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SACRAMENTO In a leadership shakeup linked to last months bipartisan climate deal, Assembly Republicans on Thursday voted in a closed-door meeting to replace Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes with their colleague Brian Dahle, a farmer from Lassen County.

Mayes, a Yucca Valley lawmaker who has led the caucus since early 2016, withstood a leadership challenge this week by some members of his caucus, but said the group would hold an election on Tuesday. Instead, the 25-member caucus met Thursday and quickly emerged with a unanimous decision to elect Dahle. Mayes who supported Dahles bid will remain leader through the end of the legislative session, Sept. 15.

The Republican caucus just elected a new Republican leader, Mayes announced on the floor. That leader is from the major metropolis of Bieber in the North State. Please welcome Assembly Republican Leader, Assemblymember Brian Dahle.

Dahle represents a swath of rural Northern California, a district that includes parts of Lassen, Modoc, Klamath and Plumas national forests. He lives in Bieber, population 300, with his wife and three children.

Chad Mayes did an outstanding job as our leader, Dahle said Thursday in a statement from the caucus. I look forward to picking up where he left off and continuing the fight to articulate conservative principles in a way that resonates with everyday Californians.

The overthrow of Mayes is not shocking, said Bruce Cain, a political scientist and director of Stanford Universitys Bill Lane Center for the American West.

The problem for the California Republican Party, Cain said, is that pressure to adhere to party principles even at the expense of pragmatism and bipartisanship and align with the national GOP has forced it to be way more conservative than the California electorate.

As a result, they get in a deeper and deeper hole, Cain said. The Republican party has never been as marginalized since the Depression as it is right now.

Stephen Woolpert, a political science professor at St. Marys College, said the penalty Mayes paid for bipartisanship shows how politically risky compromise has become.

This is a bill that should have been seen as common ground in California, where there is strong support for climate change policies, Woolpert said.The party is in such a double-bind. If it tries to broaden its base, which in some ways it has to do, it risks alienating the Republican activists who think that bipartisanship is betrayal.

Dahle, a conservative, does have a reputation for working across the aisle. But, like most of his colleagues, he voted against the bill to extend cap-and-trade through 2030. The market-based program is designed to prod industry to emit less global-warming greenhouse gases by forcing them to acquire a steadily shrinking number of permits per ton of carbon released into the atmosphere.

Mayes has argued that embracing climate-change action and other issues important to Californians is the only way forward for a party that has watched its base grow ever smaller. He and six members of his caucus voted for the business-friendly deal they helped to negotiate and which Big Oil and other major industry groups supported pushing it to victory.

But, as Mayes discovered, helping Democrats on the controversial bill and celebrating its victory afterward was a bridge too far for party activists, who circulated chummy photos of him with Democratic Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and others. He said this week that he was surprised by the intensity of the backlash. But until Thursday morning, it appeared that he would try to keep his post.

State party leaders took the unusual step last week of calling for his replacement, a motion brought by Republican National Committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco lawyer who accused Mayes of trying to make the state party Democrat lite.

Im relieved I wont call it a victory or a celebration that the struggle has come to an end in a positive way, with a unanimous vote, Dhillon said Thursday afternoon.

Rendon, D-South Gate, injected a lighthearted note in his statement about the leadership change, alluding to his well-known, across-the-aisle friendship with Mayes.

Chad Mayes is a good man who worked hard to balance doing what was right for California and meeting the needs of his caucus. Personally, I will miss working with Chad as Republican leader, Rendon said. But make no mistake, the bromance will endure.

Gov. Jerry Brown, who spearheaded the cap-and-trade negotiations, bemoaned the Mayes ouster. Sad day, he tweeted Thursday, when the Grand Old Party punishes a leader whose only flaw was believing in science & cutting regs, costs & taxes for Californians.

Link:
California Republican lawmakers vote to oust Chad Mayes, elect new leader - The Mercury News

A month after publicly denouncing a health care bill that the president was desperate to pass, Senator Dean Heller sat uncomfortably alongside President Donald Trump in front of rolling cameras. Holding the floor, Trump did not disappoint, addressing the awkwardness head onwith a veil of humor so thin it stood no chance ofobscuring anyone's view of the true threat at its heart.

Look, he wants to remain a senator doesnt he? Trump said with a smirk.

Heller rocked his head back and initially burst into a laugh. But, with a subtle yet significant hand on hisarm, Trump let him know that the warning was not to be taken lightly.

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And I think the people of your state, which I know very well, I think the people are going to appreciate what you hopefully will do, the Republican president added.

And with that, the uneasiness of being a Republican in the era of the most unpredictable and self-serving president in modern history was laid bare in a few seconds of rapidly unfolding facial expressions.Just weeks after that exchange, Heller, the only Republican senator up for re-election in 2018 in a state carried by Democrat Hillary Clinton, learned his re-election hopes had become yet more perilouswith the emergence of a primary challenger accusing him of obstructing the president's agenda.

Having unexpectedly gained control of the White House and both Houses of Congress, this should have been a time for Republican rejoicing on Capitol Hill, after having been blessed with the opportunity to advance alegislative agenda crafted through eight long years of frustration during Democrat Barack Obama's presidency. Instead, just seven months in, Congress and the White House are locked in aprivate as well as an increasingly public conflict that has the potential to both scupper their hopes in the 2018 midterms and shift the party yet further to the fringe right.

In Trump, Republicans have come up against a president who refuses to tolerate any semblance of opposition, even for the greater good of the party. Having leeway to vote against the president on certain issues in order to preserve voter support back home has been common under past administrations. According to Larry Sabato, director for the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, there's good reason for that.

Its practical, Sabato told Newsweek last week. Its the obvious thing to do. Other presidents have had good sense, He doesnt have good sense, he doesnt understand politics.

Last week, Trump delivered his most stinging rebuke yet to a Republican who dared to cross him. In a sharply delivered tweet, he described Senator Jeff Flake as toxic and, to the dismay of the Republican establishment, threw his support behind the Arizona senator's primary opponent.

In Nevada, too, Trump's influence is already being felt. Two weeks ago, Las Vegas resident Danny Tarkanianthe son of a famed University of Nevada, Las Vegas basketball coach and a five-time defeated candidate for political officeentered the fray, pitching himself as someone who would bring the kind of loyalty to the president that Heller has lacked.

Ive gotten so many calls, emails, texts encouraging me to run against Dean Heller, he told Newsweek on the day of his announcement. They all were telling me, 'Hey, were never going to get President Trumps "America First"policies passed unless we get senators in office who are going to support the presidents policies.'

Backing up those comments, Tarkanian last week launched the website NeverHeller.com, which is composed solely of quotes and other purported evidence that the Nevada senator was never Trump.

While a fillip for Trump, Tarkanian's entry into the race is also a boost for Democratscurrently represented in the race by U.S. Representative Jacky Rosen, who defeated Tarkanian in winning her House seat in 2016. As they aim to grab a seat that is surely a must-win if they are to have any hope of taking back the Senate andobstructing Trump's agenda, Democrats are eager to capitalize on the Republican infighting.

Its going to make this incredibly tough for Heller, Stewart Boss, communications director for the Nevada State Democratic Party, told Newsweek last week. Hes going to have to thread this needle for the next year of trying to appease a Trump base in Nevada that doesnt trust him while hes definitely going to face a tough general election.

President Donald Trump gestures toward Senator Dean Heller (R-NeV.) while delivering remarks on health care and Republicans' inability thus far to replace or repeal the Affordable Care Act, during a lunch with members of Congress in the State Dining Room of the White House on July 19, in Washington, D.C. Michael Reynolds - Pool/Getty Images

The signs are that Heller and Tarkanian could be set for a near repeat of last weeks special election in Alabama, in which the three leading Republican candidates to take now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions's old Senate seat were fighting in an attempt toportray themselves as the most pro-Trump.

In Nevada, though, that would be a perilous strategy. The state is trending blue, and in 2016 not only voted for Clinton but returnedDemocrats to majority control of both houses of the state legislature. In the first half of 2017, Trump has an approval rating of 44 percent in Nevada, which, while higher than he has recorded nationally, is not exactly something to trumpet. Heller encountered some of his states most vicious opposition to Trump first-hand, when a note threatening to kill the senator over his health care vote was taped to the door of his Las Vegas office.

Toward the end of June, Heller held a press conference with Nevada GovernorBrian Sandoval during which he made it clear he would not support the GOP health care bill. A month later, though, following Trumps very public threat and attack ads run against him by a pro-Trump group, he voted in favor of Republicans much-maligned skinny repeal of Obamacare, which was eventually defeated by a single vote.

You had to take a positon on that, you just had to, Sabato said. Do your best to argue for it and people might at least respect you a little. When you voted in prior times to abandon Obamacare and replace it and then you cant decide what you want to do and then Trump kind of embarrasses you and sure enough you vote with him. I just think he looked like a human piece of marshmallow.

Indeed, Hellers flip-flopping is now set to be a focal point of the campaign against himfrom both the right and the left.

A big emphasis on our part is going to be pointing people back to not what he says but what he does and how he votes, Boss said of the Democratic campaign against Heller, which not coincidentally is probably going to be Danny Tarkanians message, too.

Were Trump to makethe same direct intervention in the Nevada election as he has in Arizona against Flake,it would further fracture the relationship between the president and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Amid the dramatic failure of the health care effort, Trump lashed outnot only at Heller and Flake, but by publicly slamming McConnell.

Such a rift between the president and the man charged with rallying support in the Senate presents an unhelpful roadblock to hopes of advancing both a Republican and a Trump agenda. More trouble could yet await the president. Following his much-criticized comments about violence at a white nationalist rally earlier this month in Charlottesville, Virginia, and with his approval ratings at historic lows, Republicans are feeling emboldened to criticize Trump in a manner they have shied away from since he entered the White House.

And yet any obituaries of the Trump presidency may have to wait a while.Through a pure dose of election mechanics, rather thanany inspired political maneuvering, Trump has an avenue to actually come out of the 2018 midterms in a stronger position.

Thanks to Democrats' success in 2006 and 2012, the 2018 map will see them defending 25 seats, compared to the Republicans eight. Whats more, 10 of the Democrats up for re-election are in states carried by Trump in 2016;five are in states he won by landslides.

Let's suppose Republicans add net two or three seats," said Sabato,"then they're set in the Senate, they can lose Heller, loseFlake add net two or three seats, they're in a better position and Trump will have sent a message to other Republicans, which is, 'If you cross me, I'll make sure you lose.

Tarkanian, for one,is determined to make that message ring true and ensure that 2018 ends with the battle between the White House and Congress tilted in Trump's favor.

"I believe President Trumps 'America First' policiesare a positive and theyre working," Tarkanian said, "Hes done it without the help of the Senate or Congress. Just think how good we would be right now if we could get more of his policies past the House and Senate."

More:
Trump Is Attacking Republicans Like a Dictator and It Could Tear the Party Apart - Newsweek

Cambodias prime minister Hun Sen is close ally of China. Photograph: Heng Sinith/AP

Cambodia has hit back at criticism over its decision to expel a US-funded pro-democracy group, accusing Washington of political interference and describing American democracy as bloody and brutal.

Prime minister Hun Sen, the strongman who has ruled Cambodia for more than three decades, has taken a strident anti-American line in the increasingly tense run up to a 2018 election.

The US state department criticised Cambodias decision to expel the National Democratic Institute (NDI) on Wednesday and a statement from the US embassy in Phnom Penh questioned whether Cambodia was a democracy.

In an open letter on Thursday, the Cambodian government asked whether the United States was coming to Cambodia to help or hinder the Khmer people and blamed it for contributing to the rise of the genocidal Khmer Rouge in the 1970s.

Cambodians are well aware of what a democratic process means. You do not need to tell us what it is, the letter said, describing US-style democracy as bloody and brutal.

We wish to send a clear message again to the US embassy that we defend our national sovereignty, it added.

Tensions have risen anew in Cambodia, with rights groups and the United Nations expressing alarm and the opposition accusing Hun Sen of persecution ahead of next years election.

After the governments order to expel the NDI and a threat to shut a newspaper founded by an American journalist if it didnt pay back taxes immediately, the US state department voiced concern at the government curtailing freedom of the press and civil societys ability to operate.

Government supporters have threatened to protest at the US embassy in Phnom Penh, the pro-government Fresh News web site reported on Thursday.

The protests are likely to be in large scale against the US embassy in Phnom Penh like in the 1960s because of the American interference in Cambodias sovereignty, it said, citing an anonymous government source.

The spillover from the US war in neighbouring Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s helped bring to power the Khmer Rouge regime, whose rule was marked by the genocide of at least 1.8 million Cambodians through starvation, torture, disease and execution.

Hun Sen, the former Khmer Rouge commander who is one of Chinas closest regional allies, has warned of a possible return to war if his party doesnt win elections.

In a statement on its website on Wednesday the NDI called on Cambodia to reconsider its decision to shut it down. The institute said it worked with all major parties and that its work was strictly nonpartisan.

Kenneth Wollack, NDI president, said the NDI has fulfilled all legal obligations for registration.

Hun Sen has also targeted local media in what rights groups say is a growing crackdown ahead of the election.

Cambodias ministry of information on Wednesday revoked the license of a local radio station for selling air time to the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party.

The station also rents out space to the US government-financed Voice of America (VOA) English news outlet.

Original post:
Cambodia calls US democracy 'bloody and brutal' as charity row escalates - The Guardian

Election daywasn't even over when members of the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) began praising both themselves and the way the poll was organized. This deserved top marks, said a leading politician from the MPLA, which has held power since Angolagained independence from Portugal in 1975.

It is true that Angola's 2017 general elections were noticeably less chaotic than previous ones. Plus there was a marked absence of violent clashes seen elsewhere in Africa, such as in Kenya after the elections held there earlier this month.

But awarding top marks is going too far. For one thing, Angola's National Electoral Commission accredited far too few election observers from opposition partiesto enable effective election monitoring in this vast Central African country. For another, the commission took so long to negotiate the accreditation of observer missions from Europe and North America that they either lost patience and gave up or were only able to send minuscule delegations that were virtually ineffective.

Johannes Beck heads DW's Portuguese for Africa service

Climate of fear

In any case, the organization of the elections was the smallest problem. A bigger one was the lack of opposition voices and critical opinions.

The MPLA dominated media coverage, giving the opposition National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) and other parties little chance to be heard.

Many Angolans were, and still are,fearful of freely expressing their opinion. Those who exercised their constitutional right to demonstrate risked being beaten by the police. Those with links to opposition parties risked ruining their chances of a career either in the government or with one of the numerous private companies controlled by the MPLA.

In Angola, even meeting with friends to discuss a book outlining non-violent methods of resistanceriskslanding people in prison.

On paper, Angola may appear to be a model democracy. But in recent years, the MPLA has succeeded in creating a climate of oppressionin which no real democracy can flourish.

Chance for a new beginning

This was the first time in decades that Angola truly stood a chance of starting anew - after 38years as president, this year Jose Eduardo dos Santos chose not to run for reelection.

For the time being, dos Santos remains the MPLA party leader. This is one reason his successor and newly-elected president, Joao Lourenco, probably won't dare touch the billion-dollar interests of the dos Santosfamily.

Lourenco's career as former secretary general of the MPLA and defense minister of Angola leaves me with little hope that he will usher in democratic change.He may perhaps perform some cosmetic surgery and remove dos Santos'sdaughter Isabel, Africa's richest woman, from her post as head of thestate oil company, Sonangol. This would also appease internal MPLA critics.

But I don't thinkLourenco is likely to end the repression of human rights defenders and protesters, liberalize the media, or allowlocal and provincial governments to hold free elections. He is too much a MPLA man for this.

But if Angola is to really become a functional democracy, such fundamental changes are urgently needed.

True democracy isn't only visible on election day. True democracy needs openness, tolerance and the rule of law every day of the year.

Read the rest here:
Opinion: Democracy in Angola is more than just holding elections - Deutsche Welle

Over the past seven months, Donald Trump has attacked what for many are the pillars of American democracy. Hes blasted the news media, sowed distrust in the election process, and fired the FBI director for apparently political reasons. He has torn at the U.S.s racial fabric, perhaps to embolden his base. Political scientists, historians, and other experts have been trying to gauge how much damage hes inflicting on democracy. The New Yorker wondered if the U.S. might be on the verge of a new civil war.

Damaging the American political process has global ramifications. But an examination of other countries experiences shows that Trump may not be as successful in destroying U.S. norms and institutions as media coverage fearfully suggests. In many ways, he isnt unique. A wave of authoritarian-leaning populists has swept the globe in the past 15 yearsThailands Thaksin Shinawatra, Italys Silvio Berlusconi, Hungarys Viktor Orban, the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte, many otherswho share his disdain for institutions, the media, and politics as usual. Yet from Italy to Argentina, some countries that have elected these types of leaders not only survived them but also rebuilt their democraciesthey were battered but not destroyed.

Photographer: John Francis Peters for Bloomberg Businessweek

To be sure, Trumps presidency is less than a year old, and its premature to declare American democracy safe. The BrightLine Watch survey, which regularly questions political scientists about the state of U.S. democracy, found in May that American democracy remains healthy, but its health under Trump has worsened for the first time in recent history, according to the New York Times. There are signs that his leadership is exacerbating partisanship and reducing trust in the media and other institutions.

As Yascha Mounk of Harvard notes, decimating a democracy can take time. Early in their careers, Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Venezuelas Hugo Chvez, and Hungarys Viktor Orban also seemed like they might be constrained. A few years after Erdogan, Orban, and Chvez took power, smart people also warned of excessive worry about democratic breakdown, he wrote.

Yet democracy is proving stronger under stress in the U.S. than it is in such places as Turkey, and Trump is a less effective populist than Erdogan or Chvez. Instead of Americas 1860s, the Trump and post-Trump era might look far more like Italy and Argentina in the 21st century.

In Italy, Berlusconi dominated politics from 1994 until 2011. He blended business and politics like Trump, undermined the media, attacked the judiciary, and oversaw an erosion of democracy that left a legacy of popular mistrust of institutions. Berlusconis approach hurt Italys economy as wellit was one of the worst-performing in the world during his time at the top.

But Italys democrats ultimately prevailed, calling on the countrys relatively strong democratic institutions and culture andslowlylearning to offer policy solutions rather than just blasting the leader. Anti-Berlusconi Italians protested his rule throughout his tenure. Although he controlled much of the broadcast media, dogged reporters continued to probe his scandals. Prosecutors charged him with alleged crimes even as Berlusconi oversaw passage of legislation that shielded him from charges. Eventually, prosecutors won a conviction against him for tax fraud. Politicians who once had been allied with him eventually turned against him as his reckless and pseudo-dictatorial styleand inability to solve problemsdrove a wedge in his coalition in 2010 and 2011.

Since 2011, Italy has held multiple free elections, and its once-battered press has regained some of its vibrancy. Judges and prosecutors protect their hard-won independence, perhaps even more so in the wake of Berlusconis attempts to immunize himself from the law. Many civil society groups that had taken some progress for granted before Berlusconi became energized by his time in office. The allure of a one-man fix for the country was tarnished, although the legacy of popular mistrust of institutions remains a major problem. As the journalist Alexander Stille wrote in the New Republic, Berlusconi failed because his megalomania led him to self-destruct and because of his rank incompetence in tending to the countrys business.

A similar political dynamic occurred in Argentina. From 2003 to 2015, Nstor Kirchner and his wife and successor, Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner, ruledand damaged Argentine democracy in similar ways that Berlusconi damaged Italy. They attacked courts, the bureaucracy, and the media, and they tried to rule through orders instead of working through the legislature. They also tried to undermine basic factual knowledge: Theyd so politicized the governments important Indec statistics agency that it became discredited by the time Fernndez de Kirchner left office. Like Berlusconi, the couple did lasting damage to the economy.

But Argentinas democracy survived as well, and in many ways its reviving. As Shannon ONeil of the Council on Foreign Relations writes, in several Latin American nations, including Argentina, citizens have turned against populism over time, tired of chaotic politics and poor governance. Latin American citizens, she notes, have used massive public protests to shame corrupt officials and back democracy. Theyve formed citizens movements, pushed to pass laws cementing separation of powers, and increasingly elected middle-of-the-road candidates. In Argentina, exhaustion with populism led to electing the moderate Mauricio Macri in 2015. He has tried to restore the independence of government agencies from presidential dominance and stop the habit of presidents amassing more and more power.

On the other hand, some countries havent recovered from authoritarian-leaning populism. Thailand had less history with democracy than Italy, and its institutions were incapable of or uninterested in standing up to an authoritarian populist such as former Prime Minister Thaksin. The middle classes often responded not by trying to strengthen democratic institutions but by abandoning them. Many opinion leaders supported military coupswhich occurred in 2006 and 2014as means of ousting a populist. Thailand also exists in a region where autocracies are the norm, and other countries did little to sanction Thaksin during his time as prime minister. In contrast, Italy and Argentina belong to regional communities of democracies that are willing to condemn and punish leaders who subvert rights and freedoms.

Realizing that countries with weaker institutions and norms survived authoritarian populists doesnt mean all is fine in the U.S. Like Italy, it could suffer damage without a complete meltdown. Although Americans are losing faith in many institutions, those institutions are performing relatively well right now. So far, the judicial system has repeatedly checked potential attempts to undermine the rule of law. The media has hardly been cowed. The U.S. militarys leadership has pushed back against Trump rhetoric without suggesting a breach in civilian control: After his comments on Charlottesville, leaders of many military branches issued messages affirming the importance of tolerance. And, as Josh Chafetz of Cornell Law School notes, Congress is providing a check on Trumps powers. It may not be happening as swiftly or as comprehensively as some Democrats might like, but the legislative branch is making its weight felt in the Trump era in a manner that, if it continues, bids fair to leave Trump with a reputation as an extraordinarily weak modern president.

When every day seems to bring more outrageous Trump statements, its difficult to believe any checks are still working. And winding up like a much bigger, wealthier post-Berlusconi Italy may come as cold comfort. Americans invested in protecting democracy must remain vigilant: supporting fact-based media, pushing lawmakers to pass legislation curtailing presidential power rather than relying on aged democratic norms to constrain the chief, and addressing structural factors such as inequality that helped facilitate Trumps rise. But a Caracas-on-the-Potomac future as yet seems unlikely. Kurlantzick is senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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A Survival Guide for Democracies - Bloomberg