Lest Democrats get too optimistic about their great victory in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, David Daley, author of “Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count and Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy” brings the bad news at The Guardian: “The lack of anything resembling a basic, functioning democracy in an American state placed outsized importance on Tuesday’s state supreme court election, won decisively by liberal Janet Protasiewicz. Her victory flipped what had been a 4-3 conservative majority on a court that not only aided and abetted the newest Republican gerrymander, but only narrowly declined a Trumpian gambit to toss out 220,000 votes from Democratic-leaning counties after the state’s tight 2020 election….The stakes of this race were huge. There’s a good reason why this election shattered records for the most expensive state supreme court race ever. There will be an immediate effort to bring new litigation to un-gerrymander the state’s toxic legislative map. The 1849 anti-abortion law will be challenged before a court that is now friendly to reproductive rights. It will be more difficult for Republicans to use Wisconsin courts in 2024 to subvert presidential election results in a state where the outcome could determine the nation’s leader….Nevertheless, democracy has not been restored in Wisconsin and the threat has not receded. No one should be under any delusion that Wisconsin Republicans, so accustomed to ruling with impunity, will operate any differently. They don’t have to change. On Tuesday, just as voters statewide tipped the court to progressives, a special election for a crucial state senate seat went Republican, ensuring a Republican supermajority. Republicans have already threatened that they might impeach liberal justices, including Protasiewicz….It is dreary to be cynical the day after a hard-won victory that activists worked many years to secure. Yet it is hard not to look at Wisconsin and see Charlie Brown and the football once more. Democrats spend a decade playing by the rules and executing a 12-point plan to undo the after-effects of the 2010 redistricting, step by careful step. And if Democrats win, Republicans use their gerrymanders to take away their power or make some pretend doctrine and take it to their equally unearned and illegitimate supermajority on the US supreme court….One outcome of the news from Wisconsin is that it might finally be clear to everyone that, in today’s America, judges have become little more than robed partisans. But it needs to become equally clear that without a national fix for gerrymandering and structural reform to the US supreme court, that hope in Wisconsin – and perhaps your state next – will be little more than fool’s gold.”

Are references to the Republicans’ “War on Democracy” overstated? Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch doesn’t think so, and he makes a compelling case in his article, “GOP wages an asymmetrical war on democracy because it can’t get the votes.” Bunch references the “sour grapes” comments of the conservative candidate who lost the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, and then notes that “the GOP majority in the Wisconsin legislature are — and this is hard to believe — already talking about impeaching Protasiewicz even before she takes the oath of office. A new state senator who won a special election to give Republicans a supermajority in Madison said he’d “seriously consider” impeaching the new justice, citing the flimsy pretext of her record as a circuit judge in “failing” Milwaukee.” Also, “Anyone doubting Republicans’ impeachment bluster in Wisconsin could take a look around to Nashville, Tenn., where white GOP lawmakers stunned the nation by expelling two Black colleagues and disenfranchising their roughly 140,000 predominantly African American constituents because the men had, from the floor of the Capitol, joined a thousand or so young people protesting gun violence….” Bunch also cites “a flurry of moves including state takeovers of Democratic school boards in large red-state cities like Houston and legislation in states from Georgia to Missouri aiming to sharply curtail power and potentially remove progressive DAs elected by urban voters, such as the impeachment of Philadelphia’s twice-elected prosecutor Larry Krasner. Even Congress got in on the act with legislation to nullify a sweeping criminal justice overhaul that Washington, D.C.’s, majority-Black city council had approved 12-1.” Bunch also notes, “What’s more, this political counterrevolution in legislative corridors is taking place right as the conservative movement’s grand project of the last half-century — a ruthless, multimillion-dollar crusade to install unaccountable, lifetime right-wing judges across the federal bench — is coming to full fruition. Good Friday’s decision by Amarillo, Texas-based federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Donald Trump appointee rooted in ultra-conservative networks, seeking to undo approval of the abortion drug mifepristone after 23 years on the market is a huge end run around democracy in a nation where a majority of voters support abortion rights. Conservatives routinely file lawsuits in Amarillo because Kacsmaryk is that district’s lone judge.”

Bunch also references the Justice Clarence Thomas scandal, Trump’s arraignment and the January 6th riot and writes, “Democrats are waging conventional warfare on the political frontlines — at the ballot box, trying to get votes with the power of their ideas — and in much of America they appear to be winning. It happened on Tuesday, with the coalition that produced the Protasiewicz landslide in Wisconsin, and with Chicago voters rejecting the reactionary, cop-union conservatism of Paul Vallas to elect progressive upstart Brandon Johnson as their new mayor. But then, it’s happened on the bigger stage since 1992, as Democrats have won the national popular vote in seven of eight presidential elections, as the United States grows more diverse and less in thrall to the conservative hierarchies around race, gender, sexuality, and intolerance…. Republicans are responding with an asymmetrical civil war against democracy, constantly looking for the weak points to deploy their IEDs of autocracy, determined to blow up the American Experiment if that’s what it takes to retain power by any means necessary. Their tactics are working well, unfortunately. Darth Vader’s Death Star had just one opening to exploit, but U.S. democracy has many — gerrymandering, the filibuster, the Electoral College, the undemocratic makeup of the U.S. Senate, statehouse power plays against home rule for Black or brown or progressive-minded communities, a take-no-prisoners hijacking of the judiciary. The only shock of Thursday’s next-level expulsion of two duly-elected Black lawmakers in Nashville was the proof that — as Republican ideas become more unpopular — there is no bottom to how low this movement will go….And yet there is also reason for great hope. America’s young people — the ones who left their classroom last week and overran the state capitol in Nashville to plead for real action against gun violence, the ones fighting book bans in their schools and speaking out for radical action on climate — are the bravest and boldest generation this nation has seen in some time. Their moral authority, and their rising power at the ballot box from Eau Claire to Memphis, is why a decrepit GOP is lashing out. History will surely remember what happened in Tennessee as an affront to democracy — and the last throes of a dying movement.”

You probably won’t be too surprised to learn that “According to one scholar’s research on democracy in the US, Tennessee is indeed the least democratic state in the entire country.” That’s “democratic” with a small “d.” The report, by Zach Beauchamp at Vox continues, “The research here comes from University of Washington political science professor Jake Grumbach, who wrote a 2022 paper (later expanded into a book) developing the first-ever numerical system for ranking the health of democracy in all 50 US states….Grumbach’s State Democracy Index (SDI) grades each state on a series of metrics — like the extent to which a state is gerrymandered at the federal level, whether felons can vote, and the like — and then combines the assessments to give each state an overall score from -3 (worst) to 2 (best).” It is a 5-year old study, conducted in 2018. Nonetheless, “Tennessee’s low score in 2018 has a lot to do with its egregious partisan gerrymanders at both the state and federal level — a problem that only got worse in the post-2020 census redistricting cycle. Research from the Princeton Gerrymandering Project shows that there is not a single competitive seat in the state senate — Democrats are so efficiently packed in a handful of strongly Democratic districts that Republicans have a near-guaranteed super-supermajority (over 80 percent of seats!) in the statehouse’s upper chamber.” Beauchamp provides a map indicating that “Tennessee is by far the lightest-colored state on the 2018 map — meaning it has the lowest score of any state in the country….It’s not exactly clear, from Grumbach’s research, why Tennessee is particularly anti-democratic. But what his research does show is that it’s not isolated: The state is part of a general trend where democracy has degraded in Republican-controlled states.” All of which helps explain why talk of boycotts against Tennessee is increasing. The Republicans who just gutted free speech and democracy and blocked gun safety reform in the Volunteer State may end up costing TN many millions in convention and tourist revenues.

For southern Democrats in particular, the North Carolina legislator whose change of party handed Republicans a super-majority brought back lots of bad memories. But the defector in question didn’t fit any of the major precedents, as I explained at New York:

Party switching has a long if not entirely honorable history, especially in the South. So on its face, North Carolina Democratic legislator Tricia Cotham’s defection to the GOP on Wednesday is mostly shocking because of its impact. Her flip gives Republicans a supermajority in both branches of the state legislature, thus neutralizing Democratic governor Roy Cooper’s veto power for the next two years.

But Cotham’s reasons for switching parties are a bit of a mystery. She served in the legislature for five terms, from 2007 to 2016, and was a standard-brand moderate-to-liberal Democrat. She turned her attention to the U.S. House in 2016, but lost the Democratic primary. Cotham returned to the North Carolina House this year after successfully campaigning on a “platform of raising the minimum wage, protecting voting rights and bolstering L.B.G.T.Q. rights,” according to the New York Times. While legislators sometimes change parties because their district has become more competitive due to redistricting or demographic change, that isn’t the case here. The Charlotte Observer describes North Carolina’s 12th House District as a “Democrat stronghold,” with 60 percent of voters backing Cotham’s former party.

So why did Cotham flip so soon after being elected as a Democrat from a Democratic district? Like most party switchers, she’s adopted the posture that the party actually left her, as the Times reported:

“[Cotham said] she had been bullied by her fellow Democrats and had grown alienated from the party on issues like school choice.

“’The modern-day Democratic Party has become unrecognizable to me and to so many others throughout this state and this country,’ she said in a brief speech. She said both she and her young children had been subjected to personal attacks by Democrats in the state, and denounced what she called attempts to ‘control’ her. ‘They have pushed me out,’ she said.”

Local political reporter Steve Harrison told WFAE that Cotham had raised eyebrows by voting with Republicans a few times since returning to Raleigh this year:

“One of the first [defections] came in December when she was the only Democrat to vote for a constitutional amendment that would make members of the state Board of Election elected rather than appointed. And there were others, a bill requiring sheriffs to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

But the moment her voting record really got hostile attention from Democrats came a week ago when she (along with two other Democrats) missed a vote that overrode Cooper’s veto of a bill repealing the state’s pistol permitting law. She reportedly was absent due to a medical appointment related to long-COVID symptoms, and was publicly opposed to the veto override. But at least one local progressive group hinted at “accountability measures” against the absentees, including Cotham.

Was that enough to convince Cotham to turn her coat so soon after being sent by Democratic voters to the legislature? It’s unclear. In her statement defending her decision, she offered a sort of Twitter-made-her-do-it explanation, as the Washington Post noted:

“Cotham, wearing red and standing in front of NCGOP signs, said the turning point in her decision was when she faced backlash for using the American flag and a prayer-hands emoji in her social media handles and on her vehicles.”

Regardless of whether she was pushed or jumped, Cotham now faces certain opposition in 2024 if she runs for reelection; indeed, Democrats are demanding she resign her seat immediately, arguing that it was won under false pretenses. It’s unclear what her new friends in the GOP will do to protect her. “Republicans can redraw the House map and perhaps draw a …seat that leans red, or maybe Cotham just runs for statewide office,” Steve Harrison reported.

This, however, raises even more questions. Will Republican voters really embrace a candidate who just ran on standard Democratic issues? Is her pro-LGBTQ record really compatible with the state party that gave us the first anti-transgender “bathroom bill”? What will GOP voters make of Cotham co-sponsoring a bill codifying abortion protections in January? And will they embrace a woman who once took to the floor of the North Carolina House to talk about her own abortion, calling it a “deeply personal decision” and claiming that GOP lawmakers just want to “play doctor”?

Local TV station WBTV, which interviewed Cotham on Tuesday night, said she “would not commit to positions on specific legislation but indicated she was open to supporting new abortion restrictions.” So anyone anxious to know what kind of consequences this very strange political move will have for abortion rights in North Carolina will have to keep guessing for now.

 

In “A New Path to Diversity” at Dissent magazine, Richard Kahlenberg proposes a novel approach to promoting diversity in education that has the potential to unify, instead of divide people:

The impulse behind racial affirmative-action programs comes from a very good place: the desire to provide extra support to Black, Hispanic, and Native American people—groups that have been oppressed throughout American history. But it appears that these programs will soon be outlawed. The U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to jettison racial preferences following oral arguments in October in cases challenging the admissions processes at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. And regardless of their legal status, these programs are unpopular. Three-quarters of Americans—including 59 percent of African Americans—oppose using race as a factor in college admissions.

The good news is that there is a politically popular and legally sound alternative that can produce high levels of racial and economic diversity: preferences based on socioeconomic disadvantage. While the U.S. Supreme Court has long been wary of government policies that treat people differently on the basis of race, the modern Court does not have this sort of hesitation about programs that treat citizens differently on the basis of economic status—from the progressive income tax to means-tested programs like food stamps.

Prominent left and liberal voices in the 1960s and ’70s, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, advocated for this sort of approach, arguing that affirmative action based on class disadvantage could help address the legacy of slavery and segregation. Recent researchfinds that although preferences based on income alone are unlikely to produce sufficient racial diversity at selective colleges, the consideration of additional factors, such as family wealth and neighborhood poverty levels, can lead to high levels of both racial and economic diversity.

Kahlenberg notes that “Colleges fiercely resist the class-based approach to creating racial diversity, however, because the current system of racial and legacy preferences, which mostly benefits well-off students, is cheaper than providing financial aid for low-income and working-class students.” He provides examples showing how the concept of class-based policies also promote equal opportunity.

In his conclusion, Kahlenberg writes,

Polls find that this sort of class-based affirmative action garners support from almost two-thirds of Americans. And such policies could help the left move beyond the kind of unpopular liberalism that preaches diversity while shunting class to the margins.

The irony is that a conservative Supreme Court decision could provide a boost for progressive multiracial coalition building. Right-wing divide-and-conquer efforts have historically sought to motivate white working-class people to vote their race rather than their class. Moving from race-based to class-based preferences will remind working-class people of all colors what they have in common.

The Republicans have been skillful in leveraging culture war issues to distract their supporters from getting involved in multi-racial coalitions for needed educational reforms. Making socioeconomic fairness a priority in college admissions and funding could help promote broader support for public education reforms that serve everyone – and make Democrats look good for leading the way forward.

Amidst all the speculation involving Trump’s Manhattan indictment and his presidential campaign, I decided to issue a warning for those who think the two things can be separated, and wrote it up at New York:

Many have observed that Donald Trump’s felony indictment in Manhattan this week is already boosting his standing among GOP primary voters, at least temporarily, while prospectively depressing his standing among swing voters in the general election. Trump’s Republican rivals for the 2024 presidential nomination desperately need to make his hypothetical “electability” problem an issue in the primaries. But as my colleague Eric Levitz points out, it’s tough to make that argument while Trump is in court, ostensibly fighting the good fight against liberal “persecution” as the vast majority of the Republican Party cheers him on:

“[I]n the eyes of the conservative base, to attack Trump is to aid and abet the president’s persecution at the hands of Soros and his minions. To question his electability, meanwhile, is tantamount to calling on Republicans to let the terrorists win.”

For Trump’s GOP foes, the shift from a political landscape dominated by his legal battles to a normal primary season can’t happen fast enough. Unfortunately, that’s very unlikely to happen anytime soon. He still faces possible criminal indictments in Atlanta (for Team Trump’s alleged election interference) and Washington (for Trump’s alleged responsibility for the January 6 insurrection and mishandling of classified documents). There is also potentially noisy civil litigation pending in New York (E. Jean Carroll is suing Trump for defamation because he accused her of making up her rape allegation against him).

But even if Trump somehow avoids additional indictments and high-stakes encounters with the federal and state justice systems, the Manhattan case that is already proceeding could drag on and on, ensuring that Trump’s legal woes will dominate headlines throughout the 2024 election cycle. Per the Washington Post:

“Trump’s lawyers have until August to file challenges to the case accusing him of hiding a payment to an adult-film actress before the 2016 presidential election to keep her quiet about a sexual relationship she says she had with Trump years earlier. Those filings may coincide with the first Republican debate of the primary season, which is also scheduled for August.”

And don’t hold your breath for the actual trial to get underway:

“On Tuesday, prosecutors floated a trial date in January, right before the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses on Feb. 5. But Trump’s legal team suggested a spring 2024 date would be more “realistic,” which the judge sounded open to.”

These preliminary timetables do not fully take into account Trump’s long history as a legal guerrilla who is willing and able to manipulate court proceedings via constant motions, appeals, collateral lawsuits, and delay tactics. As the New York Times recently reported, if Trump thinks it’s in his interest to slow things down in court, he definitely knows how:

“Attack. Attack. Attack.

“Delay. Delay. Delay.

“Those two tactics have been at the center of Donald J. Trump’s favored strategy in court cases for much of his adult life, and will likely be the former president’s approach to fighting the criminal charges now leveled against him if he sticks to his well-worn legal playbook …

“Mr. Trump’s intensely litigious nature has made his strategy more visible over the years than it might otherwise be. He has long used delay tactics in legal matters that emerged from business disputes, and since becoming a politician he has repeatedly tried to throw sand in the gears of the legal system, using the resulting slow pace of litigation to run out the clock until seismic events shifted the playing field.”

Team Trump’s power to dictate the pace of the proceedings against him will likely be enhanced by prosecutors fearful of being perceived as unfair to the former president. Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis has to be aware of a new Georgia bill (which Governor Brian Kemp will almost certainly sign) allowing a state commission to supervise or even remove local prosecutors accused of malfeasance. And in Washington, Joe Biden’s Justice Department will be sensitive to claims that the president is trying to legally harass, if not imprison, his most likely 2024 opponent.

So Trump-haters fantasizing about the former president being frog-marched to prison in leg-irons before he can reach for the White House again should get over it. Between the lengthy New York legal process and the possibility that Trump could prevail in court, not to mention the endless appeals if he is found guilty, there won’t be some deus ex machina that suddenly shuts down his campaign.

That also means Republican 2024 candidates aren’t going to be able to wait until the indictment circus ends to make a case against Trump’s renomination. His legal status will remain uncertain throughout the presidential race, and warnings that his liberal persecutors may eventually triumph won’t go over well with GOP primary voters. And it’s unlikely that any objective indicators will make the point for Trump’s GOP rivals: Polls taken after the indictment show him not only enjoying a surge in the 2024 nomination contest but improving his position slightly against Biden in trial general-election heats (and doing just as well as Ron DeSantis). Add in the fact that most Republican primary voters are aware of how much Trump underperformed expectations in both 2016 and 2020 and you have an “electability” case against the 45th president that could wind up being feeble and yet all that Trump’s rivals can muster. The bottom line is that time is emphatically not on their side.

Take a peek at the Cook Political Report’s “2023 Cook PVI℠: District Map and List (118th Congress),” which provides a measure of the “partisanship” of each of America’s 435 congressional districts. As the report notes, “In August of 1997, the Cook Political Report introduced the Cook Partisan Voting Index (Cook PVI) to provide a more accurate picture of the competitiveness of each of the 435 congressional districts. With the 2022 PVI release, we made a slight change to how we calculate PVI scores: instead of using a 50/50 mix of the two most recent presidential elections to assess partisanship as we had done in the past, we switched to a 75/25 weighting in favor of the more recent presidential cycle. Using the updated formula, we are now re-releasing PVI scores for every Congress since the 105th (1997-1998).” Hover your mouse/finger over any congressional district in their interactive map, and the pop-up tells you the number of the district, the name of the incumbent, his or her party identification and the 2023 PVI. For the “118th Congress District Map and List (2023-2024)….The 2023 Cook PVI scores were calculated following the 2021 round of redistricting, using 2016 and 2020 presidential election results. They are identical to the PVI scores released in 2022.” For example, the PVI for NC-12 (incumbent Alma Adams) is D+13, meaning the district leans Democratic by 13 points, based on the results of the 2020 and 2016 presidential elections, weighted for the more recent 2020 results. One of the most competitive districts in the U.S., IA-3 (incumbent Republican Zach Nunn) has a PVI of R+3. Glancing at the interactive map, we learn such tidbits as the mountain west states of UT, CO and NV have no deep red districts, while most of the land in PA’s districts are in deep red territory. NM is bathed in light blue, with no red districts, while GA’s Democratic strength is heavily concentrated in metro Atlanta. The 2023 hover map is a freebie, but access to PVI charts before 2016 runs through a paywall.

Some nuggets from “The last 48 hours revealed the GOP’s intractable 2024 dilemma: Trump and pro-lifers own the Republican Party. That’s bad for its political future” by Zack Beauchamp at Vox: “First, Donald Trump was formally indicted in New York — a move by prosecutors that appears to have unified the party around him, cementing his already rising poll numbers and making it harder to imagine the GOP ever moving on. This is despite the fact that 60 percent of Americans approve of the indictment, and he remains politically toxic among the majority of Americans….Second, Republicans lost control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in an off-year election — a campaign where abortion was “the dominating issue,” per University of Wisconsin political scientist Barry Burden. The repeal of Roe v. Wade brought back an 1849 state law, never technically repealed, that banned abortion at all stages of pregnancy (with an exception for the mother’s life). Janet Protasiewicz, the liberal candidate in the Supreme Court race, openly campaigned on her support for abortion rights. She won by a comfortable margin in a closely divided state — yet another sign that strict abortion bans are seriously unpopular….Third, the Florida Senate on Monday approved a six-week ban on abortion — a bill pushed and supported by Gov. Ron DeSantis. The GOP’s most plausible non-Trump candidate has now tied himself to one of its most unpopular policy positions with a proven capacity to power Democratic electoral wins….“Banning abortion without any exceptions is probably as unpopular, or more unpopular, as defunding the police,” David Shor, a leading Democratic data analyst, told me last year. After Dobbs, “abortion went from being a somewhat good issue for Democrats to becoming the single best issue.”

Piling on here, Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. notes, “The victory of liberal Milwaukee Judge Janet Protasiewicz over conservative Dan Kelly was nonpartisan in name only. Her win ratified the importance of the two issues that helped Democrats block a Republican wave in November: abortion rights, in the wake of Dobbs, and the battle for democracy, in the wake of the Trump presidency. Protasiewicz prevailed by 11 points a state Joe Biden carried in 2020 by less than one. And in a bitter Chicago race for mayor, Brandon Johnson, a little-known county commissioner six months ago, edged out former schools executive Paul Vallas, who expected to ride deep anxieties about crime into City Hall….Both are Democrats, but Johnson painted Vallas as a closet Republican who had once said he would convert to the GOP and had been heard calling the impeachment effort against Donald Trump “a witch hunt.”….Wisconsin was a case of exceptional Democratic unity and mobilization. Protasiewicz not only overwhelmed Kelly in the Democratic strongholds of Milwaukee and Madison but also held down his margins in traditionally Republican areas.” But Dionne also observes that “In what may be the key message from both contests, [WI Democratic Party Chair Ben] Wikler argued that Democrats needed to address the crime issue directly in order to pivot to the broader messages on which they can win elections….“The essential thing for Democrats is to make clear that they care about public safety and then to make clear which candidate takes freedom seriously,” he said. “You have to do both things. The right-wing argument about crime only works if it’s not effectively neutralized.”

Just after the euphoria for liberal Democrats following the big win in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race and the Chicago Mayor’s election, comes a big bummer, the flipping of North Carolina’s state legislature into a veto-proof majority for Republicans.  The party-switcher in this instance is NC State Rep. Tricia Cotham, who won her last election as a Democrat by 20 points in Charlotte’s ‘burbs. At CNN Politics, Dianne Gallagher and Devon M. Sayers note that “Cotham’s switch could have major implications for lawmaking in the Tar Heel State. Republicans already held a supermajority in the North Carolina Senate. Cotham’s flip gives them 72 seats in the state House – and enough votes in both chambers to override any veto from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.” Cotham trotted out the predictable blah blah about how the Dems no longer rep her pristine values. Cotham, whose mother, Pat Cotham, was a DNC member and whose ex-husband, Jerry Meek, was chair of the state Democratic Party, was first appointed by Democratic Governor Mike Easley to fill a seat vacated by a retirement in the state legislature in 2007. NC’s Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton commented that ““HD112 is a 60% Democratic district….And they did not choose to elect a Republican. They chose to elect a Democrat.” In the past, she claimed to support abortion access, voting rights reforms and a doubling of the minimum wage, all of which are opposed by state Republicans. There is usually a power politics and/or other lucrative reward behind the stated reason for a decision to switch political parties, but it often takes a while before it becomes clear.  There are always some careerists who more interested in their own success than the public good sprinkled among razor-thin majorities, particularly in state legislators. Unfortunately, there are no recall provisions in NC law.

Democrats have won what may be 2023’s most important election. As Eric Bradner reports at CNN Politics:

Democratic-backed Janet Protasiewicz will win Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election, CNN projects, flipping majority control in liberals’ favor in what could be the most consequential election of the year with abortion access, election rules and more on the line in the key swing state.

Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee County circuit court judge, will defeat conservative Daniel Kelly, a former state Supreme Court justice, in a race that shattered spending records on state judicial elections. Her win likely breaks an era of Republican dominance in a state that has been ensnared in political conflict for more than a decade.

The race was a critical gauge of whether and how the issue of abortion is motivating voters nearly a year after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The state’s high court is poised to settle a legal battle in the coming months over Wisconsin’s 1849 law that bans abortion in nearly all circumstances.

Conservatives currently hold a 4-3 majority on the court. But the retirement of conservative Justice Patience Roggensack put that majority at stake.

Wisconsin is one of 14 states to directly elect its Supreme Court justices, and winners get 10-year terms. Judicial races there are nominally nonpartisan, but political parties leave little doubt as to which candidates they support. Spending in this year’s race – which reached $28.8 million as of March 29, according to the Brennan Center – far surpassed the previous record for spending on a state judicial contest: $15.4 million in a 2004 Illinois race.

It doesn’t look like there will be a yuge outpouring of election denial regarding the results. Protasiewicz won by double digits, 55.5 percent to 45.5 percent, with 95 percent of the vote counted, according to the Associated Press.  Bradner notes, “Kelly acknowledged his defeat, telling supporters at his election night event that “this didn’t turn out the way we were looking for.” Bradner adds,

Democrats saw the race as an opportunity to end Republican dominance in Wisconsin that began with Gov. Scott Walker’s election in 2010 – a victory that was followed by the passage of union-busting laws and state legislative districts drawn to effectively ensure GOP majorities, all green-lit by a state Supreme Court where conservatives have held the majority since 2008.

Walker lost his bid for a third term to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in 2018. But Evers has been hamstrung by the Republican-led legislature, with the conservative Supreme Court breaking ties on matters such as a 2022 ruling during the once-a-decade redistricting process in favor of using Republican-drawn legislative maps rather than ones submitted by Evers. The decision cemented Republicans’ solid majority in the state legislature.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is also positioned to play a critical role in determining how the 2024 election is conducted and settling disputes that arise.

The court played a pivotal role in the outcome of the 2020 election in Wisconsin: Justices voted 4-3, with conservative Brian Hagedorn joining the court’s three liberals, to reject former President Donald Trump’s efforts to throw out ballots in Democratic-leaning counties. And last year, the court barred the use of most ballot drop boxes and ruled that no one can return a ballot in person on behalf of another voter.

Further, Bradner explains, “But the most immediate battle likely to reach the justices as early as this fall is over Wisconsin’s 1849 law that bans abortion in nearly all circumstances….In a debate last month, Protasiewicz said she was “making no promises” on how she would rule. But she also noted her personal support for abortion rights, as well as endorsements from pro-abortion rights groups. And she pointed to Kelly’s endorsement by Wisconsin Right to Life, which opposes abortion rights.”

In a closer election yesterday, the more liberal candidate, union organizer and Country Commissioner Brandon Johnson, was elected mayor of Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, according to The Associated Press.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

Republicans are, in a strict quantitative sense, the party of the American working class. That is, they currently get more working-class (noncollege) votes than the Democrats. That was true in 2022 when Republicans carried the nationwide working-class House vote by 13 points. That was true in 2020, when Trump carried the nationwide working-class presidential vote by 4 points over Biden. Moreover, modeled estimates by the States of Change project indicate that Trump carried the working-class vote in 35 out of 50 states, including in critical states for the Democrats like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as in states that are slipping away from the party like Florida, Iowa, Ohio and Texas.

Another way of looking at this trend is by Congressional district. Currently Democrats dominate the more affluent districts while Republicans are cleaning up in the poorer districts. Marcy Kaptur, who represents Ohio’s working-class 9^thdistrict and is the longest-serving female member of the House in American history, says of this pattern:

You could question yourself and say, well, the blue districts are the wealthiest districts, so it shows that the Democrats are doing better to lift people’s incomes. The other way you could look at it is: how is it possible that Republicans are representing the majority of people who struggle? How is that possible?

How indeed. Kaptur has a two page chart that arrays Congressional districts from highest median income to lowest with partisan control color-coded. The first page is heavily dominated by blue but the second, poorer page is a sea of red. You can access the chart here. It’s really quite striking. Overall, Republicans represent 152 of the 237 Congressional seats where the district median income trails the national figure.

The same pattern of Republican domination of the working-class vote appears to be developing as we move toward 2024. The latest poll for which an overall college/noncollege split is available is the March Harvard/Harris poll. That poll, in which Trump has a small lead over Biden in a hypothetical 2024 matchup, has Trump carrying the working-class vote by 10 points. In a DeSantis-Biden matchup, DeSantis has a similar lead over Biden and an identical 10-point advantage among working-class voters. (There is a slightly more recent Quinnipiac poll that also includes these 2024 matchups, but the public materials only provide a white college/noncollege split.). Earlier polls from this year—where data are available—replicate this pattern of Trump and DeSantis leading Biden among working-class voters.

Why doesn’t this bother Democrats more? After all, they are America’s party of the left and were historically America’s party of the working class. I think part of the reason is that the largest part of the working class, the white working class, is now viewed quite negatively throughout much of the party. They can be put, as Hillary Clinton unforgettably phrased it, in a “basket of deplorables”—“racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic”—and therefore justly ignored by right-thinking Democrats.

Democrats also comfort themselves that they still have very strong support among the nonwhite working class. But of course strong support among a sector of the working class does not make Democrats the party of the overall working class, however much Democrats may wish that to be so. Moreover, in recent elections Democrats’ hold on the nonwhite working class has also been slipping, which is contributing to the Democrats’ widening deficit among the working class as a whole.

In addition, the very supposition that lies behind the dismissal of the white working class is itself suspect. A recent column by Tom Edsall highlights the work of political scientists Justin Grimmer, William Marble and Cole Tanigawa-Lau on estimating the contribution of voting blocs to Trump’s support in 2016 and 2020. In a recent paper, they write:

Decomposing the change in support observed in the ANES [American National Election Study] data, we show that respondents in 2016 and 2020 reported more moderate views, on average, than in previous elections. As a result, Trump improved the most over previous Republicans by capturing the votes of a larger number of people who report racially moderate views.

Grimmer expanded on this point in Edsall’s article:

Our findings provide an important correction to a popular narrative about how Trump won office. Hillary Clinton argued that Trump supporters could be placed in a “basket of deplorables.” And election-night pundits and even some academics have claimed that Trump’s victory was the result of appealing to white Americans’ racist and xenophobic attitudes. We show this conventional wisdom is (at best) incomplete. Trump’s supporters were less xenophobic than prior Republican candidates’, less sexist, had lower animus to minority groups, and lower levels of racial resentment. Far from deplorables, Trump voters were, on average, more tolerant and understanding than voters for prior Republican candidates.

To say this is not how most Democrats think about the Trump-voting white working class is to considerably understate the case. Yet that is what the Grimmer et. al. data say. Notably, the other academics canvassed by Edsall can find little fault with their analysis, despite the post-2016 role of political science in cementing the conventional wisdom on racially resentful Trump supporters. One might summarize their reaction as “now that I think about it, these guys are probably right.” Better late than never I suppose.

All this suggests the Democrats should not be quite so blasé about no longer being the party of the American working class. That they are not represents a real failing on their part, not a noble stand against the barbarians at the gates. Much in American politics going forward will depend on whether Republicans can further strengthen their hold on the working class or whether Democrats can reclaim some of their lost support and become, once again, the party of America’s working class.

Consider what might happen if Republicans do make further progress among working-class voters. Between 2016 and 2020, the Democratic advantage among the nonwhite working class slipped quite a bit while the Democratic deficit among white working-class voters actually improved slightly. But what if both parts of the working class moved in tandem against the Democrats in 2024 and beyond?

This can be tested using States of Change data. Working-class preferences by detailed subgroup (race, gender, age) nationally and within states for 2020 were estimated and then moved toward the GOP by 10 margin points (+5 Republican/-5 Democratic). These preferences (with all else from 2020 held constant) were then applied to the projected structure of the eligible electorate in 2024 and subsequent elections.

In 2024, this shift toward Republicans among the overall working class produces a solid 312-226 GOP electoral vote majority. The states that move into the GOP column are Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada by 3 points, Arizona and Georgia by 4 points and Wisconsin by 5 points. Republicans also carry the popular vote, albeit by just a point.

Thereafter, the GOP starts to lose the popular vote but continues to win the electoral vote through 2040. If that doesn’t concentrate the mind among Democrats, I don’t know what will.

At Slow Boring Matthew Yglesias writes: “The widespread ownership of guns in the United States is the predominant reason we have so much more homicide than the developed countries of Europe and Asia. Differential availability of guns also largely explains why, inconveniently for Republicans, there is generally more murder happening in red states than in blue ones….The standard GOP cope is to argue that the murders are happening in “blue cities,” but that just reflects the fact that essentially all cities are blue in the contemporary United States. When you look at the rare city with a Republican mayor like Jacksonville in Florida, you see a lot more homicide than in New York. That’s because criminals aren’t magicians or kung-fu masters; their ability to kill people depends on their access to lethal weapons. And unfortunately there is substantial interplay between the legal market for guns and the black market for guns. The NYT ran a great piece last week about the large number of guns used in crimes that are stolen from parked cars— the more guns floating around, the more people get shot. Morgan Williams has a great paper looking at a gun policy reform in Missouri where the state legislature made it easier to buy guns legally with the result that shootings surged in Kansas City and St. Louis. Non-gun homicides actually fell because assailants were equipping themselves with better weapons. But precisely because guns are more deadly than knives or bats, this generates an overall increase in death….Do note, though, that essentially all of this action is being driven by handguns….The big long guns, including those with features that would get them tagged as “assault weapons” and also long guns without those features, are collected by hobbyists for use in tacky family photos. They’re stockpiled for use in a hypothetical civil war. They’re used for fun. And occasionally (though still far too often), they are used in a rare-but-spectacular spree killing that electrifies the nation because it affects middle-class suburbanites who are unaccustomed to having their lives impacted by violence. These guns are too big and too expensive, though, to be the weapons of choice for “ordinary” crime — the type responsible for the overwhelming majority of gun deaths in the U.S.”

Yglesias continues, “That they are so frequently at the center of our national gun debate strikes me as an understandable reaction to horrific events. I’m a dad with a kid in school and I feel this anguish in my gut and I see it in the eyes of my fellow parents all the time. I get it. But the focus on the very most spectacular events to the exclusion of “normal” shootings generates bad policy analysis. We have policy solutions at our disposal that would address the proliferation of illegal handguns that drives the bulk of gun deaths in this country….Public opposition to banning handguns is overwhelming. It’s also unchallenged by any remotely mainstream Democratic Party politician, which seems like a reasonable response to the reality of public opinion….But that means thought-leaders on the left need to exert some discipline and mindfulness when they post about newsworthy shootings. I fully endorse the implication of this chart Steven Rattner posted, which is that the large aggregate number of guns in the United States is why the United States has so many gun deaths. But a majority of these gun deaths are suicides, and a very large majority of gun homicides are committed with handguns. So as an intervention in the debate about assault weapons, it loses some of its persuasiveness….A federal assault weapons ban, if passed, would have a minimal impact on that “gun deaths” number. A federal assault weapons ban also isn’t going to pass. Sometimes it’s politically constructive to discuss things your opponents in Congress are going to block. But a high-profile national debate about assault weapons doesn’t help Jon Tester and Joe Manchin and Sherrod Brown get re-elected. It’s probably bad for Bob Casey and Tammy Baldwin and Elissa Slotkin, too. We also know that media coverage of mass shootings and post-shooting gun control debates leads to an increase in gun sales….Everyone is entitled to push for small-bore change with modest upsides, and banning assault rifles would absolutely be a good idea. But it’s not a good idea to fool yourself about what’s at stake in your own policy proposal. Meanwhile, if we want to reduce the number of handguns floating around, we have options.” Read Yglesias’s article for a deeper dive into policy options.

Here’s a bit of a demographic shocker from “Latino Catholics eclipse white evangelicals in Southwest” by Russell Contreras at Axios: “Hispanic Catholics last year accounted for the largest percentage of people who identify with a religion in the American Southwest….They surpassed the share of white evangelicals in some of the country’s most populous states — California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, Axios’ Russell Contreras reports from a new survey….Zoom out: Hispanic Catholics’ rise comes despite an overall drop in religious affiliation among all Americans, and a growing number of Latinos who convert to evangelical faiths, according to earlier research….Hispanic Catholics have eclipsed white mainline Protestants in California, New Mexico and Texas. The share of mainline Protestants in Arizona is about the same as Hispanic Catholics — 13% vs. 12%….State of play: Despite their growth, Hispanics — especially Catholics — are underrepresented in positions of power….Few Hispanic Catholics have been elected to the U.S. Senate. Five now serve there — the most in U.S. history….The nation has just one Hispanic Catholic governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico. Arizona and California have had only one Hispanic Catholic governor each. Texas has had none.” The chart:

Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. shares some of the salient ideas of Cecilia Rouse, President Biden’s Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, who is retiring on Friday: “Part of her job was to advance and defend President Biden’s policies. But in her lectures, testimony and writing, Rouse also sought to advance a public argument about government’s proper role in a well-functioning market economy. Views on that question influence all sorts of policy judgments (and a lot of hollow rhetoric, too). Only rarely do we drill down to its fundamentals….In an interview in her office the day before she left, Rouse spoke as a good economist in insisting that she does not see the government displacing the market. In a $25 trillion economy, she observed, “the idea that one central planner can actually efficiently allocate all of those resources is just too much, right?”….But all by itself, the market is insufficient, she said, and not just because, as we learned again recently, government regulation is essential to keeping banks and other private institutions from flying off the rails. Which government roles really matter?….“The first is for macroeconomic stabilization,” she said. In a recession, “we don’t have a lot of economic activity from the private sector, but people still need to pay bills. They still need to eat.” The “automatic stabilizers” such as unemployment insurance (which she sees as in need of reform) and food stamps not only help people directly, but they also speed revival in an economy where nearly 70 percent of gross domestic product is based on consumption…..“The second is the more classic — where there’s market failure,” Rouse continued. On many questions, market actors worry “about their own benefits and costs” and are not “taking into consideration the benefits and costs for the rest of society.” Pollution in general and the climate crisis in particular are classic cases of this…..The third area is public investment when there is no immediate incentive for market actors to take risks. “Government makes investments … in basic science. Some of them work out, some of them don’t work out. Private companies may not be willing to bear the cost of this research.” Government investment, she noted, sped the production of vaccines by private companies. The basics also include infrastructure, education and public health — along with child care and elder care that make it possible for more people (especially women) to participate in the economy….Finally, government can reduce the inequalities created by the natural workings of the market and by discrimination, including socially and politically divisive regional economic disparities….Rouse’s overall view of government and her particular interest in labor markets undergird her insistence that Biden’s $1.9 trillion rescue plan was the right pandemic bet, despite inflation that, she notes, hit other advanced economies, too….She grabbed a small, milky globe she keeps on her conference table. “It’s my cloudy crystal ball,” she said with a smile. In the face of “a lot of uncertainty,” the question before the administration was “where did you want to put your weight?” Her choice, she said, was on the side of “individual well-being and worker well-being.”….Rouse’s colleagues, back at Princeton and elsewhere, will spend years debating the decisions made over the past 26 months. But in a crisis, I’ll take an economist who knows that crystal balls are usually cloudy, is transparent about her values, and does her best to make democracy educational again.”

You wouldn’t know it from the social media gloatfest, but smarter Democrats are carefully measuring their verbal responses to Trump’s indictment. For example,

From “Democrats hail, Republicans blast Trump indictment” by Michael Schnell and Emily Brooks at The Hill:

“The indictment of a former president is unprecedented. But so too is the unlawful conduct in which Trump has been engaged,” tweeted Rep.Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who served as lead impeachment manager during Trump’s first impeachment trial. “A nation of laws must hold the rich and powerful accountable, even when they hold high office. Especially when they do. To do otherwise is not democracy.”

….“There should be no outside political influence, intimidation or interference in the case,” Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. “I encourage both Mr. Trump’s critics and supporters to let the process proceed peacefully and according to the law.”

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tweeted that “No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence. Hopefully, the former President will peacefully respect the system, which grants him that right.”

“We must allow the judicial process to continue unimpeded and free from any form of political interference or intimidation,” said Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.).

….Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), who served as an impeachment manager during Trump’s first impeachment, said Thursday was “a somber day for our nation.”….“Former President Trump’s indictment reminds us that no one is above the law and that we are all afforded due process and equal protection under the law,” he added on Twitter.

….“Just a reminder that there is no rule that you have to express your opinion before reading the indictment,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) wrote on Twitter.

In “Democrats React to Trump’s Indictment,” Virginia Allen reports at The Daily Signal:

“The news of Trump’s indictment is a testament to one of the most fundamental ideals of our country: no one is above the law – not even presidents,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., tweeted.

Squad member Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., reacted to Trump’s indictment writing, “Our democracy rests on the rule of law. When someone—no matter how powerful they are—is suspected of a criminal act, our justice system investigates, charges, and convicts them in accordance with due process.”….Omar went on to say she hopes her fellow congressional members join her in “supporting justice and accountability—regardless of party—for the sake of our democracy.”

“I have faith in our legal system to handle former President Trump’s case without interference and with the seriousness it deserves,” Rep. Rob Menendez, D-N.J., wrote on Twitter. “As the legal process plays out, we must continue to focus on doing the work of the American people. And that is exactly what Democrats will do.”

….Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., tweeted, “Our independent, impartial judicial system is the cornerstone of our democracy. Nothing Jim Jordan and Kevin McCarthy do can change that.”

“Our justice system has an obligation to pursue the facts & law wherever they lead,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., tweeted. “Former President Trump will have the same rights as any criminal defendant & the justice system will presume him innocent until proven guilty.”

“While there are many unknowns, we know a few things to be true,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said in a Twitter thread, adding the “Manhattan District Attorney must be allowed to continue his investigation without interference. Any attempt to undermine this process is contrary to the rule of law; and [p]olitical violence or threats of violence cannot be tolerated.”

Alejandro A. Alonso Galva, Megan Verlee, and The Associated Press report at Colorado Public Radio news that “The Colorado Democratic Party put out a statement saying they “welcome the news of Trump’s indictment and believe it’s important that he’s treated the same as every American. In his very privileged life, he learned he can ignore the law and often get away with it. If regular people did what Trump did they would already be serving time in jail.”

All wise comments, since we don’t even know the specific charges against Trump, and even the most obnoxious of political adversaries is entitled to the presumption of innocence until convicted.

Monica Potts and Mary Radcliffe probe a question of increasing interest for parents of students in  “Politicians Want Universal School Vouchers. But What About The Public?” at FiveThirty Eight, and write: “Earlier this week, Florida became the fourth state this year to enact a bill that would allow parents to receive taxpayer-funded vouchers to send their children to private schools, joining Iowa, Utah and Arkansas. At least 18 other states have introduced similar bills this term….But public opinion doesn’t suggest there’s a mandate — it suggests that support for such bills is complicated, varying by state, program design and how the polling questions are asked. Still, these bills are being considered at the same time that support for public schools is declining, especially among Republicans, which could be helping them gain momentum across the country.”….National polls on universal vouchers or education savings accounts, as they’re sometimes known, reveal that opinions are mixed — and that often has to do with how pollsters present the questions. According to February polling from Morning Consult/EdChoice, American adults support a voucher system by 28 points (43 percent support its use in K-12 education and 15 percent oppose, with an additional 26 percent saying they never heard of school vouchers), but that figure jumps to 44 points (65 percent support and 21 percent oppose) when the pollster defines vouchers as a system that “allows parents the option of sending their child to the school of their choice, whether that school is public or private, including both religious and non-religious schools. If this policy were adopted, tax dollars currently allocated to a school district would be allocated to parents in the form of a ’school voucher’ to pay partial or full tuition for the child’s school.”

Potts and Radcliffe note further that “A month later, a survey from Reuters/Ipsos found support for vouchers underwater by 15 points (36 percent support and 51 percent oppose). But the way the question was asked may have a lot to do with the dramatic difference in results: Americans were asked if they supported “[l]aws allowing government money to send students to private and religious schools, even if it reduces money for public schools.” This language emphasizes reduced funding to public schools, which is broadly unpopular, without mentioning potential benefits for parents and students….At the state level, results depend not only on question wording but also how the programs in question are designed. In Texas, for example, a RABA Research poll asked 512 adults on March 17 to 18 if they supported “diverting tax revenue away from neighborhood public schools to use for private school vouchers” — 66 percent opposed while 34 percent supported. This was the only statewide survey to show the voucher program underwater, and also the only survey to note that tax funds might be diverted away from public schools. In nearly every poll in which the question has been asked, respondents say public schools are underfunded, so including this language may impact the results….a Des Moines Register poll earlier this month — which specified the amount of funding, that it was taxpayer-funded, could be used for private school tuition and that it had been debated or passed in the state legislature — found only 34 percent support, a net unfavorable of 28 points.” Cutting through the fog, it certainly sounds like public support for school vouchers in polls is very much affected by whether or not survey respondents are reminded that the vouchers mean less money for public schools.

Florida Governor Ron Desantis is quickly turning his state’s educational system into a disaster of unprecedented proportions. In “Who Wants to Teach in Florida? Gov. Ron DeSantis’s culture warmongering has helped produce the highest teacher vacancy rates in the country,” Lucy Goldmansour explains at The American Prospect: “Gov. Ron DeSantis wants Florida’s K-12 educators to do as they’re told. On top of low pay, difficulties in securing long-term contracts, the stress of high-stakes testing, and increases in student mental health issues, public school teachers must stick to the governor’s conservative script or risk being fired. That script includes the Parental Rights in Education Act, colloquially known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, the Stop WOKE Act, and the recent statewide ban on College Board’s Advanced Placement African American studies curriculum….These developments have contributed to the highest teacher vacancy rate in the country by creating a climate of paranoia that has exasperated many teachers, chased others out of the profession entirely, and deterred aspiring educators. Culture-war turmoil combined with the pandemic era’s tight labor market means that Florida and most Deep South states have struggled to recruit teachers. When the far-right Republican became governor in 2019, there were 2,217 vacant teacher positions in Florida. As of early January, there were about 5,300 openings statewide….In 2022, Florida allocated an additional $250 million over the previous fiscal year to increase teacher salaries. While the funding boosted the base salary for new teachers to $47,500, the pay increase for experienced teachers did not even cover cost-of-living increases. Overall, the pay raise bumped the state up from 49th to 48th in average teacher pay nationwide, according to the National Education Association. DeSantis has proposed $200 million in more funding for teacher pay in his fiscal 2023-2024 budget, which according to the FEA, will hardly move the needle. “Pay in the third-largest state can and should rank in the top 10 nationally,” FEA President Andrew Spar said in a statement.” None of this bodes well for DeSantis’s chances to win the presidency, and it provides the state Democratic Party with a potentially-pivotal issue.

Ryan Tarinelli reports on possibilities for congressional action to address gun violence at CQ Roll Call, and writes: “The shooting at a private school in Nashville has reignited a debate in Congress over American gun violence, but there’s still no clear line for lawmakers to pass further legislation on the issue….The deaths of three children and three adults at the school Monday prompted President Joe Biden and some congressional Democrats to renew calls for legislation to ban assault weapons or bolster the background check system, which Republicans have opposed….In the House, Democrats expressed a desire to act to address gun violence — and alluded to the minority party needing some Republicans to join on something like a discharge petition to force a floor vote on a bill. Such a move would need support from a majority of the House members….Congress sought to address school shootings and other forms of gun violence through a bipartisan legislative package passed last year after public outrage over a mass shooting at an elementary school in Texas. The law, which required more thorough background checks for gun purchasers under 21 years old but also invested in school-based mental health services and school safety, got support from 14 of the 207 House Republicans who voted….Democrats this year are pushing for more to be done on the issue of gun violence. Earlier this month, Mr. Biden rolled out an executive order aimed at upping the number of background checks on firearm sales. In particular, he said the executive order directed Attorney General Merrick Garland to take every lawful action possible to move “as close as we can to universal background checks without new legislation.”….Senate Judiciary Chair Richard Durbin, in the hours after the shooting Monday, urged his colleagues in a floor speech to come together and ban assault weapons that can shoot 83 rounds in a minute.” No one expects anything stronger than a very modest strengthening of background checks requirements, if that. While Democrats are debating the strategic value of getting Republican Senators on the record regarding the sale of AR-15 style weapons, there will be no legislative action in the House under Republican leadership.