat will not officially open until the summer. They have no votes to spare in a 50-50 Senate that they run by virtue of the tiebreaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris.

But they are not moving as fast as Republicans did when they installed Amy Coney Barrett on the court little more than a month after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and days before the 2020 presidential election.

Barrett, the third of President Donald Trump’s high court picks, entrenched the court’s conservative majority when she took the place of the liberal Ginsburg.

Last year, Jackson won Senate confirmation by a 53-44 vote, with three Republicans supporting her. It’s not clear how many Republicans might vote for her this time.

Jackson is married to Patrick Johnson, a surgeon in Washington. They have two daughters, one in college and the other in high school. She is related by marriage to former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who also was the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2012. Ryan has voiced support for Jackson’s nomination.

Jackson has spoken about how her children have kept her in touch with reality, even as she has held a judge’s gavel since 2013. In the courtroom, she told an audience in Athens, Georgia, in 2017, “people listen and generally do what I tell them to do.”

At home, though, her daughters “make it very clear I know nothing, I should not tell them anything, much less give them any orders, that is, if they talk to me at all,” Jackson said.
…

Alaska Rep. Don Young, who was the longest-serving Republican in the history of the U.S. House, has died. He was 88.

His office announced Young’s death in a statement Friday night.

“It’s with heavy hearts and deep sadness that we announce Congressman Don Young (R-AK), the Dean of the House and revered champion for Alaska, passed away today while traveling home to Alaska to be with the state and people that he loved. His beloved wife Anne was by his side,” said the statement from Young’s congressional office.

The Anchorage Daily News reported that Young lost consciousness on a flight from Los Angeles to Seattle and couldn’t be resuscitated.

A cause of death was not provided. Young’s office said details about plans for a celebration of Young’s life were expected in the coming days.

Young, who was first elected to the U.S. House in 1973, was known for his brusque style. In his later years in office, his off-color comments and gaffes sometimes overshadowed his work. During his 2014 reelection bid, he described himself as intense and less-than-perfect but said he wouldn’t stop fighting for Alaska. Alaska has just one House member.

Born on June 9, 1933, in Meridian, California, Young grew up on a family farm. He earned a bachelor’s degree in teaching at Chico State College, now known as California State University, Chico, in 1958. He also served in the U.S. Army, according to his official biography.

Young came to Alaska in 1959, the same year Alaska became a state, and credited Jack London’s Call of the Wild, which his father used to read to him, for drawing him north.

“I can’t stand heat, and I was working on a ranch and I used to dream of someplace cold, and no snakes and no poison oak,” Young told The Associated Press in 2016. After leaving the military and after his father’s death, he told his mother he was going to Alaska. She questioned his decision.

“I said, ‘I’m going up (to) drive dogs, catch fur and I want to mine gold.’ And I did that,” he said. In Alaska, he met his first wife, Lu, who convinced him to enter politics, which he said was unfortunate in one sense – it sent him to Washington, D.C., “a place that’s hotter than hell in the summer. And there’s lots of snakes here, two-legged snakes.”

In Alaska, Young settled in Fort Yukon, a small community accessible primarily by air at the confluence of the Yukon and Porcupine rivers in the state’s rugged, harsh interior. He held jobs in areas like construction, trapping and commercial fishing. He was a tug and barge operator who delivered supplies to villages along the Yukon River, and he taught fifth grade at a Bureau of Indian Affairs school, according to his biography. With Lu, he had two daughters, Joni and Dawn.

He was elected mayor of Fort Yukon in 1964 and elected to the state House two years later. He served two terms before winning election to the state Senate, where, he said, he was miserable. Lu said he needed to get out of the job, which he resisted, saying he didn’t quit. He recalled that she encouraged him instead to run for U.S. House, saying he’d never win.

In 1972, Young was the Republican challenger to Democratic U.S. Rep. Nick Begich. Three weeks before the election, Begich’s plane disappeared on a flight from Anchorage to Juneau. Alaskans reelected Begich anyway.

Begich was declared dead in December 1972, and Young won a close special election in March 1973. Young held the seat until his death. He was running for reelection this year against a field that included one of Begich’s grandsons, Republican Nicholas Begich III.

In 2013, Young became the longest-serving member of Alaska’s congressional delegation, surpassing the late U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, who served for 40 years.

In 2015, nearly six years after Lu Young’s death, and on his 82nd birthday, Young married Anne Garland Walton in a private ceremony in the U.S. Capitol chapel.

“Everybody knows Don Young,” he told the AP in 2016. “They may not like Don Young; they may love Don Young. But they all know Don Young.”

The often gruff Young had a sense of humor and a camaraderie with colleagues from both sides of the aisle.

As the House member with the longest service, Young swore in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, when the 117th Congress convened on Jan. 3, 2021 — three days before the deadly attack on the Capitol by supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump. Before administering the oath of office, Young expressed dismay about the period’s intense partisanship.

“When you do have a problem or if there’s something so contentious, let’s sit down and have a drink, and solve those problems,” he said, drawing laughter and applause.

Pelosi, in a statement, said Young’s “reverence and devotion to the House shone through in everything that he did.” She called him “an institution in the hallowed halls of Congress.”

She said photos of him with 10 presidents, Republicans and Democrats, signing his bills into law “are a testament to his longevity and his legislative mastery.”

Young, known for decades of steering federal spending to his home state, won $23.7 million for Alaska for water, road and other projects in the government-wide $1.5 trillion spending bill President Joe Biden signed into law this week, according to an analysis of that bill by The Associated Press. It is one of the highest amounts for home-district projects that any House member had in the legislation.

Young said he wanted his legacy to be one of working for the people. He counted among his career highlights passage of legislation his first year in office that allowed for construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline system, which became the state’s economic lifeline. With that successful pipeline fight, “I found a niche in my life where I enjoy working for the people of Alaska and this nation – primarily the people of Alaska,” Young said in 2016, adding later: “I like the House.”

During his career, he unapologetically supported earmarks as a way to bring home projects and build up infrastructure in a geographically huge state where communities range from big cities to tiny villages; critics deemed earmarks pork.

Young branded himself a conservative and won support with voters for his stances on gun and hunting rights and a strong military. He made a career out of railing against “extreme environmentalists” and a federal bureaucracy that he saw as locking up Alaska’s mineral, timber and petroleum resources. He said his word was a “gold bond.”

He said he was happy every time he could help a constituent. “And I try to do that every day, and I’m very good at that,” he told AP in 2016.

His career was marred by investigations and criticism about his off-the-cuff and often abrasive style.

In 2008, Congress asked the Justice Department to investigate Young’s role in securing a $10 million earmark to widen a Florida highway; the matter was dropped in 2010, and Young denied any wrongdoing.

In December 2011, the U.S. House Ethics Committee said it was revising its rules to impose new contribution limits on owners who run multiple companies following questions raised by the nonpartisan Office of Congressional Ethics about donations made to Young’s legal expense fund.

In 2014, the ethics committee found that Young had violated House rules by using campaign funds for personal trips and accepting improper gifts. Young was told to repay the value of the trips and gifts, totaling about $59,000, and amend financial disclosure statements to include gifts he hadn’t reported. The committee also issued a “letter of reproval,” or rebuke. Young said he regretted the “oversights” and apologized for failing to exercise “due care” in complying with the House’s Code of Conduct.

Fresh off a reelection win in 2020, Young announced he had tested positive for COVID-19, months after he had referred to the coronavirus as the “beer virus” before an audience that included older Alaskans and said the media had contributed to hysteria over COVID-19.

He later called COVID-19, for which he had been hospitalized, serious and encouraged Alaskans to follow guidelines meant to guard against the illness.

Voters kept sending Young back to Washington, something Young said he didn’t take for granted.

“Alaskans have been generous with their support for me because they know I get the job done,” he said in 2016. “I’ll defend my state to the dying breath, and I will always do that and they know that.”
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the U.S. Congress on Wednesday, thanking President Joe Biden and the U.S. for their support while calling for more sanctions on Russian officials and additional military aid. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.
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The Senate unanimously approved a measure Tuesday that would make daylight saving time permanent across the United States next year.

The bipartisan bill, named the Sunshine Protection Act, would ensure Americans would no longer have to change their clocks twice a year. But the bill still needs approval from the House, and the signature of President Joe Biden, to become law.

“No more switching clocks, more daylight hours to spend outside after school and after work, and more smiles — that is what we get with permanent Daylight Saving Time,” Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, the original co-sponsor of the legislation, said in a statement.

Markey was joined on the chamber floor by senators from both parties as they made the case for how making daylight saving time permanent would have positive effects on public health and the economy and even cut energy consumption.

“Changing the clock twice a year is outdated and unnecessary,” Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida said.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Americans want more sunshine and less depression — people in this country, all the way from Seattle to Miami, want the Sunshine Protection Act,” Senator Patty Murray of Washington added.

Nearly a dozen states across the U.S. have already standardized daylight saving time.

Daylight saving time is defined as a period between spring and fall when clocks in most parts of the country are set one hour ahead of standard time. Americans last changed their clocks on Sunday. Standard time lasts for roughly four months in most of the country.

Members of Congress have long been interested in the potential benefits and costs of daylight saving time since it was first adopted as a wartime measure in 1942. The proposal will now go to the House, where the Energy and Commerce Committee had a hearing to discuss possible legislation last week.

Representative Frank Pallone Jr., the chairman of the committee, agreed in his opening statement at the hearing that it was “time we stop changing our clocks.” But he said he was undecided about whether daylight saving time or standard time is the way to go.

Markey said Tuesday, “Now, I call on my colleagues in the House of Representatives to lighten up and swiftly pass the Sunshine Protection Act.”
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will deliver a virtual address to the U.S. Congress as the Russian war on his country intensifies. 

Zelenskyy will speak Wednesday to members of the House and Senate, the Democratic leaders announced. The event will be livestreamed for the public. 

“It’s such a privilege to have this leader of this country, where these people are fighting for their democracy and our democracy,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday during an event at the Brooklyn Bridge with New York lawmakers. 

Pelosi said that Zelenskyy asked for the meeting when they spoke at the end of last week, and lawmakers are “thrilled” to have him address Congress. 

The talk comes as the Ukrainians are fighting for their country’s survival in the escalating war as Russian President Vladimir Putin intensifies his assault, including airstrikes on the capital Kyiv. Civilians in Ukraine are taking up arms to hold back Putin’s regime, but the war has launched a mass exodus of more than 2.5 million people from Ukraine. 

“The Congress, our country and the world are in awe of the people of Ukraine,” said Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in a statement Monday announcing the address. 

They said all lawmakers are invited to the talk that will be delivered via video at the U.S. Capitol. It comes as Congress recently approved $13.6 billion in emergency military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine. 

Biden is expected to sign a big spending bill containing Ukraine aid into law on Tuesday. During Pelosi’s call last week, Zelenskyy said his country would need help rebuilding from the war. 

“We have to do more in terms of meeting the needs of some of the 2.7 million refugees,” she said. 

She said of the Ukrainians: “They’re fighting for democracy writ large.” 

In their statement Monday, the congressional leaders said Congress “remains unwavering in our commitment to supporting Ukraine as they face Putin’s cruel and diabolical aggression.” 

Pelosi and Schumer said they intend “to convey our support to the people of Ukraine as they bravely defend democracy.” 

Zelenskyy spoke by video with House and Senate lawmakers earlier this month, delivering a desperate plea for more military aid. 

 
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Russia continues its unprovoked attack on neighboring Ukraine as the invasion rolls through a third week. On Sunday dozens of people were killed when Russia launched a missile attack on a military training base in western Ukraine near the country’s border with Poland. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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U.S. local election officials are increasingly concerned about threats and political pressure fueled by baseless allegations of voter fraud in the last presidential race, and one in five say they are somewhat or very unlikely to stay in their jobs through the 2024 contest, a national survey showed on Thursday.

In the poll of nearly 600 election officials, more than 75% said threats against election administrators and staff have increased in recent years. The percentage saying they are “very worried” about political leaders interfering in future elections has nearly tripled since before 2020.

Conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, the poll also found that more than three-fourths of local election officials say social media companies have not done enough to stop the spread of false election information.

The survey underscores problems identified in a series of Reuters reports on harassment and intimidation of election workers after the 2020 elections. The news organization has documented more than 900 threatening and hostile messages to election administrators and staff in 17 states, almost all alluding to former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.

“We are at a really critical juncture,” said Al Schmidt, former Republican Philadelphia City Commissioner, who received death threats after refusing to back Trump’s false claims of widespread election fraud in the 2020 vote. “The consequence of this threat environment is that you have more people leaving and they’re replaced by less experienced election administrators or people who want to undermine confidence in our system of government.”

About one in six election officials reported in the poll that they have been threatened personally, and more than half those cases were not reported to law enforcement. Nearly a third of the respondents said they feel their local government could do more to support them; more than 75% said the federal government should do more to support them.

More than 40 percent were completely unaware of a task force set up last year by the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute threats against election officials, the survey showed, and most of the rest said they’d heard of it but “don’t know much about it.” To date, the task force has made two arrests.

More than 80% of the surveyed election officials said social media bears “a lot” of responsibility for spreading false election information, and nearly two-thirds said that problem had made their jobs “somewhat” or “a lot” more dangerous.

Among the 20% of officials who said they are “somewhat unlikely” or “very unlikely” to remain in their posts through the next presidential election, about a third said a key factor in their decision is that “too many political leaders are attacking a system that they know is fair and honest.” Other common explanations included the stress of the job, reaching retirement age and the increasingly “nasty” tone of American politics.

The Brennan Center surveyed 596 local election officials across the country between January 31 and February 14. The survey had a 3.95% margin of error, the center said.
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A plane carrying former U.S. President Donald Trump made an emergency landing in New Orleans on Saturday evening after experiencing engine failure over the Gulf of Mexico, a source familiar with the matter confirmed on Wednesday.

The plane, a Dassault Falcon 900, had gone about 75 miles from a New Orleans airport before turning back to the city, the person said. Other passengers included Secret Service agents, support staff and some of Trump’s advisers.

A Trump representative did not immediately return a request for comment on the incident.

The plane was returning Trump to his home in Palm Beach, Florida, from a New Orleans hotel where he was speaking to Republican Party donors at a private event, the person said.

The plane belonged to a donor who loaned it to the former president for the evening, the source said, and Trump advisers secured another donor’s plane to take him back to Florida.

The incident was first reported on Wednesday by Politico and the Washington Post. 
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A bipartisan group of lawmakers has written a letter asking the Department of Justice to determine whether online retailer Amazon engaged in obstruction of Congress during an investigation of the company’s competitive practices. 

The letter said the company had “engaged in a pattern and practice of misleading conduct” that suggested it had sought to influence or obstruct an investigation into how it operates. 

The House Judiciary Committee conducted a 16-month probe into how Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook operated. 

During the investigation, lawmakers focused on Amazon’s use of private-label products and collection of third-party data. 

Amazon allegedly copied popular products in India and then manipulated search results to increase the sales of its own products, Reuters reported. 

The committee’s letter to DOJ alleges Amazon made untrue or misleading statements when asked about those practices. It also said Amazon refused to provide evidence that would “either corroborate its claims or correct the record,” according to the 24-page letter. 

“It appears to have done so to conceal the truth about its use of third-party sellers’ data to advantage its private-label business and its preferencing of private-label products in search results — subjects of the Committee’s investigation,” according to the letter, which was signed by House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler, House Antitrust Subcommittee Chair David Cicilline, and Democratic and Republican committee members.  

“As a result, we have no choice but to refer this matter to the Department of Justice to investigate whether Amazon and its executives obstructed Congress in violation of applicable federal law,” the letter added. 

Amazon told CNBC that “there’s no factual basis for this, as demonstrated in the huge volume of information we’ve provided over several years of good faith cooperation with this investigation.” 

When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos testified to the committee in July 2020, he said the company prevents Amazon employees from using seller data but could not say it had never happened. 

Lawmakers said investigations by news organizations like Reuters and The Wall Street Journal contradicted Bezos’ testimony, as well as testimony of other Amazon employees. 

“Amazon attempted to clean up the inaccurate testimony through ever-shifting explanations of its internal policies and denials of the investigative reports,” the lawmakers said. “The committee uncovered evidence from former Amazon employees, and former and current sellers, that corroborated the reports’ claims.” 

“After Amazon was caught in a lie and repeated misrepresentations, it stonewalled the committee’s efforts to uncover the truth,” the letter said.  

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 

 
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U.S. lawmakers reached an agreement Tuesday to send as much as $14 billion in humanitarian and military assistance to Ukraine. The bipartisan effort to confront Russia’s unprovoked invasion of the independent Eastern European nation follows congressional support for U.S. President Joe Biden’s announcement he will ban Russian energy imports into the U.S. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
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