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Gerrymandering may restrict minority voters’ energy even after Census positive aspects

Gerrymandering could limit minority voters' power even after Census gains

Pendler kommen mit Metro-North während der morgendlichen Hauptverkehrszeit am 8. Juni 2020 in New York City an der Grand Central Station an.

Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Images

Der Kampf um die Neuordnung der US-Kongressbezirke findet zum ersten Mal seit Jahrzehnten ohne bestimmte bundesstaatliche Schutzmaßnahmen statt, was die Besorgnis aufkommen lässt, dass farbige Wähler ins Abseits geraten könnten, obwohl sie einen größeren Anteil an der Bevölkerung haben.

Das Census Bureau hat diese Woche Daten veröffentlicht, die den Bundesstaaten als Grundlage für die Neuordnung ihrer Kongressbezirke dienen werden. Der Prozess wird die Machtverhältnisse in den Vereinigten Staaten für ein Jahrzehnt beeinflussen und könnte sich in den Zwischenwahlen 2022 auf das eng gespaltene Repräsentantenhaus auswirken.

Die Volkszählungsdaten zeigen, dass die USA in den letzten zehn Jahren vielfältiger geworden sind. Hispanische, asiatische und multirassische Gemeinschaften wuchsen schnell, während die weiße Bevölkerung zum ersten Mal in der Geschichte zurückging.

Obwohl die weiße Bevölkerung immer noch die größte Gruppe in den USA insgesamt ist, schrumpfte sie um 8,6 %. Die hispanische Bevölkerung ist um 23% gewachsen, die asiatische Bevölkerung um 35% und die schwarze Bevölkerung um 5,6%. Auch die multirassische Bevölkerung ist in den letzten zehn Jahren mit einem Anstieg von 276% am ​​schnellsten gewachsen.

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Während diese Daten einen signifikanten Anstieg der Farbgemeinschaften in den letzten zehn Jahren zeigen, könnte ihre politische Repräsentation darunter leiden, wenn Staaten ihre politischen Karten neu erstellen, sagen Experten.

„Es ist sicherlich möglich, dass wir trotz des Bevölkerungswachstums tatsächlich einen Rückgang der Minderheitenvertretung sehen, und wir erwarten, dass dies im Laufe des Jahrzehnts ein Bereich erheblicher Rechtsstreitigkeiten sein wird“, sagte Adam Podowitz-Thomas, leitender Rechtsstratege für das Princeton Gerrymandering Project und das Princeton Electoral Innovation Lab.

Der Oberste Gerichtshof hat 2013 eine wichtige Bestimmung im Voting Rights Act aufgehoben, wonach neun überwiegend südliche Bundesstaaten die Genehmigung für ihre Kongresskarten von der Bundesregierung einholen mussten. Grafschaften in Staaten außerhalb des Südens, wie New York und Kalifornien, unterlagen ebenfalls Vorabgenehmigungsregeln.

Um eine Genehmigung zu erhalten, mussten die Bundesstaaten der Bundesregierung nachweisen, dass ihre Neuverteilungspläne keinen diskriminierenden Zweck oder keine diskriminierenden Auswirkungen aufgrund von Rasse, Hautfarbe oder Zugehörigkeit zu einer sprachlichen Minderheitengruppe hatten, so das Justizministerium.

Das Fehlen einer Vorabklärung in diesem Jahr wird einer stärkeren Gerrymandering Platz machen, die die politische Macht von Minderheitengemeinschaften trotz ihrer wachsenden Bevölkerung in den USA bedrohen könnte, sagen Experten.

„Einzelparteienkontrolle“

Gerrymandering bezieht sich auf die Manipulation von Bezirksleitungen, um eine Partei oder Klasse von Menschen zu begünstigen. Obwohl die Taktik von beiden Parteien angewendet wird, sind die Republikaner in einer stärkeren Position, da sie in mehr Staaten die Kontrolle über eine einzige Partei haben, so Samuel Wang, Direktor des Princeton Gerrymandering Project.

„Die alleinige Kontrolle der Kartenzeichnung in einem Staat ist sicherlich der größte Motivator und Prädiktor für Gerrymandering“, sagte Wang.

Laut einem im Februar vom Brennan Center for Justice veröffentlichten Bericht haben die Republikaner die Kontrolle über das Zeichnen von Kongresskarten in 18 Bundesstaaten und Gesetzeskarten in 20 Bundesstaaten, darunter Florida, Georgia, North Carolina und Texas.

Demokraten hingegen haben dem Bericht zufolge nur die Kontrolle über die Karten des Kongresses in sieben Bundesstaaten und die Karten der Legislative in neun Bundesstaaten. Die verbleibenden Bundesstaaten haben unabhängige Kommissionen und eine parteiübergreifende Kontrolle über die Kartenzeichnung oder sie benötigen keine Karten, da sie Ein-Distrikt-Staaten sind.

Insgesamt haben Republikaner laut NBC News die Möglichkeit, 187 Kongressdistrikte und Demokraten 84 zu ziehen. Die Praxis des Gerrymandering zielt oft auf farbige Wähler ab und kann durch zwei Taktiken erreicht werden, die allgemein als Cracking und Packing bekannt sind.

Die alleinige Kontrolle der Kartenzeichnung in einem Staat ist sicherlich der größte Motivator und Prädiktor für Gerrymandering.

Samuel Wang |

Direktor des Princeton Gerrymandering Project

Cracking beinhaltet die Verteilung einer Minderheitsgemeinschaft auf die Bezirke, so dass sie einen kleinen Teil der Wählerschaft ausmachen und in jedem Bezirk wenig politische Macht haben, so Wang. Aber eine Minderheitsgemeinschaft kann auch in einen einzigen Wahlbezirk gepackt werden, um ihren Einfluss in anderen Bezirken zu verringern, fügte Wang hinzu.

Nach der letzten Volkszählung im Jahr 2010 machten die Republikaner gesetzgeberische Fortschritte, indem sie in einer Reihe von Staaten, in denen sie eine Einparteienkontrolle hatten, gerrymandering machten, so Yurij Rudensky, ein Neuverteilungsberater im Demokratieprogramm des Brennan Centers.

“Es ist wirklich eine Art Subversion dieses demokratischen Prozesses, der unser Regierungssystem bis ins Mark schädigt und erschüttert, weil es bedeutet, dass die Wahlergebnisse vorbestimmt sind und die Wähler ihre Vertreter nicht wirklich wählen können”, sagte Rudensky. “Das haben republikanische Agenten zu Beginn des Jahrzehnts getan.”

Allein das Gerrymandering in Michigan, Ohio und Pennsylvania verschaffte den Republikanern 16 bis 17 Sitze mehr im Kongress, als sie mit unvoreingenommenen Karten gehabt hätten, heißt es in dem Bericht des Brennan Center.

Eine Reihe republikanischer Aktivisten startete auch das Redistricting Majority Project (REDMAP), das 2010 mehr als 30 Millionen US-Dollar für die Neugestaltung von Wahlkarten zugunsten von GOP-Kandidaten aufbrachte, wie aus einer vom Brennan Center erhaltenen Gerichtsakte hervorgeht.

“Dieses Jahr wird das Gerrymandering schrecklich sein”, sagte Steven Ruggles, Demograph von der University of Minnesota. “Ohne die Preclearance können Sie davon ausgehen, dass die Republikaner in Bezug auf Gerrymandering dreister sein werden, sogar noch mehr als im Jahr 2010.”

Das Census Bureau veröffentlichte im April erste Daten auf Bundesstaatsebene, die zur Aufteilung der 435 Sitze im Repräsentantenhaus verwendet wurden, die eine leichte Verschiebung der politischen Macht in den von den Republikanern geführten Süden und Westen zeigten.

Laut den Volkszählungsdaten vom April gewann Texas zwei Sitze im Kongress, während Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina und Oregon jeweils einen hinzugewinnen. Kalifornien, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania und West Virginia verloren jeweils einen Sitz.

Die Demokraten klammern sich an eine knappe Mehrheit im Repräsentantenhaus. Sie kontrollieren 220 Sitze, während die GOP 212 hat. Es gibt drei freie Stellen.

Forderungen nach Reformen

Während es in diesem Umverteilungszyklus wahrscheinlich zu Gerrymandering kommen wird, könnte die Reform die Republikaner zwingen, sich stattdessen an farbige Wähler zu wenden, sagte Simone Leeper, Rechtsberaterin beim Campaign Legal Center.

“Es geht darum, ob sie beim Gerrymandering erfolgreich sind oder nicht. Wenn sie es sind, sind sie bestimmten Gemeinschaften weniger verantwortlich”, sagte Leeper. “Aber wenn wir das Gerrymandering stoppen können, können wir sie zur Rechenschaft ziehen und erwarten, dass sie versuchen, diese Wähler zu gewinnen.”

Bei den Wahlen 2020 gewann der damalige Präsident Donald Trump, ein Republikaner, die weiße Stimme mit 55 % bis 43 %, während der Demokrat Joe Biden, der Sieger, laut Pew Research die Stimmen der Schwarzen, Hispanics und Asiaten mit beträchtlichem Abstand gewann. Bei den hispanischen Wählern erzielte Trump jedoch erhebliche Zuwächse.

Auf Bundesebene, sagte Leeper, könnte die Verabschiedung kritischer Gesetze zur Bekämpfung von Gerrymandering beitragen. Dazu gehören der John Lewis Voting Rights Act, der die Vorabgenehmigungspflicht für die meisten Südstaaten wiederherstellen würde, und der For The People Act, der ein Verbot von parteiischer Gerrymandering enthält.

Die Wähler stellen sich am ersten Tag der vorzeitigen Abstimmung in Brooklyn, New York, am 24. Oktober 2020, vor dem Barclays Center, das als Wahllokal dient, an, um ihre Stimmzettel abzugeben.

Jeenah Mond | Reuters

Aber auch auf Landesebene können Minderheitengemeinschaften und Anwälte aktiv werden, sagte Podowitz-Thomas.

Nach Angaben der National Conference of State Legislatures haben ab 2019 acht Bundesstaaten die Möglichkeit, öffentliche Aussagen über die Umverteilung zu treffen, was es den Bürgern ermöglicht, sich in den Prozess einzubringen.

Podowitz-Thomas sagte, Einzelpersonen müssen den Neuverteilungsprozess ihres Staates genau verfolgen und an so vielen öffentlichen Anhörungen wie möglich teilnehmen, um auf eine Reform des Gerrymandering zu drängen.

„Wir sind optimistisch, dass Reformbefürworter und Durchschnittsbürger, die faire Karten wollen, sicherstellen, dass die Karten unabhängig davon, was die Wahlen 2022 bringen, den Willen der Wähler widerspiegeln und nicht nur parteiische Interessen widerspiegeln können“, sagte Podowitz-Thomas.

Allerdings kann das Gerrymandering nur abgeschwächt werden, wenn die Reform erfolgreich ist, bevor die Fristen für die Umverteilung schnell näher kommen.

Die am Donnerstag veröffentlichten Volkszählungsdaten kamen aufgrund der Pandemie Monate später als erwartet. Es gab auch Vorwürfe politischer Einmischung gegen die Trump-Administration, die es versäumte, der Umfrage eine Frage zur Staatsbürgerschaft hinzuzufügen. Die Verzögerung führte dazu, dass die Staaten sich bemühten, vor den Zwischenwahlen im nächsten Jahr neue Distrikte zu gründen.

“Viele Bundesstaaten werden mit beschleunigten Neuverteilungsfristen konfrontiert”, sagte Podowitz-Thomas. „Einige Staaten werden die verkürzten Zeitrahmen als Gründe nennen, den Prozess zu überstürzen und Karten schnell zu übergeben Termin.”

Über den diesjährigen Neuverteilungszyklus hinaus können Bundesstaaten Gerrymandering verhindern, indem sie überparteiliche unabhängige Kommissionen einsetzen, um den Neuverteilungsprozess zu überwachen.

Laut dem Brennan Center-Bericht sind Arizona, Kalifornien, Colorado und Michigan die einzigen Bundesstaaten mit solchen Kommissionen für die Neuverteilung durch den Kongress und die Gesetzgebung. Diese Kommissionen haben “die Aussichten für gerechtere Karten” in diesen Staaten “erheblich verbessert”, heißt es in dem Bericht.

Solche Kommissionen “wäre eine langfristige Lösung, um den Partisanen die Macht der Kartenzeichnung aus den Händen zu nehmen und sie in die Hände zu legen”. [the hands of] überparteiliche, die keinen parteiischen Gerrymander machen wollen”, sagte Leeper.

Einige Republikaner haben sich jedoch gegen die Reform des Gerrymandering ausgesprochen. Laut The Detroit News reichte die Michigan Republican Party 2019 sogar eine Klage ein, um die Bildung einer unabhängigen Neuverteilungskommission zu blockieren, die von den Wählern im Bundesstaat genehmigt wurde.

Mehrere Interessenvertretungen von Minderheiten äußerten die Notwendigkeit, die Reform nach der Veröffentlichung der Volkszählungsdaten am Donnerstag neu einzugrenzen.

„Der Neuzuordnungsprozess muss sicherstellen, dass asiatische Amerikaner und andere ethnische Minderheiten eine vollständige und faire Möglichkeit haben, Kandidaten ihrer Wahl zu wählen“, sagte Jerry Vattamala, Direktor des Demokratieprogramms beim Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, in einer Erklärung.

Thomas A. Saenz, Präsident des Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, sagte, die Organisation erwarte, dass alle Umverteilungen den Veränderungen der Latino-Bevölkerung in den USA Rechnung tragen

„Wir erwarten, dass diese gesetzlichen Verpflichtungen sowohl in Staaten mit seit langem bedeutender und wachsender Latino-Bevölkerung wie Kalifornien, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado und Illinois als auch in Staaten und lokalen Gebieten erfüllt werden, in denen die Latino-Bevölkerung erst jetzt lebt eine kritische Masse zu erreichen, um die Schaffung von Bezirken zu rechtfertigen, in denen Latino-Wähler die Möglichkeit haben, Kandidaten ihrer Wahl zu wählen”, sagte Saenz in einer Erklärung.

Die National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sagte auch, sie werde sich für einen fairen Umverteilungsprozess einsetzen, der die Beteiligung der Gemeinschaft fördert.

„NAACP ermutigt die Wähler, sich am Neuverteilungsprozess zu beteiligen, indem sie sich für einen fairen Prozess einsetzt, der den Beitrag der Gemeinschaft wertschätzt, Kriterien für die Neuverteilung, einschließlich der Einhaltung von Abschnitt 2 des Stimmrechtsgesetzes, und Karten, die die zunehmend vielfältige Bevölkerung dieser Nation widerspiegeln“, NAACP Präsident und CEO Das sagte Derrick Johnson am Freitag in einer Erklärung.

Abschnitt 2 des Stimmrechtsgesetzes verbietet Wahlpraktiken, einschließlich Neuverteilungsplänen, die aufgrund von Rasse, Hautfarbe oder Zugehörigkeit zu einer sprachlichen Minderheit diskriminieren.

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Politics

Yellen desires debt restrict raised by Aug. 2, U.S. may have ‘extraordinary measures’

Yellen wants debt limit raised by Aug. 2, U.S. may need 'extraordinary measures'

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Friday warned Congress that if lawmakers fail to reach an agreement to raise or extend the debt ceiling, her department must take “extraordinary measures” on August 2 to prevent the US government from defaulting.

In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, Yellen warned lawmakers that in late July the Treasury Department would suspend the sale of bonds that the US uses to finance its debt.

After August 2nd and subject to a debt limitation agreement, the Treasury Department will take “extraordinary measures” to settle Congressional legal and financial obligations, a temporary fix that will allow the Secretary to tap additional government accounts for a period of weeks.

“The period in which extraordinary measures may persist is subject to significant uncertainty due to a variety of factors, including the challenges of forecasting US government payments and revenues months into the future, exacerbated by the increased uncertainty surrounding payments and revenues Revenue related to payments and revenue related to the economic impact of the pandemic, “Yellen said in a letter to Pelosi.

The message between the Treasury Secretary and the House Speaker is a required formality should US outstanding debt approach its legal limit. While the extraordinary measures have been taken in the past to prevent a default, it is unclear how long Yellen’s emergency capital will last given the unprecedented stimulus measures sparked by the Covid-19 crisis.

While the United States has never defaulted on its debts, recent history shows that uncomfortable proximity to chaos can lead to chaos. In 2011, Republicans’ refusal in the House of Representatives to raise the debt ceiling resulted in a downgrade in the credit rating of US Treasuries, which angered the financial markets.

Economists say that a default, while extremely unlikely, would be a catastrophic event and pose a significant threat to several sectors of the American economy.

When asked about Yellen’s letter, White House press secretary Jen Psaki insisted that the notice should be viewed in context and noted that similar letters had been sent in previous governments.

The letter is “standard practice for finance ministers when a debt limit is reinstated,” said Psaki on Friday afternoon. “During the last two administrations, the Treasury Secretary has sent nearly 50 letters to Hill on the debt line, some of which were very similar in wording and requests and updates.”

Despite the government’s calm, it is almost certain that Congress will violate the August 2 deadline as Democrats and Republicans are bogged down on several key pieces of legislation. Perhaps most notably, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., is a long way from compromising a trillion dollar deal on physical infrastructure.

House Democrats insist they pass no law to improve the country’s roads, bridges, broadband, and waterways without a separate law modeled on President Joe Biden’s American Families plan to support paid workers’ vacations, work education, and other programs become.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Told Punchbowl News earlier this month that he “can’t imagine a single Republican” voting to raise the debt ceiling amid the “freedom for all to tax and” the Democrats output.”

– CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger contributed to the coverage.

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World News

Planet set to hit crucial temperature restrict quickly

Planet set to hit critical temperature limit soon

A family walks across dry cracked earth that used to be the bottom of Lake Mendocino on April 22, 2021 in Ukiah, California.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

The likelihood of the planet reaching a key temperature limit within the next five years has doubled, according to a study by climate scientists, with the world on track to witness the hottest year on record in that same time frame.

“There is about a 40% chance of the annual average global temperature temporarily reaching 1.5° Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial level in at least one of the next five years — and these odds are increasing with time,” the World Meteorological Organization said on Thursday. The WMO, a specialized agency of the United Nations, said this had doubled from 20% in the last decade.

That 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level is the lower target of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement. The climate accord is widely recognized as critically important to avoid an irreversible climate crisis.

In 2020 — one of the three hottest years on record — the global average temperature was 1.2 °C above the pre-industrial baseline, the WMO reported in April. The Paris Agreement aims to keep the rise in global temperature significantly below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels this century.

“There is a 90% likelihood of at least one year between 2021-2025 becoming the warmest on record,” the WMO said in its press release.

Between now and 2025, high latitude regions like Europe, the northern U.S. and Canada, and Russia, as well as the Sahel in Africa, are likely to become wetter and the Atlantic is expected to see more tropical cyclones compared to the recent past, which the WMO defines as the 1981-2010 average. 

“These are more than just statistics,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement. 

“Increasing temperatures mean more melting ice, higher sea levels, more heatwaves and other extreme weather, and greater impacts on food security, health, the environment and sustainable development,” he said.

Still, the WMO says that it is “very unlikely,” with just a 10% probability, that the five-year mean annual temperature of the planet will be 1.5°C warmer than pre-industrial levels for the entire 2021-2025 period. The 90% likelihood refers to that temperature rise in any one of the next five years.  

Speaking about the report, senior Met Office scientist Leon Hermanson told BBC News on Thursday: “We’re approaching 1.5 C – we’re not there yet but we’re getting close. Time is running out for the strong action which we need now.”

Worse extreme disaster events

Governments around the world have launched ambitious targets to cut carbon emissions and major energy companies are now beginning to feel the impact of the climate movement as some heavyweight investors pressure firms to decrease their fossil fuel use.

But substantially lowering emissions will be an extremely challenging endeavor, scientists warn. The WMO notes that the Paris Accords’ “nationally determined contributions,” or states’ commitments to emissions reductions, “currently fall far short of what is needed to achieve this target.”

And energy demand is expected to rise dramatically in the coming years as the world’s population continues to grow, with most of that need still set to be met by fossil fuels, according to the Energy Information Administration.

The COP26 Summit scheduled for November of this year in Glasgow, Scotland is being described by many in the scientific and policymaking community as a crucial “make or break” moment for governments to stem what many warn will be a climate disaster as sea levels and global temperatures rise. 

In the U.S. alone, intensifying rainfall fueled by climate change has caused nearly $75 billion in flood damage in the past thirty years, Stanford University researchers found in a study published in January. Those researchers warned that passing warming levels outlined in the global Paris Climate Accord will worsen extreme disaster events.

And developing nations are most exposed to climate risk — especially those in coastal areas and those highly dependent on predictable weather patterns for agricultural production.

Morgan Stanley in 2019 reported that climate-related disasters have cost the world $650 billion over the last three years, with North America shouldering most of the burden.

Categories
Politics

Republicans Transfer to Restrict a Grass-Roots Custom of Direct Democracy

Republicans Move to Limit a Grass-Roots Tradition of Direct Democracy

In 2008, deep blue California banned same-sex marriage. In 2018, staunchly conservative Arkansas and Missouri raised their minimum wages. And last year, Republican-controlled Arizona and Montana legalized recreational marijuana.

These moves were all the result of electoral initiatives, a centuries-old body of American democracy that allowed voters to bypass their legislation to pass new laws, often with results that contradict the wishes of the elected officials of the state. While in the past they have been a bilateral instrument, in recent years Democrats have been particularly successful in using electoral initiatives to advance their agenda in conservative states where they have few other options.

But this year Republican lawmakers in Florida, Idaho, South Dakota, and other states passed laws restricting the use of the practice. This is part of a broader GOP attempt to secure political control for years to come, along with new legislation restricting electoral access and the party-political redesign of congressional districts that will take place in the coming months.

According to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a liberal group that tracks and supports community-based referendums, Republicans passed 144 bills in 2021 to restrict voting initiatives in 32 states. Of these bills, 19 were signed into law by nine Republican governors. In three states, Republican lawmakers have asked voters to approve electoral initiatives that limit their own right to initiate and pass future electoral initiatives.

“They have implemented web after web of technical details and hurdles that make it really difficult for community-based groups to qualify for the vote and to counter why electoral initiatives were launched in the first place,” said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, the managing director of the strategy center of the election initiative. “This is directly related to every attack we have seen on our democracy.”

In recent years, Democrats have used electoral initiatives to bypass Republican-controlled legislation, pass laws in red states that raised the minimum wage, legalized marijuana, expanded Medicaid, introduced impartial redistribution and apologetic absentee voting, and restored voting rights for people with it Convictions for criminal offenses.

Republicans seek to block this path in a variety of ways, including blunt measures that target the process directly and others that are more subtle.

“Petitioners have been very resourceful,” said Senator Al Novstrup, a 66-year-old Republican with glasses who sponsored the bill because the text of electoral initiatives is often too small for him to read. “There is no limit to the size of the paper.”

In Mississippi last week, the state’s Conservative Supreme Court, which ruled on a Republican lawsuit, technically invalidated the entire state initiative process, held a 2020 referendum legalizing medical marijuana, and the effort To collect signatures to bring Medicaid’s expansion into the state, suspended 2022 ballot. The constitutional amendment that created the state’s initiative law was passed in 1992 when the state had five congressional districts, each requiring signatures from voters. Mississippi has only four counties as of the 2000 census.

In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that imposed a limit of $ 3,000 on campaign contributions to electoral initiatives. This cuts off an important source of income to subsidize the collection of signatures for petitions.

The Republican efforts, which are now gaining traction, have been in full swing for years.

In South Dakota in recent years, Republicans have limited the window of time for collecting petition signatures to the cold winter months, encouraging all recruiters to register with the state and wear state-issued IDs while collecting signatures. These are hurdles that according to the few Democrats in the state have increased the difficulty of qualifying for the vote.

“Republicans have every national office, 85 percent of the legislature and every constitutional office,” said Reynold F. Nesiba, one of three Democrats in the 35-member Senate. “The only place Democrats can make progress is in the action process in place, and Republicans want to take that away, too.”

Now the state’s Republican legislature will propose a constitutional amendment to voters in South Dakota to raise the threshold for passing referenda – and raise it to 60 percent by simple majority. (The threshold to raise the threshold? Still only 50 percent.)

The question will appear on the state’s main ballot for June 2022, which is expected to be dominated by Republican competitions. The new threshold could apply to the November 2022 general election, if a referendum on the expansion of Medicaid is expected before voters.

Republican Senator Lee Schoenbeck said in March that he specifically intended to block Medicaid’s expansion.

“It is fair protection for the citizens of our state,” he said on Thursday.

The proposals to limit electoral initiatives are part of an ongoing campaign by Conservatives to stifle progressive political efforts. To get a referendum on the vote, petitioners have to collect tens of thousands of signatures. The numbers vary depending on the state. The process can cost millions, so initiative campaigns are often signed by large donors.

In Arizona, Republicans have been smart since 2018 when Tom Steyer, the billionaire Democrat who later ran for president, helped fund an ultimately unsuccessful effort to pass a constitutional amendment that would put half of the state’s energy from renewables Sources.

In February, Tim Dunn, a representative of the Republican state, tabled a resolution to raise the threshold for an electoral initiative from a majority to 55 percent.

“If you look at the actual people actually voting on an electoral initiative, the number of people is quite small compared to the citizens of Arizona, and outside money could affect that pretty easily,” Dunn said.

Florida Republicans gave similar rationale for a new law signed by Governor Ron DeSantis that limits contributions to a citizen-led election initiative to $ 3,000 per person. Republicans were frustrated with some donors who supported electoral initiatives, including John Morgan, a wealthy Orlando attorney who spent millions of dollars on efforts to legalize medical marijuana Raise the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour.

However, civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have said the new law will effectively stamp out community-based electoral initiatives, which often require substantial funding to collect signatures.

Campaigns like this are so expensive, proponents say, because of a cascade of restrictions Florida law has placed on the initiative. Recently, lawmakers cut the time it takes for signatures to expire in half. banned the practice of paying signature collectors per signature; urged those collecting signatures to use a separate piece of paper for each signature; and required that every signature be verified, which forbade a much cheaper “random sample” process.

“With every successful initiative or major effort that lawmakers don’t approve, there is a new law that makes it more expensive and burdensome to propose an initiative,” said Nicholas Warren, attorney at the Florida ACLU.

Republican sponsors of the new Florida law agree that constitutional amendments will be harder to pass. That is their goal.

“I’m not denying that holding a referendum on voting under the law will be more difficult, but that’s the point,” said Senator Ray Rodrigues, a Republican who sponsored the bill.

In Missouri, 22 Republican-sponsored bills this year attempted to restrict the state’s electoral initiative process, including a bill that would double the number of signatures required to qualify for the ballot and the threshold for passing one Measure increased from a simple majority to two thirds, that would be the highest in the country.

“These were really just politicians trying to dramatically restrict Missourians’ constitutional rights to use the process while telling us it was for our own good,” said Richard von Glahn, Missouri Jobs With political director Justice, a progressive organization.

In Idaho, Republican Governor Brad Little signed law last month that makes it significantly more difficult to meet the signature requirements for an initiative to be added to the ballot. Previously, an initiative required signatures from 6 percent of the population of 18 different legislative districts. The new law, signed by Mr. Little, now requires signatures from 6 percent of residents in each of Idaho’s 35 legislative districts.

And in Mississippi, the state Supreme Court ruled last week that the initiative process was “impractical and non-functional” because the number of statutory Congressional districts and the number of districts the state currently has differ.

Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler of Madison, Miss., A Republican who filed the lawsuit that led to the invalidation of the state initiative process, said the legal action was designed to protect her city’s ability to deter marijuana retailers through zoning.

“There were government officials who knew it needed to be corrected,” Ms. Butler said of the voting process. “If we want to move forward in the state and protect the initiative process, this must be corrected. If it’s buggy, the only option is to start over. “

Categories
Business

Tobacco shares drop on report Biden is planning to restrict cigarette nicotine

Tobacco stocks drop on report Biden is planning to limit cigarette nicotine

Marlboro cigarettes, a product of Philip Morris International

Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Tobacco supplies fell Monday on a report that the Biden government is considering limiting nicotine levels in cigarettes.

The report, quoting people familiar with the matter, was published in the Wall Street Journal. The paper said the discussion came as officials neared a deadline to say whether or not they would like to see a menthol cigarette ban.

The Biden government is trying to determine whether to lower nicotine levels in conjunction with a menthol ban or as a separate policy, people told the Journal.

Nicotine does not cause cancer, but smoking is addicting. The goal of lowering nicotine levels would be to make cigarettes less addictive in hopes of encouraging smokers to quit other products or to switch to other products that are believed to be safer.

The Food and Drug Administration, which oversees tobacco, declined to comment on the report.

“Any action the FDA takes must be based on scientific knowledge and understanding, and consider the real consequences of such action, including the growth of an illegal market and the impact on hundreds of thousands of jobs from farms to local businesses across the country.” Altria spokesman George Parman told CNBC in an email.

Altria shares closed the report by more than 6%. In extended trading on Monday, stocks fell another 2%.

British American Tobacco shares closed 2% on Monday, while Philip Morris International shares ended the day down more than 1%. Both stocks also fell after the market closed.

Philip Morris International declined to comment on the matter. The tobacco company does not sell or market cigarettes in the United States. Even so, his stock fell on the news.

British American Tobacco did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company owns Reynolds American, the manufacturer of camel cigarettes.

Read the full story from the Wall Street Journal here.

Categories
Health

Biden Administration Ends Restrict on Fetal Tissue Analysis

Biden Administration Ends Limit on Fetal Tissue Research

The Biden administration on Friday lifted restrictions on the use of fetal tissue for medical research and lifted the rules imposed by President Donald J. Trump in 2019.

The new rules, published by the National Institutes of Health, allow scientists to use tissues from elective abortions to study and develop treatments for diseases such as diabetes, cancer, AIDS, and Covid-19.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH, has essentially restored guidelines in place during the Obama administration. The NIH will “manage and monitor research involving human fetal tissue in accordance with applicable policies and procedures,” ahead of the June 2019 ban, the agency said in a statement emailed Saturday. The development was first reported on Friday by the Washington Post.

Scientists can buy fetal tissue from sources approved prior to the ban, and any projects approved prior to Trump administration restrictions will be “resumed without further review,” according to an email sent to scientists by the NIH recorded “

“This is fantastic,” said Dr. Mike McCune, HIV expert at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Professor Emeritus at the University of California at San Francisco. However, he cautioned that it could take some time for the research to recover.

Working with fetal tissue is a specialty and many of the scientists with that expertise have left the field, he said. “People with decades of experience had to find other jobs,” he said. “All of that has to be restored in order for it to start again – but they will.”

The lifting of the ban fulfilled a promise by the Biden government to support science and dismayed conservative groups who oppose research on fetal tissue as a violation of the sanctity of life.

“HHS’s decision to resume experimentation on body parts of aborted children is contrary to both best ethics and most promising science,” said Tara Sander Lee, senior fellow and director of life sciences at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, in a statement.

“The exploitation of the bodies of these young people is unnecessary and grotesque,” she said. “There are superior and ethical alternatives.”

Human cells taken years ago from a fetus were used to develop the monoclonal antibody treatments given to Mr. Trump following his diagnosis of Covid-19 in October. Many of the coronavirus vaccines funded by Operation Warp Speed ​​have also been tested in cells derived from fetal tissue.

Some scholars criticized what they viewed as double standards, saying Mr Trump should not have taken treatment that was developed on the basis of research he had banned.

“It was just so hypocritical,” said Lawrence Goldstein, a neuroscientist at the University of California at San Diego who used fetal tissue in his research.

Dr. Goldstein said he hoped a future Republican administration would not reinstate Mr Trump’s ban. “It would be terrible for this research to be on a yo-yo,” he said. “It will die when that happens.”

Updated

April 17, 2021, 6:20 p.m. ET

Some conservative and religious organizations have suggested that scientists use tissues from spontaneous rather than elective abortions. However, spontaneous abortions often result from genetic and developmental disorders that would render the fetal tissue unusable for research.

Scientists have been using fetal tissue to create cell lines for life-saving research into vaccines and treatments for many diseases for decades. Since the 1980s, so-called humanized mice, which contain fetal human tissue or organs, have served as the linchpin for developing treatments and studying the immune response to pathogens such as the coronavirus.

Many drugs that had worked spectacularly well in normal mice failed in human clinical trials, noted Dr. Goldstein firmly. “Mice are not just tiny people, so mice with a humanized immune system are very valuable.”

Fetal tissue is also used to study how human organs and systems develop in the uterus. “It’s the biology of young people; How do you do that by studying old people? “Dr. McCune said. “It just doesn’t work.”

In June 2019, the Trump administration abruptly cut funding for government laboratory projects based on fetal tissue. The NIH also urged academic scientists seeking federal funding to fully substantiate their need for human fetal tissue and set up an ethics committee to review these suggestions.

What You Need To Know About The Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Break In The United States

    • On April 13, 2021, U.S. health officials called for an immediate halt to use of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine after six recipients in the U.S. developed a rare blood clot disorder within one to three weeks of vaccination.
    • All 50 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico have temporarily suspended use of the vaccine or suspended from recommended vendors. The U.S. military, government-run vaccination centers, and a variety of private companies, including CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Walmart, and Publix, also paused the injections.
    • Fewer than one in a million Johnson & Johnson vaccinations are currently being studied. If there is indeed a risk of blood clots from the vaccine – which has yet to be determined – the risk is extremely small. The risk of contracting Covid-19 in the United States is much higher.
    • The hiatus could complicate the country’s vaccination efforts at a time when many states are facing spikes in new cases and are trying to address vaccine hesitation.
    • Johnson & Johnson has also decided to delay the launch of its vaccine in Europe amid concerns about rare blood clots, which is taking another blow to the vaccine surge in Europe. South Africa, devastated by a contagious variant of the virus found there, also stopped using the vaccine. Australia announced that it would not buy cans.

HHS said in a statement at the time, “Promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death is a top priority for President Trump’s administration.”

However, the restrictions were a ban that held projects up and in some cases wasted years of effort. For example, the ban stopped research that had increased the median survival of women with metastatic breast cancer from two to ten years in a small study, said Dr. Irving Weissman, a Stanford University cancer expert who led the study.

In July, 90 scientific, medical and patient organizations signed a letter calling on the ethics committee to allow the use of fetal tissue to develop treatments for Covid-19 and other diseases.

“Fetal tissue has unique and valuable properties that often cannot be replaced by other cell types,” the statement said.

In August, however, the board rejected all but one of 14 proposals. The only proposal approved was based on previously acquired fetal tissue.

The following month, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform reported that the Trump administration’s ban was “based on ideological objections, not an assessment of the scientific merit of such projects.”

The NIH’s announcement of the new rules came a day after Xavier Becerra, secretary for health and human services, stated at a budget hearing on Capitol Hill that the agency would change the rules for research on fetal tissue. Mr Becerra did not reveal any details, but his testimony and the general acceptance of science by the Biden administration suggested that Trump-era restrictions would be reversed.

“We believe we need to do the research that is needed to make sure we are innovating and bringing all of these types of treatments and therapies to the American people,” Becerra said at the hearing.

The NIH said in its statement on Saturday that it would not set up another ethics committee “because the HHS secretary has determined that there are no new ethical issues that need special review.”

Scientists must follow other rules for research, including obtaining informed consent from the tissue donor. They can’t pay donors to get the tissue or benefit from studies, the agency said, but they are otherwise free to resume the research.

“These ethical safeguards and oversights are enough to prevent anything most people would say from being outrageous,” said Dr. Weissman. “This is a welcome change.”

Categories
Politics

Georgia G.O.P. Passes Main Legislation to Restrict Voting

Georgia G.O.P. Passes Major Law to Limit Voting

“Where does the need for this bill come from?” said Debbie Buckner, a Democratic representative based near Columbus. “From the former president who wanted the election fixed and thrown out, even when the Georgian leadership told him they couldn’t do it if they wanted to.”

Zulma Lopez, who represents a majority minority district on the outskirts of Atlanta, said the bill would have an overwhelming impact on color voters. In her district, she said, the number of dropboxes would be reduced from 33 to nine. This was partly due to the fact that Democrats were excluded from the discussions.

“Almost 2.5 million Democrats voted in the 2020 general election,” Ms. Lopez said. “Yet the Democrats in this House have been excluded from any significant contribution to the preparation of this bill.”

Democratic state senators raised similar alarms during an afternoon debate.

“It’s like a Christmas tree full of goodies to suppress voters,” said Senator Jen Jordan, a Democrat from near Atlanta. “And let’s be clear, some of the most dangerous regulations have to do with running local elections.”

As a sign of the high tension in Georgia, Mr Kemp’s speech was abruptly interrupted after about 10 minutes. A Democratic State representative, Park Cannon, had attempted to attend the signing and remarks, but the doors to the governor’s office were closed.

After the officers refused to let her in, Ms. Cannon knocked lightly on the door. Two officers immediately arrested her, handcuffed her, and escorted her through the state capitol. Neither Ms. Cannon nor the governor’s office immediately responded to requests for comment.

Alan Powell, a Republican representative from northeast Georgia, defended the state’s bill, saying it would give consistency to an electoral system that was marginalized last year.