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In 2015, the Department of Justice released a report on the causes of the shooting death, a year earlier, of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

Ferguson was a community where local authorities consistently approached law enforcement not as a means for protecting public safety, but as a way to generate revenue, then-attorney general Eric Holder wrote.

The report also found that revenue raising was racially biased and had not only severely undermined the public trust, eroded police legitimacy, and made local residents less safe but created an intensely charged atmosphere where people feel under assault and under siegeby those charged to serve and protect them.

But years later, the practice remains widespread so much so that in at least 43 states, some portion of speeding ticket revenue goes to a court or law enforcement fund, suggesting the potential for conflicts of interest like in Ferguson, according to a new paper.

The Washington-based Tax Policy Centers new paper, Following the Money on Fines and Fees, looks at what the authors call the misaligned fiscal incentives in speeding tickets. The papers contribution to the issue, according to co-author Arvind Boddupalli, is novel in that it matches revenues from fine and fees to how they are allocated, thereby drawing a money trail of potential conflicts of interest.

The paper also finds that many states use speeding ticket revenue to fund general government services unrelated to the justice system. Thats a gray area, Boddupalli told MarketWatch.

Its not conclusively better to send the money to a general fund, Boddupalli said. Revenue-motivated policing and sentencing, in and of itself, can be pretty problematic and especially inequitable. There is a lot that can be problematic here.

Earlier coverage: When fines and fees ruin lives

Revenue-motivated policing doesnt have to end the way things did in Ferguson for it still to have a devastating impact on peoples lives. The practice disproportionately targets Black Americans, a raft of earlier research has shown, and it can trap people in cycles of debt, bankruptcy, and a history with the justice system, which can make getting a job or a fresh start much harder.

Whats more, by creating such incentives for law enforcement, it can set up a situation where the financial health of a community is better if people are fined more for breaking the law. But that also often leads to lower public trust in the justice system and a loss of legitimacy not to mention lower rates of solving crimes, Boddupalli said.

He hopes that his paper, co-authored with Livia Mucciolo, leads to more research focused on tracking the allocations from other types of revenues.

Excerpt from:
Nearly every state uses speeding-ticket fines and fees to fund its justice system - MarketWatch

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At crucial moments in American history when democracy was under threat, Congress took decisive action to protect voting rightsthe 15th Amendment, the 19thAmendment, the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

This week is going to be a similarly pivotal time for American democracy. After failing to lawfully win the 2020 election and then unlawfully overturn it, the Republican Party has had a single-minded focus on rigging the countrys voting and election system to their advantage, while congressional Democrats have passed no legislation to stop them.

Now Democrats are mounting an aggressive last-ditch effort to protect voting rights, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer promising a vote on changing the Senate rules to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act by Martin Luther King Jr. Day. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are traveling to Georgia on Tuesday to deliver major speeches to build public support for this effort.

The stakes couldnt be higher: If Democrats dont pass these voting rights billsand soonthe 2022 election will take place under voting restrictions designed to suppress turnout among Democratic-leaning constituencies, gerrymandered maps that roll back fair representation for communities of color, and election subversion laws giving Trump-inspired Stop the Steal candidates unprecedented power over election administration and how votes are counted. Collectively, these anti-democratic measures could cost Democrats control of Congress and crucial state offices in 2022, making it much easier for Republicans to rig the 2024 election.

More than just giving Republicans a temporary tactical advantage, the GOPs bigger project is to consolidate and wield power no matter the views of a majority of voters, which is antithetical to the entire notion of representative democracy.

There is a fear that Republicans have about facing the people, says former Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder. They are concerned that this changing America that is less rural, that is more urban, that is younger, that is more diversethey dont think that they can win with that changing electorate. And as a result, they want to put in place rules and mechanisms that will ensure that they keep power, even if they dont retain popular support. They are basically signing off on a political apartheid system.

Voting rights experts say Democrats, after failing to act in 2021, have a very narrow window to pass legislation that would roll back the GOPs anti-democratic efforts before voters go to the polls in 2022.

We are in a crisis of timing, says Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. The longer we wait, the more limited the impact of the reforms are.

Weiser points out that if the Freedom to Vote Act passed this month, its ban on partisan gerrymandering would immediately go into effect and new lawsuits could quickly be filed against unfair maps or existing lawsuits amended. But the chances of success diminish the closer it is to an election, as candidates run for office, voters request ballots, and election officials prepare to count votes. Texas, for example, has primary elections scheduled for March 1, with candidates already running and early voting beginning February 14. As the election calendar accelerates, the remedies that a court can consider or the time to put in place alternative maps shrinks, says Weiser.

Time is also running out to put in place measures expanding access to the ballot and blocking GOP efforts to roll back voting opportunities. Weiser said policies in the Freedom to Vote Act such as same-day registration, no-excuse absentee voting, and two weeks of early voting could still be implemented in 2022and the number of states that quickly expanded voting options during the pandemic provides a model for how it could be done. But the more time that election officials have, the better the implementation will be and the smoother the process for voters.

Of course, all of these changes are theoretical if Democrats cannot overcome the fundamental asymmetry that has marked the fight over voting rights for the past year.

Republicans at the state-level have passed a slew of anti-democracy measures through simple majority, party-line votes, but by stubbornly supporting the filibuster Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have allowed 41 GOP senators representing just 21 percent of the country to block any effort to protect voting rights.

If the right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, then how can we in good conscience allow for a situation in which the Republican Party can debate and pass voter suppression laws at the state level with only a simple majority vote, but not allow the United States Senate to do the same? Schumer asked in a letter to senators last week.

Thats not the only imbalance in tactics.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has accused Democrats of trying to break the Senate by pushing a voting rights exception to the filibuster. Theres no such thing as a narrow exception, he said last week.

But McConnell employed precisely such an exception to the filibuster in order to confirm three of Trumps Supreme Court justices with simple majority votes.

That means Republicans can pass laws to make it harder to vote and GOP-appointed judges can be confirmed to the bench to uphold them through a simple majority process, but Democrats are prevented from using the same rules to stop these efforts.

The asymmetry cannot hold, Schumer said on the Senate floor on January 5. If Senate Republicans continue to abuse the filibuster to prevent this body from acting, then the Senate must adapt.

Perhaps sensing Democratic momentum on filibuster reform, GOP leaders last week suddenly floated changes to the Electoral Count Act of 1887 in order to lure Manchin and Sinema away from considering rule changes that would allow for the passage of the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. While reforming the ECA is important to prevent another coup-like attempt where Trump pressured Vice President Mike Pence to reject certified Electoral College votes from the states, changes to the act would apply only to presidential elections at the last stage of the process and do nothing to stop the voter suppression and election subversion that occurs before Congress counts the votes.

If youre going to rig the game, and then say, Oh, well count the rigged game accurately, what good is that? Schumer told reporters last week.

Holder said ECA reform was necessary and needed but called the GOPs embrace of it total bullshit and a craven tactical attempt to obfuscate how theyre killing more fundamental voting reform.

The need for the passage of these bills is now, Holder said of the Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. There is nothing else to discuss. The question is, where do you stand? Do you stand for American democracy? Or do you stand with those people who are trying to subvert the American system? There is no in-between, you are on one side or the other.

The rest is here:
It's Now or Never for Democrats to Protect Voting Rights Mother Jones - Mother Jones

The Ohio Supreme Court heard a second round of arguments about gerrymandering in less than a month.

Theyre being asked to decide if the states new Congressional district map is unconstitutional, by some of the same groups that have also sued over the new maps for Ohios state House and Senate districts.

Chief Justice Maureen OConnor started by welcoming attorneys and online viewers to the arguments on two cases challenging the Ohio Congressional map approved by the Ohio Redistricting Commission and then on a party line vote by Republican state lawmakers last month.

The Ohio Supreme Court has been in person since September, but these cases were suddenly added to the docket between Christmas and New Years.

Arguing for a group of voters representing Democratic former US Attorney General Eric Holder's National Redistricting Action Fund and for the League of Women Voters of Ohio was Ben Stafford from the Elias Group, which has challenged Republican-drawn maps in several states. Those groups were involved in lawsuits over Ohios state legislative maps too.

Stafford said expert analysis shows Republicans could win 12 of 15 districts in this new Congressional map, in violation of a 2018 voter approved constitutional amendment to end the partisan process for drawing congressional districts.

This case is about how the General Assembly has thumbed its nose at these reforms and enacted a plan that palpably violates Article 19s new anti-gerrymandering protections," Stafford told the court.

Stafford and civil rights lawyer Robert Fram argued that a partisan map wouldnt have resulted in just using Ohios geography to create the plan. Fram said the 80% Republican-20% Democratic result was only achieved through county splits.

When we see a substantial deviation from compactness that results in a substantial increase in partisan gain, thats a tipoff that what we have here is an unduly partisan, favoring one political party," Fram said.

Earlier this month the court removed from the lawsuits the Democrats on the Redistricting Commission, Sen. Vernon Sykes and House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes, and also Republican members Auditor Keith Faber and Gov. Mike DeWine, whos incidentally the father of Justice Pat DeWine. That left Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Senate President Matt Huffman and Speaker Bob Cupp, all Republicans.

Arguing for the map they approved was Phillip Strach, a North Carolina lawyer who said map drawing can use partisanship, just not excessively.

"This case is about a Congressional district plan that fully complies with Article 19 of the state Constitution and was the most constitutionally compliant of all the plans before the General Assembly," Strach said.

Strach said the other sides analysis is deeply flawed because of human interference, and that just using geography would also have created a Republican map.

He reiterated Republicans leaders claims that this map has six GOP and two Democratic seats with seven competitive districts, and only splits 12 counties just over half the number allowed and two counties, Hamilton and Summit, twice.

Democratic Justice Melody Stewart asked him about that: Its almost like youre saying its not as gerrymandered as it could have been.

Your Honor, Im just saying that the Constitution allows five counties to be split twice, so the General Assembly could legally have done that," Strach replied.

Ohio has had a Congressional delegation of 12 Republicans and 4 Democrats since the current map was first used in 2012.

Republican Chief Justice Maureen OConnor is considered a swing vote since she sided with the minority to throw out the current map in 2011. She asked Strach why he kept comparing the new map to the current one, which is considered one of the most gerrymandered maps in the country and arguably sparked the 2018 vote to change the process.

If you do compare it to that plan, which has been criticized but was never overruled, that if you look at that plan, its clearly " Strach began his answer.

O'Connor interrupted: "Counsel, didnt the people overrule it? I mean, maybe not overruled in front of us or another court, but the people in their vote overruled what had been done to that point, did they not?"

Strach restated his argument that this new map has more competitive districts and is therefore less partisan, which is what voters wanted, and also said lawmakers didnt have other maps that would be better.

In his follow up, Stafford said this new map is more gerrymandered than that 2011 one. And he closed with an analogy that might be understandable but perhaps difficult just weeks after OSU lost the Big Game.

If Ohio State every year has to spot Michigan a two touchdown lead, it might make the game more competitive. The rules are set up to favor one team over the other, and thats exactly what theyve done here with their supposedly competitive districts," Stafford said.

The law that created the new Congressional map sets a March 4 filing deadline for candidates for a May primary. Secretary of State LaRose filed a brief that didnt defend the maps constitutionality but asked for a quick ruling.

Decisions on this map and on the state House and Senate maps argued before the court a few weeks ago are expected soon.

Here is the original post:
Constitutionality of Ohio's Congressional map now in the hands of the state's Supreme Court justices - ideastream

After the disastrous Covid-inspired changes to the 2020 election, you might think the left is finished with voting reforms. But an even bigger effort is coming, one that promises to permanently hand Democrats a built-in advantage and all but ensure no Republican wins the presidency again.

Meet National Popular Vote, the group spearheading the campaign to destroy the Electoral College and abandon centuries of constitutional history in the name of saving democracy (read: electing Democrats). If NPVs plans succeed, it would mean the end of elections as we know them, with would-be presidents shunting aside swing states and ignoring flyover country to schmooze voters in Manhattan and San Francisco. It would create the top-down nightmare that Americas founders fought desperately to prevent.

This campaign isnt being waged just by left-wing activists but by trusted conservative lobbyists targeting Republican politicians in bright-red states. Its the kind of deception mastered by leftists from Margaret Sanger to Saul Alinsky, fooling your opponents into believing theyre fighting you when theyre really fighting for you.

My colleagues and I at the Capital Research Center have exposed the plan to effectively federalize all future elections through a combination of hastily adopted vote-by-mail rules, privately funded drop boxes in major U.S. cities, and nonprofits that specialize in flooding mailboxes with absentee ballot forms in battleground states. That plan sits astride a larger voting machine, big foundations that pumped up 2020 Census figures in blue states, nonprofits that specialize in registering Democratic constituencies to vote, and a slew of pro-gerrymandering lawyers led by Eric Holder.

Together they reveal the radical lefts vision: one-party rule from Washington, D.C., with no pesky Constitution to stop them. NPV is the latest step in that plan.

* * *

According to Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, each state receives a certain number of electoral votes equal to its total number of U.S. senators and U.S. representatives (anywhere from 3 to 55 votes), which are reapportioned after each census. Those electors meet as a body every four years to vote for the next president and vice president, with the results sent to the president of the Senate (who is also the vice president) for approval during a joint session of Congress, during which objections to individual electors are considered. The candidate who receives a simple majority (270 votes) wins.

If that sounds inefficient or clunky, thats the point. The founders careful strategy in establishing a representative republic hobbled by checks and balances also extended to the Electoral College, which was just as plodding in 1787 as it is in 2021. Elections were intended to be the domain of state legislatures, not the federal government, giving them broad discretion to run elections as they see fit including how to award electoral votes.

For most states, that means a winner-take-all system in which the statewide winner takes all of that states electoral votes. (Maine and Nebraska have opted for a different approach. Two electors are selected on a statewide basis, the rest by congressional district.) Its meant to ensure smaller communities are represented at the national level instead of being drowned out by big cities. It isnt actually that uniquenumerous countries with parliamentary systems select their executives through the legislature, including the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Australia, and Japan.

But this is hopelessly undemocratic and out of date, according to National Popular Vote. The group formed in 2006 with the mission to eliminate the Electoral College by ignoring it.

NPV proposes that the candidate who wins the popular vote at the national levelwhich happens to be the Democrat in every election since 2008should receive all electoral votes from states that adopt the NPV plan, regardless of whether the candidate wins that states popular vote. If every state were to pass NPV legislation, the winner of the popular vote would win all 538 electoral votes and the loser would win none.

NPV believes that its plan would cure the nations deep political polarization. But is that true?

Imagine an alternate 2016 election in which every state adopted the NPV plan. Hillary Clinton, not Donald J. Trump, would emerge the winner by a scant two million votes out of an electorate of nearly 124 million voters. Each of the 30 states that voted for Trumpincluding Pennsylvania and Michigan, which flipped into the GOP column for the first time since 1988would have instead sent their 308 electoral votes to Clinton, even though she lost those and other swing states.

What message would that send to the Trump voters in the purple states that decided the 2016 election? Far from mending fences, bypassing the Electoral College would permanently alienate tens of millions of already disillusioned Americans by proving what they currently suspect: Their vote doesnt matter.

American elections would never be the same. Instead of wooing voters in battleground states with small-to-middling populationsthink North Carolina, Iowa, and Arizonasavvy campaigners would dedicate all their time to churning out absurdly high turnouts in the biggest states: New York, Texas, California, Florida, Illinois. Time spent campaigning in smaller states would be time wasted.

Few people realize the extent and power of the lefts network of professional voter registration and get-out-the-vote groups, which exist to produce votes for Democrats. Those groups are currently hindered by having to focus on swing states. Eliminating the Electoral College would simplify their strategy to greasing up a handful of major citiesPhiladelphia, New York, and Chicagoinstead of winning voters across entire states.

Deciding presidents by popular vote does away with the entire reason the Constitution gives states, not the federal government, the power to run elections. Urban voter turnout machines would decide the outcome of every election. It would transform presidential elections from a contest in which candidates sell their vision of the future to a skeptical nation to a twisted version of Americas Got Talentin short, a popularity contest.

* * *

Amending the Constitution to remove the Electoral College is virtually impossible in todays political climate, so instead NPV has opted for a compact of states that have passed national popular vote legislation, which will only take effect after enough states join, representing 270 electoral votes.

To date, the compact has reached 195 electoral votes, entirely from Democratic-run statesCalifornia, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washingtonand the District of Columbia. But that still leaves 75 electoral votes to nab, a challenge given that the campaigns momentum ceased in 2019 when NPV bills failed in Democratic-run Maine and Nevada.

More importantly, NPV is running out of Democratic states. Shifting strategy to bring on Republicans has proven challenging. NPV has an image problem among conservatives, as it should.

NPV founder John Koza is a former Stanford University computer science professor best known for popularizing state-run lotteries and inventing the lottery scratch card. Hes also a regular donor to Democratic candidates who has twice-served as a Democratic elector. Koza says that President George W. Bushs unfair election inspired him to found NPV.

Koza is the main donor behind NPV, pumping perhaps as much as $28 million into the group, half of it in $2 million annual grants since 2014 (the exact amount is unclear). NPV denies that the project is left-wing, since over 90% of its donations have come in roughly equal quantities from Koza (a pro-choice, pro-Buffett-rule, registered Democratic businessman) and Tom Golisano (a pro-life, anti-Buffett-rule, registered Republican businessman), founder of the payroll services company Paychex.

But Golisano pulled back from the campaign in recent years and is no longer involved, according to Politico in 2017, and no other right-leaning donors besides him have been identified. Fred Lucas, an investigative journalist for the Daily Signal, also uncovered a few million dollars in grants to NPV from the left-wing Tides Foundation and the philanthropy of Jonathan Soros, son of George Soros, buttressing accusations of partisanship.

Most recently, the group used concerns over 2020 election integrity to try to whip up Republican support for its plan. Saul Anuzis, NPVs top lobbyist and spokesman, blames the Electoral College for conservative frustration over election irregularities and problems. Americans everywhere will have to live with another four years of questioned legitimacy surrounding another president, Anuzis wrote in December 2020, all because not every voter in every state was relevant in the 2020 election The candidate with the most votes should win. Thats an American ideal.

Anuzis points out that NPVs plan is distinct from proposals from the left to simply abolish the Electoral College. National Democrats favor the elimination of the Electoral College and using a direct national popular vote to elect the president, he says, whereas NPVs plan is a bipartisan proposal that takes a federalist approach to preserve the Electoral College and states rights to regulate, administer, and determine how electors are chosen to [it] by using the national popular vote.

Anuzis is head of the conservative 60 Plus Association and former chair of the Michigan Republican Party who ran for RNC chairman in 2011. He lost to Reince Priebus, in part because of his support for gutting the Electoral College. Anuzis resurfaced as an adviser to Sen. Ted Cruzs 2016 presidential campaign and later as a delegate representing Michigan in that years Republican Convention, where he voted to nominate Cruz despite Trump winning the states primary.

Anuzis got in hot water in 2011 for circulating a pro-NPV letter on bogus RNC letterhead after his request to use the elephant logo was denied by Priebus. When an Alaska Republican lawmaker confronted him, he told her, Anyone can get the elephant off the internet.

Anuzis represents the tip of the spear aimed at winning Republican support for NPVs plan. The strategy is meant to make Republican lawmakers feel like theyre strengthening the Constitution when theyre actually undermining it.

* * *

NPV typically approaches GOP legislators in targeted states using well-known and trusted Republican lobbyists like Constantin Querard, a campaign consultant whose firm, Grassroots Partners, has been hired by at least 40 Republican state representatives and 19 senators in Arizona.

Querard was a registered lobbyist for NPV from 2015 to 2019, yet there are almost no registered transactions between him and any elected officials save two small food or beverages expenditures in 2016 for state Rep. Don Shooter, who was expelled from the house in 2018 after allegations of sexual harassment.

Sean Parnell, senior legislative director for the proElectoral College watchdog group Save Our States, believes he knows why. For the last decade, National Popular Vote has invited legislators on swanky weekend trips to expensive resorts in Sedona, Hawaii, and other luxury destinations to sell them on the groups plan, paid for by its 501(c)(3) arm, the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections.

Although NPV has bristled at the mention of these lavish resort trips and in one instance denied paying for them, these junkets are well-documented across multiple states and numerous news articles. Strategically, they present a slick way to butter up elected officials on the institutes dime, thereby avoiding embarrassing public disclosure forms.

The first day is basically free time, according to what Ive been told by legislator attendees, Parnell explainsgolfing, spas, dinner, whatever they want. Day two is when they get down to business with half-day seminars on how this legislation is not only good for ensuring one-person, one-vote, but how its good for getting Republicans elected. Thats the main thrust of their presentation.

To his knowledge, the group has targeted Republican lawmakers, not Democrats, with few exceptions. Nor was it just legislatorsin 2017 Politico reported that the institute flew eleven journalists to Panama for a three-day, all-expenses-paid seminar on election reform, where they were aggressively educated in the pool, at the bar, overlooking the Panama Canal.

Parnell, who learned of the seminars from elected officials whove attended them, stresses that hes found no evidence of illegality or official ethics violations. He also admits that, in many states, no one was visiting legislators offices to explain why they should support the Electoral College, something Save Our States regrets. We couldve done a better job educating folks back then.

In February 2016, Arizona house Republicans introduced national popular vote legislation (HB 2456) matching almost word for word the text of NPVs model bill. It passed 40 to 16, with 20 Republicans and 20 Democrats voting for the bill against 14 Republican and two Democratic nays. The bill only died in the state senate after local conservative groups flooded Republican state senators with messages urging them to oppose the compact.

Many of the lawmakers who voted for it still regret their vote, Parnell says, and blame NPV for bamboozling them. Yeah, I got sucked in, one Republican told him. Another frustrated legislator blamed lobbyists for getting him to vote for this stupid thing. A third blames the vote for him losing reelection in a 2020 primary.

Parnell believes that Anuzis and Querard were again trying to woo Arizona legislators as late as August 2021 with a seminar held in Sedona, but Republican interest has waned. Republican legislators who felt burned by NPVs lobbyists in 2016 are literally warning their new colleagues to avoid the compact, he told me.

* * *

A similar story unfolded in early 2014 in Oklahoma, one of the countrys most conservative states, with large Republican majorities in the state house and senate.

Two former candidates for state house, Darren Gantz and David Tackett, reportedly served as NPVs liaisons with local lawmakers, who were invited on expenses-paid, invitation-only panel educational seminars in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Miami, Las Vegas, and elsewhere.

As in Arizona, none of the expenses were reported on public disclosure forms because they were paid for by FairVote, a Maryland-based leftist group and NPV ally. FairVote is funded by George Soross Open Society Foundations, eBay founder Pierre Omidyars Democracy Fund, and the Tides Foundation.

One official FairVote invitation to the JW Marriott resort in Scottsdale, Arizona, touted the benefits: three nights of guest accommodations and reimbursement for meals, provided attendees commit to reviewing a collection of reading materials that will be provided by email before the meeting so that all participants can [be] ready to share their insights and questions in panel sessions the following day.

In February, two senate Republicans and one Democrat introduced SB 906 to join the NPV compact, and sixteen Republicans joined all of the chambers twelve Democrats to pass the bill against eighteen Republican naysthis despite the fact that the state GOP officially opposed national popular vote legislation.

One local blogger called the vote a betrayal: Im told that Saul Anuzis, a consultant for the NPV movementwas working the corridors for the bill. Anuzis and his colleagues persuaded some of our friends in the Senate that NPV could improve the Republican Partys chances. Never mind that the NPV movement is funded and run by leftists who are hardly likely to back an idea that would help conservatives win the White House.

Again, once grassroots groups caught wind of the bill, it soon died in the state House. Several Republican senators quickly recanted their support for the compact. But that wasnt the end of the story. NPV returned a year later to push the same legislation through the House again, introduced by Republican Rep. Lee Denney. The Okie, Oklahomas self-described top political news blog, reported that NPV lobbyists were at the Capitol every day, pushing the issue, but it never left committee.

* * *

NPVs crusade extended to Georgia in 2016, when five Republicansjoined by then-Rep. Stacey Abramsintroduced a national popular vote bill in the state house. Companion legislation followed in the state senate, also with five Republican sponsors and one Democrat. Neither bill left its respective chamber after conservative groups met with the Republican legislators. Democrats have since introduced three more NPV bills in 2017, 2019, and 2021, but none garnered GOP support.

In 2018, NPV turned its sights on Michigan, which leans Democratic in presidential elections but has a comfortable Republican majority in the state legislature. Republican state senator Dave Hildenbrand introduced an NPV bill in September, which quickly died in committee. That death was in no small part thanks to local investigative reporters who unearthed evidence that the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections paid for 20-plus Republican lawmakers to travel to resorts in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and California (which, again, went unreported in public disclosure forms).

NPV is still trying to win over Michiganders with a ballot initiative started in September 2021, run by Anuzis and Mark Brewer, an election law attorney and former Michigan Democratic Party chair. It remains to be seen whether the initiative will reach enough signatures to make the next ballot.

* * *

Theres one more element to the story the public should know.

According to its latest Form 990 filing, Saul Anuzis is vice president and board member for the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections, earning $104,000 in 2020 for the ten hours per week (thats $200 per hour) he provided undescribed services to the organization, making him by far its highest-paid staffer. By comparison, Larry Lessler, the groups board secretary and a Cupertino-based financial advisor, earned $31,500 last year in CPA fees from the group.

Anuziss salary is important because it represents nearly one-third of the institutes $358,000 budget, and one sixth of its total revenues in 2020. The institutes 2019 Form 990 also suggests that Anuzis collected $100,000 in fees as part of Medaglia, possibly referring to a difficult-to-trace firm in Washington, D.C. (Medaglia & Associates) listed in an older NPV Form 990 filing.

Anuzis political consulting firm, Coast to Coast Strategies, has pulled in at least another $330,000 in consulting fees from the institutes 501(c)(4) sister, National Popular Vote, across three years (2019, 2016, and 2010).

Institute president Ray Haynes, a former Republican California assemblyman and state senator, is another principal at Anuziss Coast to Coast Strategies. Haynes has also received personal payments from both the institute and NPV for consulting services totaling at least $159,000 since 2016.

As consultants, these payments present no problem and are in fact quite common. But as board members, the payments paint a picture of elite operatives enriching themselves off of a left-wing campaign that threatens to undermine the Constitution.

Whats clear is that the campaign to replace the Electoral College has hit the stumbling block of public perception. Conservatives in 2021 now understand what many folks misunderstood a decade ago: Any effort to dismantle, replace, or bypass the Constitution is a threat to the republic Americas founders established. Stripping out the Electoral College isnt fixing the Constitution, but disemboweling it. Dont expect the left to let up as long as activists believe their best chances at seizing power rest in destroying it.

This convoluted history also presents a clear message to conservative elected officials: If you back attempts to gut or ignore the Electoral College, be prepared to reap the whirlwind with your constituents and grassroots groups. After so many embarrassments, it seems Republican politicians have finally gotten the messagefor now.

Hayden Ludwig is senior investigative researcher for the Capital Research Center.

Read more:
The War on the Electoral College - The American Conservative

PHOENIX (AP) Arizonas independent redistricting commission unanimously approved Dec. 22 new boundaries for congressional districts that are likely to shift the states congressional delegation in favor of Republicans.

The new boundaries create four solidly Republican districts, two where Democrats are likely to dominate and three that could be relatively competitive, based on metrics the commission uses to measure competitiveness. Of the potentially competitive districts, one strongly favors Democrats and two lean toward Republicans based on their voting patterns in nine past elections.

Arizonas congressional delegation currently has five Democrats and four Republicans. The likelihood that Democrats will lose ground in Arizona further complicates the partys bleak prospects in next years midterm elections, when control of the U.S. House will be at stake.

This is not the map that I wouldve liked, Democratic Commissioner Shereen Lerner said, saying the two competitive districts couldve been more balanced. But she said the final boundaries had improved from earlier drafts and expressed hope that the picture will improve over the next decade the maps are in effect.

Republican Commissioner Doug York said an earlier draft was better for the GOP, and he credited the commission with approving a map that wasnt favored by either side.

The commission also adopted new boundaries for Arizonas 30 legislative districts in a 3-2 vote after independent Chair Erika Newberg sided with the Republican commissioners. The legislative map includes four competitive districts in the northern and eastern parts of the Phoenix metro area.

Lerner tried in vain to tweak one competitive district in the North Valley to reduce its Republican leaning before the final vote.

On the new congressional map, districts currently represented by Democrats Tom OHalleran and Ann Kirkpatrick the two most competitive in the state under the existing boundaries moved in favor of Republicans. The new boundaries for OHallerans rural district tilt it strongly toward Republicans, casting serious doubt on his prospects for reelection.

Kirkpatrick has already announced plans to retire. The new district boundaries for the region she represents include eastern Tucson, Casa Grande and most of southeastern Arizona.

Much of the area now represented by Republican David Schweikert is likely to become the most competitive district in the state. The new boundaries include Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, parts of North Phoenix, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation.

The regions now represented by Schweikert and Kirkpatrick will be the states two battleground districts. An East Valley District including Tempe, Mesa, Ahwatukee and part of Chandler is considered marginally competitive under the commissions metrics, though voters there have elected Democrats in eight of nine races analyzed by the commission.

The redistricting panel is made up of two Republicans, two Democrats and independent Chair Erika Neuberg, who mainly backed Republican-favored versions of the maps through much of the recent deliberations. Redistricting is required every 10 years under the U.S. Constitution to adjust for population changes around the country.

Eric Holder, the former U.S. attorney general under Democratic President Barack Obama, said Tuesday night that the maps could draw a lawsuit.

The Chair has a duty to ensure a fair process and not side with Republicans or push a partisan agenda, Holder, who is leading Democratic efforts to influence redistricting around the country, wrote on Twitter. Anything less than maps that are fair will be challenged.

Maps drawn by the Arizona redistricting commissions based on the 2000 and 2010 censuses both were challenged in court.

The voter-created redistricting law, which removed the job from the Legislature and was supposed to limit partisanship, says commissioners should draw districts that are compact and contiguous, comply with the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act and respect communities of interest and city, county or geographic lines or features.

The commission adopted draft maps in late October and then held a monthlong series of meetings across the state before starting its final set of meetings last week.

Republicans generally liked the district maps drawn after the 2000 census, and those done following the 2010 census were regarded as more favorable to Democrats, prompting strong criticism from Republicans.

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Redrawing the lines: Final map of congressional districts approved - Grand Canyon News