World War G: Republicans Score Wins in VA and TN

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Sabrina Moreno at Axios:

The Virginia Supreme Court overturned the results of the state's redistricting referendum, which voters narrowly approved last month.

Why it matters: The ruling upends one of the most closely watched redistricting fights in the country.It follows months of legal challenges over whether the referendum was unconstitutional.

The big picture: The decision effectively blocks Democrats from redrawing congressional maps mid-decade.That's after the state spent $5.2 million to pay for the special election, and outside groups raised nearly $100 million to sway voters.

The new map would have been in effect for the November midterms and was expected to shift the state's congressional split from 6-5 favoring Democrats to 10-1.

 Katherine Chui and Emily Cochrane at NYT:

When the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965 last week, Republicans saw new political opportunities across the South. Congressional districts that were considered strongholds for Democrats, often with majority Black populations, could be redrawn for the first time in decades.

Among Southern states, Tennessee was the first to redo its map, which Gov. Bill Lee signed into law on Thursday. The new map breaks the Ninth Congressional District — a longtime Democratic base encompassing Memphis — into three Republican-leaning districts.

The new map divides areas of Memphis where most of the population is Black among three districts with overwhelmingly white populations, eliminating the state’s sole majority Black district in the process.

Mike Johnson's Bad Week

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. 

Annie Karni at NYT:

Representative Elise Stefanik of New York called Speaker Mike Johnson a habitual liar.

Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina has told people she is so frustrated with the Louisiana Republican and sick of the way he has run the House — particularly how women are treated there — that she is planning to huddle with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia next week to discuss following her lead and retiring early from Congress.

Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida has gone around Mr. Johnson in a bid to force a vote he has declined to schedule on a bill to ban members of Congress from stock trading.

Less than a year out from midterm elections in which Republicans’ vanishingly small majority is at stake, Mr. Johnson’s grasp on his gavel appears weaker than ever, as members from all corners of his conference openly complain about his leadership. Some predict that he may not last as the speaker for the rest of this term.

...

Ms. Stefanik told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that Mr. Johnson would not have the support to remain speaker if a vote were held tomorrow, adding that disaffection with him among Republicans was “that widespread.”

Ms. Stefanik declined to speak on the record for this article.

Mr. Johnson declined to comment, as well. But a senior Republican congressional aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of prolonging an intraparty feud, said that after Mr. Johnson had provided Ms. Stefanik with office space and a budget for what the aide described as “a fake job and a fake title,” he would have expected her to be more gracious.

 Kate Santaliz and Hans Nichols at Axios:

President Trump didn't tell Speaker Mike Johnson that he was granting a "full and unconditional PARDON" to Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) before announcing it on Truth Social this morning, Johnson told Axios.

Why it matters: Trump's pardon boosts one of House Republicans' top political targets — and could hamper GOP efforts to protect their razor-thin majority in next year's midterms.

"I didn't know anything about it," Johnson told Axios Wednesday afternoon.
Asked if he was surprised by Trump's pardon, Johnson said: "I think he had talked about that since last spring. It shouldn't be a huge surprise to anyone. But no, I didn't discuss it with him."

National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Richard Hudson (N.C.) told Axios that he found out about Trump's pardon on X.The pardon "certainly makes it tougher" for the GOP to flip Cuellar's South Texas seat, Hudson said.


Driving the news: Trump not only pardoned Cuellar — he praised him, calling the Texas Democrat "highly respected" and "beloved."

Shane Goldmacher at NYT:

President Trump and Republicans got a win on Tuesday night — and it set off alarm bells for the party.

Just like every other congressional contest held this year, the Tennessee special election for the House tilted sharply in the Democratic Party’s direction compared with the 2024 election. The Trump-backed Republican candidate, Matt Van Epps, won by nine percentage points in a ruby-red seat that Mr. Trump had romped through a year earlier by 22 points.

That 13-point swing to the left — if it continues into 2026 — threatens to be an undertow strong enough to subsume a range of Republicans in less lopsidedly red seats and deliver Democrats a comfortable House majority next year.

Note: the D candidate was too liberal for the district.  A moderate would have done even better.

 

Tennessee Backfire

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.  The GOP has supermajorities in the TN Legislature.

Elizabeth Wolfe and Raja Razek, CNN:

Two Democratic members of the Tennessee House of Representatives were expelled while a third member was spared in an ousting by Republican lawmakers that was decried by the trio as oppressive, vindictive and racially motivated.

Protesters packed the state Capitol on Thursday to denounce the expulsions of Reps. Justin Jones and Rep. Justin Pearson and to advocate for gun reform measures a little over a week after a mass shooting devastated a Nashville school.

 

Rep. Gloria Johnson on why she survived while two of her colleagues were expelled from the Tennessee House: "Well, I think it's pretty clear. I'm a 60-year-old white woman and they are two young Black men." pic.twitter.com/6dNbW9dOHz

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 7, 2023

Steve Benen at MSNBC:

Stepping back, if GOP leaders don’t yet fully appreciate the degree to which this is likely to backfire, this will probably dawn on them soon.

For one thing, over the course of this week, the story about the Tennessee Three made the transition from local controversy in Nashville to a national outrage. As the dust settled on yesterday’s developments, for example, the White House issued a statement condemning the expulsions.

“Today’s expulsion of lawmakers who engaged in peaceful protest is shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent,” President Joe Biden said. “Rather than debating the merits of the issue, these Republican lawmakers have chosen to punish, silence, and expel duly-elected representatives of the people of Tennessee.”

He wasn’t alone. There were related condemnations from the Congressional Black Caucus, among other congressional Democrats from both chambers. Barack Obama added a statement of his own.

The Republican majority in Nashville, in other words, set out to silence the Tennessee Three. In the process, the GOP helped make the Democrats heroes to a worthy cause.

What’s more, if Republicans think they “won” the broader fight by kicking Jones and Pearson out of the legislature, they’ll soon learn otherwise: There’s nothing stopping the two men from running anew for the seats they held. In fact, it’s a safe bet they’re going to win, rejoining the institution that unjustly expelled them.

They may not even have to wait too long: Local officials have the authority to appoint temporary legislators to fill the vacancies, and no one should be surprised if they choose Jones and Pearson.

Andy Ogles and the Nashville Massacre

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good -- as every new mass shooting reminds us.  Charlie Sykes:

Let me also introduce you to Andy Ogles, the congressman who represents the district where the Covenant School is located

Yesterday, Ogles said in a statement that he and his family “are devastated by the tragedy that took place at The Covenant School in Nashville this morning.”

“We are sending our thoughts and prayers to the families of those lost,” he said. “As a father of three, I am utterly heartbroken by this senseless act of violence. I am closely monitoring the situation and working with local officials.”

This Andy Ogles, who put out this Christmas card:

“MERRY CHRISTMAS!” he wrote, followed by a fake quote attributed to George Washington: “The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference — they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.”

This Andy Ogles: “Businessman, economist, cop, international sex crimes expert? The stories of Congressman Andy Ogles.”

Sometimes Politics Still Is Local

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.  

57% of West Virginia voters approve of Manchin’s job performance, up from 40% during the first quarter of 2021.

Over the past year, Manchin has doubled his approval rating among West Virginia Republicans, to 69%.https://t.co/7FPc4Rwmqw

— Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) April 25, 2022

In Tennessee:

The Pedo Smear

 Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.

Instead of a tweet thread about the unseriousness of some members of Congress in this serious time, I just decided to tell you on video: pic.twitter.com/TPJfofOKra

— Adam Kinzinger (@AdamKinzinger) April 5, 2022

Cameron Joseph at VICE:

Tom Ammiano has heard rhetoric like this before.

Ammiano was teaching in San Francisco when he came out as gay the mid-1970s during a fight for workplace protections.

“The name-calling was not only on the playground but within the teachers lounge,” Ammiano told VICE News.

Social conservatives soon launched a statewide campaign to bar gay and lesbian people from working in California public schools, warning that they were trying to “recruit” children to the “gay lifestyle” and prey on them sexually. Those pushing for the ban weren’t subtle with their message, naming their organization “Defend Our Children.”


Now, as social conservatives introduce a raft of anti-LGBTQ legislation focused on classrooms and LGBTQ teens, like Florida’s new “Don’t Say Gay” law, they’ve resurrected some rhetoric that’s strikingly similar to that used during the 1978 campaign that Ammiano, Harvey Milk, Sally Miller Gearhart, and many others organized to defeat. They claim that anyone who mentions LGBTQ issues in the classroom is sexually “grooming” children, conflating a term that’s long been used to describe pedophiles training kids to accept their sexual assault to smear their opponents as sexual predators.

“There’s a kind of a déjà vu,” said Ammiano, who later was elected as a Democrat to the San Francisco board of supervisors and the California state assembly. “These people are insinuating that you're going to come into the classroom and expose your genitals and talk about sex acts.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene claims 3 Republican Senators (Murkowski, Collins, and Romney) are “pro-pedophile” because they voted for Judge Kentanji Brown Jackson. pic.twitter.com/SKi9Do2l7H

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) April 5, 2022

Jon Skolnik at Salon:

GOP-backed bill in Tennessee would eliminate any age requirements for marriage, a move that critics are calling hypocritical amid baseless Republican accusations that the LGBTQ+ community is attempting "groom" and "sexualize" school children.

H.B. 233 gives Tennesseans "an alternative form of marriage" between individuals who have a "conscientious objection to the current pathway," according to state Rep. Tom Leatherwood, the bill's Republican sponsor.

As WKRN ​​reported, the GOP bill, first introduced in January, establishes a common-law marriage between "one man" and "one woman" but omits any age requirements for the union, an omission that Democrats have blasted.

"I don't think any normal person thinks we shouldn't have an age requirement for marriage," said Democratic state Rep. Mike Stewart. "It should not be there as it's basically a get out of jail free card for people who are basically committing statutory rape," Stewart. I mean it's completely ridiculous, so that's another reason why this terrible bill should be eliminated."