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The ESPYs are all about celebrating the biggest and boldest names in sports but at Wednesdays award show, it was former first lady Michelle Obama who took home the prize for loudest applauseof the night.

The audience at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles rose to a standing ovation when Obama took the stage to posthumously present Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver with the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage.

Obama gave a heartfelt speech praising Shriverslifelong work on behalf of people with disabilities.

[ESPYs to honor Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver with posthumous courage award]

I am here tonight to honor a remarkable woman, a woman who believed that everyone has something to contribute and everyone deserves the chance to push themselves, to find out what theyre made of, and to compete and win, Obama told the crowd. Through her passionate service, she made the world more welcoming and fair.

Shriver, who died in 2009, was inspired by her sister Rosemary, who was born with intellectual disabilities but loved to play sports with her athletic siblings. In 1962, Shriver created Camp Shriver, a day camp for children with intellectual disabilities hosted in her familys back yard. Six years later, her effort evolved into the first International Special Olympics Games in Chicago.

The former first lady, clad in a striking black dress, was joined onstage by eight Special Olympics athletes as well as Shrivers son Tim Shriver, who accepted the award on his mothers behalf.

[Michelle Obama continues her speaking tour with appearance at womens conference]

Once a great first lady, still a great first lady, he said of Obama, and the crowd cheered its approval. He added that his mother would have been touched by Obamas presence at the ceremony: She would have been so honored that you are here for her tonight, as we all are.

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Michelle Obama wins the night at the ESPYs - Washington Post

When a partisan member of the bureaucratic swamp resigns, thats something to cheer about. And huzzahs were certainly in order last week when the nations top ethics officer, Walter Shaub, announced that he is resigning, effective July 19.

Barack Obama appointed Shaub to head the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) back in 2013. Its a five-year appointment, so Shaubs resignation merely ends his reign six months early.

Shaub has already lined up a new gig. He is headed to the Campaign Legal Center, a partisan, Soros-funded advocacy group that has been working for years to restrict your First Amendment right to speak and engage in political activity. That tells you a lot about Shaubs politics and why his resignation is cause for celebration.

His old sinecure, the Office of Government Ethics, was established by the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. Its function is to oversee the ethics rules governing federal employees, including the public disclosure process that requires high-level civil servants to disclose their financial holdings. Given the enormous effect that charges of unethical conduct can have, it is critical that this agency have a head who is ethical, highly professional, and unwilling to use his power in a partisan manner.

Shaub fell far short of that mark. After Donald Trump became president, he directed his staff to use the official OGE twitter account to send out a series of mocking tweets about the president. The tweets were designed to pressure Mr. Trump into jettisoning all of his business interestsdespite the fact that no federal law or ethics rule requires divestment.

Unsurprisingly, the OGE under Shaub has treated many of President Trumps nominees and potential nominees shabbily, too. Clearly, the agency is doing everything it can to slow down the clearance process.

One tweet promised that OGE would sing your praises if you divested. It is not OGEs job to praise or criticize anyone. Its sole job is to determine what ethics rules apply to government employees and to advise them accordingly. As its website says, its mission is prevention; it does not adjudicate complaints or prosecute ethics violations.

The head of OGE is not a superhero. He doesnt have the power to impose drastic requirements, such as complete divestiture, that have never been authorized by Congress.

It was unethical of Shaub to publicly air his erroneous opinion that the president and his transition team needed to jettison their business holdings. No ethics agency can operate if those it is meant to advise have no assurance that their requests for guidance will be kept confidential.

Not only was Shaub unapologetic about abusing his authority in an attempt to publicly embarrass the president into complying with a nonexistent ethics requirement, he went so far as to criticize the president for declining to release his tax returns. Again, there is no federal law requiring such disclosure. As the head of an agency charged with implementing existing ethics law, Shaub had no business publicly commenting on the presidents decision.

Unsurprisingly, the OGE under Shaub has treated many of President Trumps nominees and potential nominees shabbily, too.

Several individuals going through the approval process with OGE have told me that the agency has been raising bogus ethics and conflict of interest claims when no conflict exists and no federal ethics law or regulation supports the claims and demands being made by OGE. Clearly, the agency is doing everything it can to slow down the clearance process.

Fittingly, Shaub may have committed an actual ethics violation in terminating his employment: 5 CFR 2635.702(c) specifically prohibits government officials from endorsing any product, service or enterpriseincluding nonprofit organizationsand persons with whom the employee has or seeks employment. Shaub submitted his resignation letter on July 6 with an effective date of July 19. Yet on July 6, his future employer published a press release prominently mentioning Shaubs current and future titles and quoting him as looking forward to improving the OGEs program through his work at the Campaign Legal Center.

Shaubs post-election actions at OGE abused his authority and contributed to the noxious political environment that infests the nations capital. He severely damaged the reputation of the Office of Government Ethics as an unbiased, objective agency that helps government employees comply with federal ethics rules no matter what political party they support.

Now he is shipping off to an advocacy organization that wants to curtail the First Amendment rights of candidates and the general public to speak and work in the political arena. Good riddance.

Hans A. von Spakovsky is a Senior Legal Fellow at The Heritage Foundation and former Justice Department official. He is coauthor of Whos Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk.

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Obama-appointed 'ethics' officer resigns - good riddance - Fox News

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said Thursday that too many students have been treated unfairly as colleges have sought to comply with Obama-era policy on handling sexual assault, but she declined to offer any specifics about how she intends to move forward on one of the more controversial and closely watched issues handled by her agency.

No student should feel like there isnt a way to seek justice, and no student should feel that the scales are tipped against him or her, she told reporters Thursday afternoon, following what she called an emotionally draining series of meetings with college administrators, survivors of assault and students who said they were falsely accused and wrongly disciplined.

The day after her civil rights chief suggested that 90 percent of assault allegations are the result of drunken and regretted sex rather than rape, DeVos sought to show sensitivity to victims, saying that assault allegations should not be swept under the rug and women should not be dismissed.

But she also said she was deeply concerned about addressing the concerns of the accused. Their stories are not often shared, she said.

Advocates for accused students have been pleased to have the ear of the Trump administration, seeing an opening to roll back Obama-era policies that they argue have results in biased campus sexual assault investigations. During the Thursday session devoted to wrongful accusations, about a half-dozen students (including one woman) told their stories, often tearfully, according to Cynthia Garrett, co-president of Families Advocating for Campus Equality, who was in the meeting.

The secretary was extremely attentive to these students, Garrett said. We had young men breaking down telling their stories.

But advocates for survivors of sexual assault have been alarmed by what they view as DeVoss outsized interest in hearing from wrongfully accused students, given that only a small fraction of rape reports are found to be false.

Dozens of survivors and their allies gathered outside the Education Department Thursday to urge DeVos not to roll back federal protections for victims of sexual violence, and to decry what they view as the Trump administrations lack of commitment to enforcing federal civil rights law.

On the concrete plaza outside the agencys D.C. headquarters, activists read the stories of survivors from across the country while DeVos held her meetings inside.

Survivors want to make it very clear that we deserve to be listened to, said Mahroh Jahangiri of the advocacy group Know Your IX, one of the events organizers.

Education Department officials are weighing whether to keep or reject Obama-era guidance that outlined how schools must meet their obligations under Title IX, a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination at federally funded institutions. Critics of that guidance, issued in 2011, said it was an executive overreach that set too low a bar for campus administrators to find a student guilty of sexual assault.

[DeVos considers whether to roll back Obama-era approach to campus sexual assault]

It incentivized these campus panels to err on the side of punishing potentially innocent students, said Christopher Perry of Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE), who met with DeVos Thursday.

Some accused students hope the Trump administration will take a different tack. Joseph Roberts said he was cautiously optimistic that federal officials will care about his story: Roberts said he was falsely accused of sexual harassment and suspended three weeks before he was due to graduate from Savannah State University, an experience that left him hopeless and suicidal. The guidance, he said, definitely needs to be reexamined.

Victims advocates and some lawyers believe that the problem is not with the guidance, but with the way some colleges have interpreted it.

They went overboard in terms of changing their policies, said Naomi Shatz, a Boston lawyer who represents accused students. Shatz said too many schools dont hold hearings and dont give accused students a chance to see the evidence against them approaches that are unfair and not dictated by the guidance.

Several college officials who participated in the meeting said they were grateful to be asked about this issue, as they had not been during the Obama administration.

In 2012 the American Council on Education sent a letter to the departments Office for Civil Rights (OCR) with a number of questions, asking for clarification of the 2011 directive, said Terry Hartle of ACE. The letter has never been answered, he said.

The Obama administration took such an enforcement-centered approach that institutions were reluctant to ask questions of OCR for fear of being flagged for an audit, he said.

Victims rights activists argue that the guidance is firmly rooted in existing law and fear that DeVos intends to jettison the guidance. They said remarks this week by Candice Jackson, the acting head of OCR, seemed to confirm that fear.

Speaking to the New York Times, Jackson argued that college investigations have often been unfair to accused students, in part because of undue pressure from the federal government. She claimed that 90 percent of accusations fall into the category of we were both drunk, we broke up, and six months later I found myself under a Title IX investigation because she just decided that our last sleeping together was not quite right.

Jackson has since apologized for the statement, saying her words poorly characterized the conversations Ive had with advocates. As a survivor of rape myself, I would never seek to diminish anyones experience, she said. All sexual harassment and sexual assault must be taken seriously which has always been my position and will always be the position of this Department.

[Lawyer who highlighted Hillary Clintons role in defending rape suspect tapped for civil rights post]

Jackson apologized again to survivors in the meeting Thursday, according to attendees. Its impossible to take something like that back, said Fatima Goss Graves of the National Womens Law Center, who was in the meeting. But she said the department can show its commitment to protecting students by helping colleges understand how to fairly adjudicate sexual assault allegations, and by conducting a listening tour to hear from survivors around the country.

We cant expect them to go to Washington, D.C., Goss Graves said. The department has to go to them and listen deeply.

DeVos said that while she intends to continue seeking input, she wants to move quickly to make changes.

Thursdays event was one part of a broader effort to mobilize support for maintaining the 2011 Title IX guidance, which victims rights advocates greeted as a step toward ensuring disciplinary consequences for students found to have committed assault. In an op-ed published in Teen Vogue this week, 114 sexual assault survivors called on DeVos to keep the guidance in place.

We cannot imagine a more cruel or misguided policy agenda than one that withdraws protections from vulnerable students especially coming from the administration of a man who has been repeatedly accused of committing sexual violence himself, they wrote.

In a letter to DeVos on Wednesday, Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) urged her to keep the 2011 guidance in place and decried her decision to meet with advocates for the accused, including the National Coalition for Men and Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE), which the Southern Poverty Law Center has called misogynistic. Instead of catering to organizations that want to sweep sexual assaults on college campuses under the rug, the Department of Education should confront this challenge directly by coming to uphold the protections currently in place, Casey wrote.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who spoke at Thursdays event outside the agency headquarters, said she doesnt want to see an innocent person punished any more than I want to see a guilty person let off the hook. But she said there are still too many victims who are met with blame and retaliation rather than support and protection.

There continues to be heinous injustice across this country, she said.

Susan Svrluga contributed to this report.

Read more:
DeVos: Too many college students have been treated unfairly under Obama-era sexual assault policy - Washington Post

Trumps delays are lasting longer and reaching further -- with targets including protections for student borrowers, standards for e-cigarettes, and an expansion of requirements that airlines report lost luggage.

It typically takes years for presidents to kill federal regulations they dislike, but Donald Trump has found a shortcut: Hes just putting them on long-term hold.

The Trump administration has stalled more than two dozen Obama-era rules, a legally questionable tactic that sidesteps the cumbersome rulemaking process.

Presidents from both parties routinely pause their predecessors rules, but Trumps delays are lasting longer and reaching further -- with targets including protections for student borrowers,standards for e-cigarettes, and expanded requirements that airlines report lost luggage. In one instance, a federal court found the approach illegal, providing fodder for future challenges.

"Obama did it to Bush. Bush did it to Clinton," said Stuart Shapiro, a Rutgers University professor who served as a White House regulatory analyst under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. "But the extent of the regulations that were talking about -- and the political importance and the impact -- is greater in the Trump administration."

Federal agencieshave wide latitude to rewrite and rescind rules,but they must follow the Administrative Procedure Act, a 71-year-old law that aims to prevent regulatory whiplash. Under that law, agencies must first formally propose revisions, justify them and give the public a chance to weigh in. Relatively small tweaks, such as a delay, can advance more quickly but generally still require a formal notice and comment period.

Read More: In Assault on Regulation, Trump Follows Path of Mixed Results

Trump has moved aggressively to fulfill his promise to repeal job-killing rules. He issued an order requiring two rules be spiked for each one created and capped the cost of new regulations.

There will be a "truly historic shift" in the regulatory approach under Trump, said Neomi Rao, the newly confirmed head of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

The president has indicated a really fundamental shift in the way that were going to think about regulations," Rao told reporters Thursday. Rao said she would ensure "that deregulatory effort is effective, responsible and consistent with the law."

Supporters of Trumps approach say the president is just doing what he promised by taking on overzealous regulations. The goal of trying to align government with a presidents own philosophy "is hardly uncommon," said Dan Goldbeck, a research analyst specializing in regulations at the conservative-leaning American Action Forum.

The effort isnt an attempted wholesale undoing of Obama-era rules, Goldbeck said. "I think the intention is to dive back into them and see if they can tweak them -- and not necessarily chop them entirely," he said.

Trumps Environmental Protection Agency is following the law in ensuring its "actions are consistent with our core mission and statutory authority granted by Congress," spokeswoman Amy Graham said. "Where regulations may be unjustified or overly burdensome, we will consider all legally available means to provide regulatory certainty," she said.

In some cases, the administration is buying time for possible rule rewrites, as with an Agriculture Department regulation governing the treatment of organically raised livestock. The department delayed the measures effective date by eight months and announced it was launching a formal effort to rewrite the regulation.

The administration has gone further in some cases, indefinitely delaying all or parts of rules while contemplating revamping them. They include a Federal Highway Administration mandate that local governments monitor greenhouse gas emissions and a congressionally ordered update of penalties for automakers that fail to meet fuel economy standards.

"These agencies are saying theyre not going to do the job theyve previously said needs to be done, and theyre hoping to get away with that by promising some future replacement regulation," said William Buzbee, a regulatory law professor at Georgetown University. "This being overtly declared on so many fronts is really quite unusual."

Earlier this month, a U.S. federal Court of Appeals panel rebuked the EPA for suspending a regulation requiring oil and gas companies to pare emissions of methane.A two-justice majority said the EPA wrongly claimed discretion to halt the already finalized rule, and if the agency wanted to rescind the measure, it must cite specific statutory authority to do so or go through a formal rulemaking process.

Read More: Court Rebukes EPA for Shelving Obama-Era Methane Regulation

Emily Hammond, a law professor at George Washington University, said the judges were putting agencies on notice that the court would carefully scrutinize their justifications for delaying rules. The message: "You must meet statutory criteria, and if you dont, well hold what you did unlawful," she said.

The ruling is especially notable because that Washington-based appeals court hears the bulk of regulatory cases, and is poised to be the arbiter in other delay-related challenges to come. State attorneys general, environmentalists and good government activists have filed lawsuits challenging at least five other regulatory delays.

Attorneys general in 18 states and the District of Columbia last week filed a lawsuit challenging a decision by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to put on hold portions of a regulation designed to protect student borrowers who attended for-profit colleges.Just Wednesday, environmental groups filed a challenge to the EPAs one-year delay of ozone pollution requirements. And farm workers are fighting an EPA delay of requirements that people applying certain high-risk pesticides receive training and be certified.

Some factors discourage legal action: Lawsuits move slowly and, in some cases, it may take so long to litigate over a delay that the argument becomes moot. Some delays were set for 60 or 90 days, others are for a year or are indefinite. The number of delays also forces would-be challengers with limited resources to pick their battles.

To be sure, Trumps predecessor, Barack Obama, was an active rulemaker. He finalized 90 major, economically significant regulations in his final year -- some rushed through in the weeks before Trump was inaugurated.

The Trump administration has cited an array of legal authorities and rationales to support delays.

When the Department of Transportation postponed a rule requiring more airlines report lost or damaged baggage and wheelchairs, regulators made no secret of their goal to protect airlines: "Industry is facing challenges with parts of this regulation and needs more time to implement it," the department said.

And when the EPA said it was giving farmers at least a year more to comply with the pesticide application rule, the agency blamed a staffing shortage: "EPA still has only one Senate-confirmed official," it said in June.

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The Trump administration cited a provision of the Administrative Procedure Act that gives agencies limited authority to forgo notice and comment periods if there is "good cause" to find that compliance would be impractical or contrary to the public interest. And the agencies turned to a section authorizing postponements if "justice so requires" because pending litigation against the regulation is likely to succeed.

The variance suggests agencies may be trying different approaches to see what sticks,said Georgetown Law professor Lisa Heinzerling, an EPA official in the Obama administration.

"Their legal reasoning in some of these cases is so bare bones that it just seems experimental," she said.

The administration may be trying to prevent companies from spending money to comply with requirements that are destined for the trash bin.After all, power plant owners howled when they were forced to buy equipment limiting mercury pollution under a 2012 mandate only to later see the Supreme Court order the rule be reassessed.

But the rapid regulatory pivots can carry costs, too. In February, Trumps Interior Department told companies they need not follow an Obama rule that changed how they report the value of oil and gas unearthed from public land -- after it had gone into effect.Companies that had already changed their accounting systems to comply were given until August to revert back.

The U.S. regulatory framework is designed to protect against just those kinds of shifts, said James Goodwin, a senior policy analyst with the liberal Center for Progressive Reform.

"So much of the broader fabric of administrative law is pointed toward finality," Goodwin said. "And once the rulemaking process has been finalized, the way you promote regulatory certainty is the process ends, and thats when enforcement and compliance begins."

Here is the original post:
Trump Tests Legal Limits by Delaying Dozens of Obama's Rules - Bloomberg

On another dreary, drizzly morning in Washington, weeks after the election, a fog stubbornly refuses to lift, perhaps knowing it is the perfect metaphor. If you were filming the sad morning-after-a-breakup scene in a Hollywood movie, the only missing element would be the wistful Sia or Aimee Mann soundtrack. I want to meet those doing the everyday work of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

It turns out that the Democratic Governors Association, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are all largely headquartered in a Band-Aid-colored building on I Street with angular rows of windows that resemble a partly folded map or an accordion. All of which seems apt, of course, for a party that has been played like one and which badly needs to stop the bleeding and find direction.

I expect the gloom, or at least some dazed disbelief, to permeate the offices, but the mood inside the Democrats strategy sanctum feels business-as-usual. Theres no crying at the Keurig, no red wine bottles piled high in the recycling, no wingtip-sized holes in the wall from an election-night tantrum. I find this oddly disappointing. The legislative chambers these organizations are tasked to flip remained torture chambers in 2016. The party invested millions down-ballot in 2016, and focused on key redistricting states like Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and Wisconsin. They hoped that high Democratic turnout in a presidential year would color more states blue and propel them toward the 2018 midterms and the crucial 2020 elections. Their confidence proved misplaced.

Nancy Pelosi vowed that Democrats would win the 30 seats necessary to take back the House. They won 6. The DLCC excited by an aggressive 150 down-ballot endorsements by President Obama predicted theyd flip as many as 13 chambers their way. They did capture 3, aided by large Latino turnout: Nevadas House and senate and New Mexicos House. But that merely offset the loss of the Kentucky House and the senate in Iowa and Minnesota. Republicans even created a startling senate deadlock in azure-blue Connecticut (a Democratic lieutenant governor will break the tie). Democrats also tried to swipe a page from the REDMAP playbook and spent intensely on 32 state legislative seats in key redistricting states, again with the goal of steady gains building toward 2020. BLUEMAP did not go well, either: Democrats lost all the targeted races in Ohio and Wisconsin, spun just one seat their way in Michigan, and took two of four in both Pennsylvania and Florida. North Carolina proved more welcoming; Democrats won three of four targeted races but gained little headway. The GOP supermajorities remained intact.

This creates a daunting landscape, especially in the swing states where Democrats must make gains if they want even a seat at the table after the 2020 census. In Ohio, the GOP edge is 6633 in the House and 249 in the senate. Michigan is nearly as steep: 6347 for Republicans in the House and 2711 in the senate. Republicans widened their largest advantage in sixty years in Wisconsins lower chamber to 6435 and boast 20 of 33 senate seats. Floridas majorities look just as difficult to topple a stout 7941 in the House and 2515 in the senate. (Republicans ran unopposed for 16 of the 21 senate seats needed for a majority.) The flipping-chambers approach has also gotten more expensive: REDMAP helped the GOP retake Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin for $1 million. Now a single state House district in Minnesota can cost that much to flip. Thats not a Moneyball bargain any longer.

Enter a new team of Democratic strategists: DGA executive director Elisabeth Pearson, House Majority PAC president Ali Lapp and DLCC executive director Jessica Post. They are the leaders of the NDRC, and weve gathered to discuss what went wrong in 2016, what lessons were learned, and what the party might try next. The architecture of the Democrats plan looks a lot like REDMAP: the NDRC will serve as an umbrella organization to coordinate political and legal efforts by the DGA, DLCC, DCCC and others and, as importantly, convince fundraisers and Democrats nationwide that the partys top priority has to be fixing unbalanced state maps that render even a national Democratic majority a permanent electoral minority.

Democrats have been at a disadvantage in terms of our base and our core donors understanding the impact of state races, said Pearson. If you live in California or New York, where a lot of big donors are, why is it important that theres a Democratic governor in Ohio? We cant look at it the way Republicans looked at it in 2010. Its a mistake to be always fighting the last war.

Post admitted that fighting the last war is the reason why Democrats got caught flatfooted in 2010. She became executive director in January 2016, after watching previous DLCC teams botch the communication and organizing sides. You cant paper over a hot mess with independent spending, she said, and I immediately fall for her candor. We were prepared for the fights of the past. We had lawyers and data and they had late money. We could have done a better job of communicating to stakeholders what 2010 meant. When youre in a legislative world, you assume everyone knows. This is the line! This is Obamas legacy!

Post emphasized the gains in Nevada and New Mexico, a dozen seats won in Kansas, and the huge opportunities created after the 2016 losses and the grass-roots energy that followed as positives from a tough year. Her field operation knocked on 13 million doors. She says they will continue to develop the infrastructure necessary to win. We have a lot of learning to do, she admits. She thought there was a path to flip Michigans House: We did gain one seat there. In Minnesota, we thought there was a path.

In other states, Democrats lack financial parity, which we were not at in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, which is an expensive place to play. They have to be staffed earlier. They need to build digital media support. It didnt help, she adds, that its complicated to get solid polling data out of legislative districts in the last days of an election. If we can provide more money to fund the infrastructure from the beginning, to find great candidates, make sure theyre doing their fundraising, their door-knocking thats when we catch up, she says. Were just not there.

Post is enthusiastic and has organized effectively at the grass roots. But its hard not to be troubled about the Democrats preparation when she says, candidly, that the party might not know what it is doing. Were competing in an electoral environment that we dont always understand. Certainly here in D.C., we didnt understand the trends that were going on in states like Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa. Still, shes optimistic. The Democratic base is furious right now, and theyre looking for outlets. Theyre looking for ways to help. Theyre looking for ways to bring the fight into their state capitals.

One wonders, however, if the party understands how to harness that energy. Pearson also insists that the most recent battle didnt go that poorly, on the governors front. She points to the McCrory knockout in North Carolina, as well as reelected Democratic incumbents in West Virginia and Montana, two states that went for Trump by upwards of 20 points. We protected all our incumbents, she says, omitting that with a record low of Democratic governors, thats an easier task than it used to be. We learned a lot of good lessons about how we continue to be successful. We view this as a four-year cycle. That was year two. Were on our way to year three: Virginia and New Jersey. Then 36 governors races in 2018, including 27 that are Republican. Theres just a huge amount of opportunity. 2018 alone could completely reshape the state political system. The governors map is incredibly encouraging.

Actually, the 2018 governors map might be the only electoral front worth prioritizing, after the partys failure to make any legislative gains in states crucial to redistricting after 2020. Theres not a single chamber in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania or Florida that the Democrats have a realistic chance of retaking in the next two cycles. Those legislatures are responsible for congressional lines that send 55 Republicans and 28 Democrats to Washington. Democrats have no honest chance of taking back the House when blue and purple states are rigged to elect twice as many Republicans as Democrats. (Add Virginia and North Carolina to that group, and you suddenly have 72 Republicans and 35 Democrats representing blue or purple states and the districts that have swung blue in these key states this decade have been when courts found the districts unconstitutional and mandated new maps.)

There is another solution. Governors in those five states have veto power over the maps and all five of those states will elect governors in 2018. In Michigan and Ohio, two-term incumbent Republicans will be term-limited out of office. While new progressive groups like Swing Left imagine riding anti-Trump energy to a blue House in 2018, thats not the most likely path. If Democrats want a seat at the table, this is the most realistic road and must be the highest priority. (Democrats are already struggling on this front: the Republican Governors Association which outraised the DGA by $20 million in 2016 also managed to haul in more money than its Democratic counterpart in the final weeks of 2016: $5.1 million to $2.1 million, according to the Center for Public Integrity. That means Republicans turned Trumps victory into more than twice as much money as Democrats were able to collect from supposedly motivated and fired-up Democrats.)

Yes, they are, agrees Pearson, when I suggest those five races could be the difference between better maps in 2020 and a permanent Democratic minority that extends for another decade. Those are states we can win in. Theyre not red states. These are purple states and open seats, and after eight years of Republican governors, we have a great shot at winning. We have to raise a lot of money and lay the right groundwork. But were feeling incredibly optimistic about this coming cycle. Our plan is to make sure that in every state we have a cycle-by-cycle goal, and that were looking at every single path to a seat at the table or a way to fairer maps.

Lapp, meanwhile, insists that the Democrats 2016 plans were actually on track until FBI director James Comey released his October 28 letter to Congress announcing that the bureau would investigate additional emails relevant to questions over Clintons private server.

The voters that moved at the end all went to Trump, she says. Its very challenging when, two weeks out, you think a district will vote for Hillary Clinton by 18 points, and it turns out she wins it by 3. Any effort to tie congressman so-and-so to Trump is not going to be effective when youre only winning the district by three points. Moving forward, however, we did win in some places where Trump did well and I think that we have some good targets heading into 2018. But the bottom line, she admits, is that in many states north of Pennsylvania that lean Democratic statewide, the disparity in the congressional delegation remains wide and that really is because of the gerrymandering. Thats why its such a priority for us to get better maps next time.

The mix of optimism and confusion surprises me. So I pose to Lapp and Pearson a question thats on the mind of many people: Do Democrats fight tough enough? Do you realize the strategies youre up against, and are you meeting them with the same intensity and resolve? They insist the answer is yes. On the governors side, were there, Pearson says. This is a no-holds-barred fight for the next two years. We had a call with governors the day after the election; Ive never heard any group as fired up and totally motivated. They understand theyre the backstop, and what needs to be done in 2018. Were going to battle and were going to win.

Admittedly, thats a pretty strong halftime speech. Lapp, however, has not been watching Rocky or Hoosiers lately. I think the country just decided that Donald Trump would be its next president, she says. Obviously, we hoped to win more seats, right? We didnt win enough seats in districts where Trump lost. There are specific reasons for that as you go through each district. Sure, I wouldve loved to have done better, but Im happy that we were able to pick up seats at all in an environment that turned out to be extremely challenging for Democrats.

Post offers more enthusiasm, albeit measured: We had some wins. We know what we have to do. Its just a matter of putting our building blocks in place, she says. Democrats do great as underdogs. Were tough. Right? I cant tell if she wants me to answer.

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Can Obama un-rig the GOP's gerrymandered map? Here are the wins the Dems need first - Salon