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WASHINGTON Minutes after a group of congressional Democrats unveiled a bill recently to add seats to the Supreme Court, the Iowa Republican Party slammed Representative Cindy Axne, a Democrat and potential Senate candidate, over the issue.

Will Axne Pack the Court? was the headline on a statement the party rushed out, saying the move to expand the court puts our democracy at risk.

The attack vividly illustrated the emerging Republican strategy for an intensive drive to try to take back the House and the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections. Republicans are mostly steering clear of Democrats economic initiatives that have proved popular, such as an infrastructure package and a stimulus law that coupled pandemic relief with major expansions of safety-net programs, and are focusing instead on polarizing issues that stoke conservative outrage.

In doing so, they are seizing on measures like the court-expansion bill and calls to defund the police which many Democrats oppose as well as efforts to provide legal status to undocumented immigrants and grant statehood to the District of Columbia to caricature the party as extreme and out of touch with mainstream America.

Republicans are also hammering at issues of race and sexual orientation, seeking to use Democrats push to confront systemic racism and safeguard transgender rights as attack lines.

The approach comes as President Biden and Democrats, eager to capitalize on their unified control of Congress and the White House, have become increasingly bold about speaking about such issues and promoting a wide array of party priorities that languished during years of Republican rule. It has given Republicans ample fodder for attacks that have proved potent in the past.

They are putting the ball on the tee, handing me the club and putting the wind at my back, said Jeff Kaufmann, the chairman of the Iowa Republican Party.

Democrats argue that Republicans are focusing on side issues and twisting their positions because the G.O.P. has nothing else to campaign on, as Democrats line up accomplishments to show to voters, including the pandemic aid bill that passed without a single Republican vote.

That was very popular, and I can understand why Republicans dont want to talk about it, said Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, the new chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. But were going to keep reminding folks who was there when they needed them.

The contrast is likely to define the 2022 races. Democrats will sell the ambitious agenda they are pursuing with Mr. Biden, take credit for what they hope will continue to be a surging economy and portray Republicans as an increasingly extreme party pushing Donald J. Trumps lies about a stolen election. Republicans, who have embraced the false claims of election fraud and plan to use them to energize their conservative base, will complain of radical Democratic overreach and try to amplify culture-war issues they think will propel more voters into their partys arms.

A release from the National Republican Senatorial Committee highlighted what it called the three pillars of the Democratic agenda: The Green New Deal, court packing and defund the police, even though the first two are far from the front-burner issues for Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders and the third is a nonstarter with the bulk of the partys rank and file.

Last week Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, sought to thrust a new issue into the mix, leading Republicans in protest of a proposed Biden administration rule promoting education programs that address systemic racism and the nations legacy of slavery. He has taken particular aim at the 1619 Project, a journalism initiative by The New York Times that identifies the year when slaves were first brought to America as a key moment in history.

There are a lot of exotic notions about what are the most important points in American history, Mr. McConnell said on Monday during an appearance in Louisville. I simply disagree with the notion that The New York Times laid out there that year 1619 was one of those years.

Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the chairman of the Republicans Senate campaign arm, has been explicit about his strategy.

Now what I talk about every day is do we want open borders? No. Do we want to shut down our schools? No. Do we want men playing in womens sports? No, Mr. Scott said during a recent radio interview with the conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt.

Do we want to shut down the Keystone pipeline? No. Do we want voter ID? Yes, he continued. And the Democrats are on the opposite side of all those issues, and Im going to make sure every American knows about it.

Democrats who have fallen victim to the Republican cultural assault concede that it can take a toll and that their party needs to be ready.

It was all these different attacks that were spread all over mainstream media, Spanish-language media, Facebook, WhatsApp, said Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former Democratic House member from South Florida who was defeated last year after Republicans portrayed her as a socialist who was anti-police. A lot of it was misinformation, false attacks.

She said Democrats must begin taking steps now to combat Republican misdirection, warning that their legislative victories might not be enough to appeal to voters.

We can have a great policy record, she said, but we need to be present in our communities right now, reaching out to all of our constituencies to tell them we are working for them, that their health and their jobs are our priorities.

On the Supreme Court issue, progressive groups began pushing the idea of an expansion after Mr. Trump was able to appoint three justices, including one to a vacancy that Republicans blocked Barack Obama from filling in the last year of his presidency and another who was fast-tracked right before last years election.

Hoping to neutralize the issue, some Senate Democrats who will be on the ballot next year have made it clear that they would oppose expanding the court, and the bill seems to be going nowhere at the moment. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would not bring any court bill to the floor until at least after a commission named by Mr. Biden to study the matter issued its report, which is due in six months. The president has been cool to the expansion idea as well.

The office of Ms. Axne, the only Democrat in Congress from Iowa, did not respond to requests for reaction to the Republican attacks on her over the court plan. In an interview with MSNBC, Ms. Axne said that she, like Ms. Pelosi, would await the findings of the commission.

But Republicans are not waiting to try to score political points. They say more moderate Republican voters and independents who broke with the party during the Trump years have been alienated by the call to enlarge the court and other initiatives being pushed by progressives.

One key for Republicans next year will be winning back suburban voters while running campaigns that also energize the significant segment of their supporters who are fiercely loyal to Mr. Trump and want the party to represent his values. That may be a difficult balance to achieve, as evidenced this week when Republican leaders moved to strip Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming of the partys No. 3 leadership post for calling out the former presidents false election claims.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said it would matter less what Republicans said about Democrats than what his party was able to accomplish.

The one thing that will win people over, no matter what they do, is whether we can deliver, he said. They are doing what appeals to their base, but the voters in the middle, including a good chunk of Republican voters, actually care about getting things done.

Mr. Peters said Democrats would be better positioned to rebut attacks such as those that falsely portray them as pressing to defund the police after voters had experienced two years of the party holding power.

President Biden and the caucus have been very clear that we are not about defunding the police, we are about making sure police have the resources they need to do their jobs, he said. Ultimately, it is about how it is impacting peoples lives.

Mr. Kaufmann, the Republican leader in Iowa, begged to differ. He said he believed the hot-button issues Republicans were homing in on would drive voters more than the nuance of tax policy and who gets credit for the vaccine. He is eager to get started.

Some of this stuff is really controversial, he said. These are all very bold and clearly delineated issues. I can use this to expand the base and get crossover voters.

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Republicans Attack Democrats as Liberal Extremists to Regain Power - The New York Times

WASHINGTON The disappointing jobs report released Friday by the Labor Department is posing the greatest test yet of President Bidens strategy to revive the economy, with business groups and Republicans warning that the presidents policies are causing a labor shortage and that his broader agenda risks stoking runaway inflation.

But the Biden administration showed no signs on Friday of changing course, with the president defending the more generous jobless benefits included in the $1.9 trillion bill he signed into law in March and saying the $4 trillion in spending he proposed for infrastructure, child care, education and other measures would help create more and better-paying jobs after the pandemic.

Speaking at the White House, Mr. Biden urged perspective on the report, which showed only 266,000 new jobs added in April. He said it would take time for his aid bill to fully reinvigorate the economy and hailed the more than 1.5 million jobs added since he took office. And he rejected what he called loose talk that Americans just dont want to work.

The data shows that more workers are looking for jobs, he said, and many cant find them.

Republicans cast the report as a sign of failure for Mr. Bidens policies, even though job creation has accelerated since Mr. Biden replaced President Donald J. Trump in the White House. They called on his administration to end the $300 weekly unemployment supplement, while several Republican governors including those in Arkansas, Montana and South Carolina moved to end the benefit for unemployed people in their states, citing worker shortages.

This is a stunning economic setback, and unequivocal proof that President Biden is sabotaging our jobs recovery with promises of higher taxes and regulation on local businesses that discourage hiring and drive jobs overseas, Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, said in a news release. The White House is also in denial that many businesses both small and large cant find the workers they need.

Business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which have backed pieces of Mr. Bidens broad economic agenda, also suggested the aid was holding back hiring.

The jobs report begins to confirm that this is a barrier not the only barrier, but a barrier to filling open positions in the recovery, said Neil Bradley, the chambers executive vice president and chief policy officer.

We absolutely have to begin to make the preparation to turn the supplement off, he said. The sooner we do that, the sooner its going to become clear how this has been holding us back.

The unemployment supplement has quickly become Republicans preferred weapon in attacking Mr. Bidens economic stewardship, with lawmakers and conservative economists arguing that his heavy spending is having a negative effect on the recovery and will ultimately slow growth. While Democrats command narrow majorities in Congress, Republicans are trying to turn public sentiment against Mr. Bidens approach and to stall plans to spend $4 trillion on policies that would be offset by higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

Republicans backed a $600 weekly supplement in the first stimulus bill approved under Mr. Trump, but they said the need for it no longer existed and that it was providing a disincentive to look for work. Economists who support that view pointed to details of the jobs report including rapid wage gains in the hospitality sector saying that they suggested that employers were rapidly raising pay to encourage new hires to accept jobs.

White House officials disputed that reading. Heather Boushey and Jared Bernstein, members of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, both pointed to a gain of 300,000 jobs in the leisure and hospitality sector and to a falling number of workers who told the department they had left the labor force out of concern over contracting the coronavirus as signs that the unemployment supplement was not deterring workers. Other officials noted that under the rules of unemployment benefits, workers could not turn down suitable job offers and still qualify for assistance.

Asked if he believed the enhanced benefits had any effect on the job gains, Mr. Biden replied, No, nothing measurable.

Administration officials say that any clogs in the labor market are likely to be temporary, and that the recovery will smooth out once more working-age Americans are fully vaccinated, schools and child care centers are fully open and people feel more comfortable going back to work.

This is progress, Ms. Boushey said in an interview. We are adding an average of over 500,000 jobs a month over the past three months, she said.

Thats evidence that our approach is working, that the presidents approach is working, Ms. Boushey said. It also emphasizes the steep climb coming out of this crisis.

Administration officials expressed optimism that the pace of job gains would accelerate in the months ahead. Substantial portions of the relief money that was approved in March have yet to flow into the economy. That includes the $350 billion that was allocated for states and municipalities, which have 1.3 million fewer jobs than their prepandemic peak.

States and cities are awaiting guidance on exactly how the money can be spent and what strings are attached. Republican-led states have filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration over its position that states cannot use relief money to subsidize tax cuts, which could further slow the rollout.

Mr. Biden said at the White House that the administration would begin releasing the first batch of money to state and local governments this month. He said the money would not restore all of the lost jobs in one month, but youre going to start seeing those jobs in state and local workers coming back.

The administration also took steps on Friday to get money out the door more quickly, saying the Treasury Department would release $21.6 billion of rental assistance that was included in the pandemic relief legislation to provide additional support to millions of people who could be facing eviction in the coming months.

Officials said they expected increased vaccination rates to ease some lingering fears about returning to jobs in the pandemic. The number of Americans 18 to 64 who are fully vaccinated grew by 22 million from mid-April, when the survey for the jobs report was conducted, to Friday. That was an acceleration from the previous month. Some White House officials said the administrations push to further increase the ranks of the vaccinated could be the most important policy variable for the economy this summer.

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, speaking at the White House, said that a lack of child care related to irregular school schedules was making it a challenge to get the labor market back to full strength. She also said that health concerns about the pandemic were holding back some workers who might return to the market.

I dont think that the addition to unemployment compensation is really the factor thats making the difference, Ms. Yellen said.

She said that she believed the labor market was healthier than the figures released on Friday suggested, but she allowed that the economic recovery would take time.

Weve had a very unusual hit to our economy, Ms. Yellen said, and the road back is going to be somewhat bumpy.

Ms. Boushey and Mr. Bernstein said that it appeared the economy was working through a variety of rapid changes related to the pandemic, including supply chain disruptions that have hurt automobile manufacturing by reducing the availability of semiconductor chips and businesses beginning to rehire after a year of depressed activity because of the virus.

Its our view that these misalignments and bottlenecks are transitory, Mr. Bernstein said, and theyre what you expect from an economy going from shutdown to reopening.

Other key economic officials treated the report as a sign that the labor recovery ahead is likely to prove wildly unpredictable. Robert S. Kaplan, the president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said in an interview that his economics team had warned him that the April report might show a significant slowdown as shortages of materials including lumber and computer chips and labor bit into employment growth.

He said he was hoping to see those supply bottlenecks cleared up, but he was watching carefully in case they did not resolve quickly.

It shows me that getting the unemployment rate down and moving forward to improved employment to population is going to have fits and starts, Mr. Kaplan said. He noted that sectors that were struggling to acquire materials, like manufacturing, shed jobs, and he said leisure and hospitality companies would have added more positions if not for challenges in finding labor.

Its just one jobs report, cautioned Tom Barkin, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, in Virginia. But he said labor supply issues could be at play: Some people may have retired, others may have health concerns, and unemployment insurance could be encouraging low-paid workers to stay at home or allowing them to come back on their own terms.

I get the feeling that people are being choosy, Mr. Barkin said. The first question I have in my mind is is it temporary or is it more structural?

He said that the supply constraints playing out were likely to fade over time, and that while businesses complain about rising input costs and might have to raise entry-level wages somewhat, he struggled to see that leading to much higher inflation the kind that would worry the Fed.

The Fed is trying to achieve maximum employment and stable inflation around 2 percent on average. It has pledged to keep its cheap-money policies, which make borrowing inexpensive, in place until it sees realized progress toward those goals.

Neel Kashkari, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said the payrolls disappointment vindicated the Feds slow-moving stance.

I feel very good about our policy approach, which is outcome-based, Mr. Kashkari said, speaking on a Bloomberg television interview shortly after the report came out. Lets actually allow the labor market to recover, lets not just forecast that its going to recover.

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Biden and Republicans Spar Over Unemployment as Job Gains Disappoint - The New York Times

DES MOINES, Iowa Conservatives last week gobbled up a false news story claiming President Joe Biden planned to ration red meat. Colorado Rep. Rep. Lauren Boebert suggested Biden stay out of my kitchen. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted out a headline warning Biden was getting Up in your grill.

The news was wrong Biden is planning no such thing but it was hardly the first time the right has recognized the political power of a juicy steak. Republican politicians in recent months have increasingly used food especially beef as a cudgel in a culture war, accusing climate-minded Democrats of trying to change Americans diets and, therefore, their lives.

That is a direct attack on our way of life here in Nebraska, Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican, said recently.

The pitched rhetoric is likely a sign of the future. As more Americans acknowledge the link between food production and climate change, food choices are likely to become increasingly political. Already, in farm states, meat eating has joined abortion, gun control and transgender rights as an issue that quickly sends partisans to their corners.

On the right, they are just going for the easiest applause line, which is accusing the left of declaring war on meat. And its a pretty good applause line, said Mike Murphy, a Republican consultant. Its politically effective, if intellectually dishonest.

Ricketts was among the first to seize on the issue in recent months. In March, the governor whose state generated $12 billion from livestock and meat products last year slammed his Colorado counterpart, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, for suggesting Coloradans lay off the red meat one day as a way of cutting back on greenhouse gas emissions.

Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds followed Ricketts comments quickly, claiming in a campaign fundraising email, Democrats and liberal special interest groups are trying to cancel our meat industry.

In her weekly column a few weeks later, Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa blasted everyone from out-of-touch politicians to Hollywood elites as leading the lefts war on meat.

But the issue blew up last week after a Daily Mail news story debunked within 24 hours suggested the Biden administration could ration how much red meat Americans can consume as part of its goal to slash greenhouse gas pollution.

During the storys short life, conservative figures pilloried Bidens apparent invasion into Americas dining room.

While the story was false, theres little doubt the livestock industry is a contributor to climate change.

A 2019 Environmental Protection Agency report noted agriculture was responsible for 10 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, a quarter of which is emitted by livestock before they are butchered.

There are signs that Americans may be adjusting their diets out of concern for climate change. About a quarter of Americans reported eating less meat than they had a year earlier, according to a 2019 Gallup poll, chiefly for health reasons but also out of environmental concerns. About 30% of Democrats polled said they were eating less meat, compared to 12% of Republicans.

For some, its hard to imagine Americans abandoning beef and easy to see its power as a political symbol, said Chad Hart, an Iowa State University agriculture economist.

Americans dont get overly sentimental about barns crammed with chickens or thousands of hogs, but few images are as quintessentially American as cattle grazing over rolling hills.

When you think about American food, beef is what is in the center of that plate, Hart said. And thats likely to remain a national identity when it comes to what an American food plate looks like.

To be sure, food isnt new to culture war politics.

First lady Michelle Obama was attacked as intrusive by conservatives for championing higher nutritional standards in school lunches.

As a presidential candidate in 2007, Barack Obama was accused of food elitism when he asked a group of Iowa farmers whether they had seen the price of arugula at Whole Foods, an upscale grocery chain that had not yet made it to Iowa. Obama still won the states caucuses.

Even more famously, Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis was pilloried by Republicans as far out of touch with rural America in the midst of the 1980s farm crisis when he suggested Iowa farmers consider diversifying crops by planting Belgian endive.

That prompted Republican vice presidential nominee Dan Quayle to hold up a head of endive, a green used in salads, to show a crowd in Omaha just how the man from Massachusetts thinks he can rebuild the farm economy.

In the past, food was a way of painting Democrats as out of touch with rural America. Today, the message is about climate and the economy.

There is a growing movement to discourage meat-eating and a massive market for meat replacement foods. The Green New Deal, a sweeping environmental outline championed by liberal New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, calls for a sharp reduction in livestock production.

Biden has called the plan an important framework but has not endorsed it.

As these policies remain only plans for now, Republicans complaining about them have offered little substance with their claims of a war on meat.

Still, Republicans have looked for ways to signal which side theyre on. In April, Ernst introduced a bill that would bar federal agencies from setting policies that ban serving meat to employees.

Ricketts declared Meat on the Menu Day in March and came back Wednesday to name all of May Beef Month.

These efforts do little to address the beef industrys substantial problems, including a backlog in slaughterhouses stemming from the pandemic, drought and the high cost of feed.

And a spokesperson for the National Cattlemens Beef Association kept her distance from the food fight.

When emotions and rhetoric run high on either side of the political aisle, NCBA remains focused on achieving lasting results, said spokesperson Sigrid Johannes.

Associated Press writer Grant Schulte contributed to this report from Lincoln, Neb.

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Republicans are pulling out the steaks as they turn culture war into a food fight - pressherald.com

NEW YORK (AP) Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said it pained her to vote against the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.

But in the weeks that followed, the first-term Republican issued a news release celebrating more than $3.7 million from the package that went to community health centers in her district as one of her achievements. She said she prided herself on bringing federal funding to the district and back into the pockets of taxpayers.

Malliotakis is far from alone.

Every Republican in Congress voted against the sweeping pandemic relief bill that President Joe Biden signed into law three months ago. But since the early spring votes, Republicans from New York and Indiana to Texas and Washington state have promoted elements of the legislation they fought to defeat.

The Republicans favorite provisions represent a tiny sliver of the massive law, which sent $1,400 checks to millions of Americans, extended unemployment benefits until September, increased the child tax credit, offered housing assistance for millions of low-income Americans and expanded health care coverage. Republicans tried to negotiate a smaller package, arguing that Bidens plan was too expensive and not focused enough on the nations health and economic crises.

Democrats are promising to make the pandemic relief vote and the Republican resistance to it a central element in their political strategy moving into next years midterm elections as they defend delicate House and Senate majorities. And there are early signs that Republicans may struggle to defend their opposition to the popular legislative package, which was designed to protect the nations fragile economic recovery following the worst public health threat in a century.

GOP lawmakers have been especially bullish about promoting the rescue plans Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which devoted $28.6 billion to the struggling industry. Applications for the program opened this week.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., topped a group of at least eight Republicans who have encouraged constituents to apply in recent days. The others included Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Reps. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.; Greg Pence, R-Ind.; Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash.; Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas; Troy Balderson, R-Ohio; and Anthony Gonzalez, R-Ohio.

The Congresswoman is using her platform to inform her constituents of federal funds and resources available to them, Stefanik spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said. She did not claim to support the bill in the tweet, and her constituents deserve to know about federal programs they can apply for regardless of how she votes.

Wickers office noted that he voted against the full package, but led efforts to ensure the restaurant relief was included.

Sen. Wicker co-authored the amendment that successfully added the Restaurant provision to the reconciliation bill. Why wouldnt he want to encourage participation? Wicker spokesman Phillip Waller said.

The Independent Restaurant Coalition acknowledged the Republicans awkward position, but offered its thanks anyway.

Senator Wicker did not vote for the package (we wish all members did!), but his work on the RESTAURANTS Act from the beginning made the relief fund possible, the industry group tweeted. We are grateful for that work.

And White House spokesman Andrew Bates sarcastically expressed appreciation for the Republicans who have begun to tout elements of Bidens stimulus.

The American people majorities of Democrats, independents, and Republicans have long been firmly unified behind the American Rescue Plan, Bates said. So its heartening to see Republicans in Congress reaching across the aisle to endorse it even retroactively.

The politics of the Republican position are complicated.

The GOP ultimately benefited politically after uniting against the massive economic stimulus package signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2009. Republicans scored massive gains in the House and Senate the following year. While the GOP is optimistic it will retake the House majority in 2022, its far from clear whether the stimulus vote will help it get there.

Polling suggests the Biden stimulus is overwhelmingly popular. Two in 3 voters have consistently supported the $1.9 trillion package in recent polling, while individual elements such as the $1,400 direct payments to individuals are even more popular.

And just three months after the bill was signed into law, the Republican opposition has only begun to be tested.

The Democratic National Committee has already launched digital takeovers of local news websites in Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Hampshire, Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania to thank Democrats and highlight the Republican obstruction. The White Houses political arm has also put up billboards in 20 states calling out Republicans and focused on the Republican opposition in training for Democratic officials.

Between now and next years midterm elections, were going to make sure every voter remembers how Republicans tried to stand in the way of this economic boom and our return to normalcy, said DNC spokesman Ammar Moussa. And you can count on Democrats to call Republicans out for their hypocrisy when they try to tout the same programs they voted against.

Beyond funding for restaurants, Republicans have also touted millions of dollars in health care grants allocated to their districts in the latest stimulus plan.

Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., in late March pointed to millions of dollars in such grants on social media, saying he was proud to see the taxpayer dollars returning to his district. A spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., issued a news release at roughly the same time to promote more than $41 million spread across 12 health care centers in his district.

I am glad that this funding has been secured, he said, neglecting to mention how it was secured.

The four-term Republican congressman defended his decision to highlight the grants this week in a statement.

Despite what anyone claims, all money that is appropriated by Congress is derived from the taxpayer, not President Biden, Mooney said. Taxpayers deserve to know how their money is being spent, especially as it affects their towns and communities.

Malliotakis, who took office in January, promoted more than $3.7 million in health care grants from the Biden stimulus among her achievements in a self-issued First 100 Days Report Card.

These grants were among the 9% of funds dedicated to COVID-19 relief that I was always in support of, Malliotakis said in a statement. Regardless of any particular vote, Im going to help individuals, small businesses and nonprofit organizations get funding they are entitled to.

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Republicans promote pandemic relief they voted against - The Associated Press

After months of denouncing calls for the country to more fully reckon with its discriminatory roots, Texas Republicans are joining national conservatives in a push to restrict how teachers can talk about race and racism.

A bill that supporters say will strip politics from public education, but that critics call a thinly veiled attempt to whitewash American history, has already passed the Senate and could be voted on by the House as early as Friday. Both chambers are controlled by Republicans.

The measure targets critical race theory, an academic movement that has become a buzzword among Republicans who dispute the existence of white privilege and systemic racism. The bill would limit teachers from pushing its core tenets, such as connecting modern-day inequities to historical patterns of discrimination.

Racism is part of our reality, and thats part of our shame, and we shouldnt do anything to cover that up, said Rep. Steve Toth, a Republican from The Woodlands and the bills author in the House. But what we should also not do is blame that on tender, little children that have done nothing wrong.

The backlash stems in part from the 1619 Project by the New York Times that asserted slavery and its remnants were more integral to the countrys founding than is commonly acknowledged. The essay collection, commemorating the arrival of the first enslaved Africans to colonial Virginia, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and has been adapted into childrens literature and lesson plans for educators.

TEXAS TAKE: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

School districts in some states are adapting parts of the project into their curriculum, and the Biden administration announced last month that it wants to prioritize education grants to programs that take into account systemic marginalization, biases, inequities and discriminatory policy and practice in American history.

The Texas legislation, sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Brandon Creighton of Conroe, would bar schools from requiring teachers to talk about current events and prohibit teachers from discussing certain viewpoints, including that some people are inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Stephanie Boyce, who teaches Black history at the University of Houston and is affiliated with the Texas Alliance of Black School Educators, said teachers are already trained to present diverse viewpoints when discussing subjects. She said supporters are simply trying to block students from learning uncomfortable truths about the country or engaging more actively in the political process.

Its not even like theyre trying to make it complicated to see whats happening, Boyce said, adding about the restrictions on civic action: We should be trying to find ways to make these processes more inclusive, to bring students into the process even more.

She called it ironic that you have people like me, an African American woman whose ancestors built this country, and the Capitol, and all the things that we did for free that we should have to come before a body of legislators, the majority of which are white and male, and be told what we can and cannot say about race, sex and power dynamics.

If enacted, the bill would also bar educators from giving students credits for engaging in political activism, which includes lobbying legislators and city council members, attending marches and other forms of civic action.

Teachers should not have to push a particular political agenda, Creighton told colleagues last month, but certainly to promote America and our republic for what it is, which is the greatest country in the history of the world, and certainly the most philanthropic.

Another bill passed by the House on Wednesday would establish a Republican-appointed advisory panel to promote patriotic education and increase awareness of the Texas values that continue to stimulate boundless prosperity across this state.

Angela Valenzuela, an education policy professor at the University of Texas at Austin who testified against efforts in Arizona to ban ethnic studies from their classrooms, said Toth and Creightons proposal potentially violates free speech and other constitutional rights.

This is part of a larger agenda to disenfranchise our communities, because we know that people who are critical and involved, that they vote, she said.

Black, Hispanic and other children of color make up the large majority of students enrolled in Texas schools, according to state education figures.

The idea that there is going to be a law that potentially bars teachers from discussing certain topics, I find, quite frankly, very offensive, said Albert Broussard, a Black history professor at Texas A&M University who himself has been critical of parts of the 1619 Project. It puts students at a tremendous disadvantage, because theyre simply going to fall behind.

Several Texas-based teachers groups and left-leaning advocacy organizations have also come out against the measure, saying it would both hinder classroom discussion and take away student opportunities to participate in the democratic process something valuable not only for young adults, but also for legislators debating bills that would affect them.

The policymakers really do benefit from getting the youth perspective, and for the youth themselves, it has been an electric experience for them, having these policymakers acknowledge the reality (of) whats happening at schools and how its affecting them, said Vanessa Beltran, a mental health policy fellow at the nonprofit Girls Empowerment Network.

Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat from Round Rock and a former public school teacher, said Toth and Creightons legislation conflicts with the states existing curriculum standards, which require educators to discuss current events.

Students desperately need to be able to understand current events, determine fact from fiction and develop media literacy, he said. If public education is here as a safeguard for democracy, analyzing and understanding current events is critical to that goal.

jeremy.blackman@chron.com

cayla.harris@express-news.net

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Texas Republicans target 'critical race theory' with bill to muzzle teachers on racism, sexism - Houston Chronicle