The Texas GOP goes (further) off the deep end

Plus, a respectable Ohio Republican, based libertarians, and rent control

Welcome to a Saturday night countdown edition of Progress Report.

It was a rough week of polling for President Biden, no matter what Simon Rosenberg and insiders want to believe, but it wasn’t all roses for Donald Trump, either. Sure, he inspired some of Staten Island’s least employed people to show up for a disjointed rally in Bronx on Thursday, but tonight, Trump got mercilessly booed by a convention of libertarians.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but respect to those specific libertarians.

There’s a lot to cover tonight, and in honor of my brother’s birthday today (mine is in just a few days) I’m taking the paywall down for a night and making this countdown issue of the newsletter available to everybody.

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1️⃣ Family values: Texas Republicans on Friday chose Abraham George as the new chair of the state GOP, elevating a far-right activist whose recent achievements include losing a legislative primary and being caught with a loaded gun after his son called 911 during a domestic dispute.

With the state GOP riven by ideological and political rivals, Abraham enjoyed the support of a faction of powerful extremists. In his corner were outgoing chair Matt Rinaldi, who has been known to cavort with neo-Nazis; the impeached and indicted state Attorney General Ken Paxton; and reactionary oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, who together have become the party’s biggest donors.

The backing of such esteemed figures helped Abraham overcome a recent incident in which he was intercepted by police on his way to confront a man with whom he suspected his wife was having an affair. According to a police report first obtained by the Texas Tribune, the former Collin County GOP chair was carrying a loaded gun and his wife told police that she feared what he might do with it.

Here’s the 911 call made by George’s son that night:

His wife, meanwhile, was clearly shaken by the confrontation, police wrote in the report. But inconsistencies in each of their stories, paired with Texas’s ultra-loose gun laws, meant that no charges were ever filed. Now, Abraham has the chance to ensure that the state GOP moves even further to the right on issues such as school vouchers, harassing trans kids, and getting pregnant people killed.

2️⃣ Own goal: Republicans in New Hampshire were so eager to jump on the “election integrity” train back in 2022 that they wound up forcing through a law that does the complete opposite.

3️⃣ The long con: Florida has instructed county officials to consult a deeply flawed database assembled by far-right activists to guide potential voter purges, the next step in a multiyear plot to infiltrate and interfere with state election administration.

Things could get chaotic from here.

Here’s the context: Early last year, far-right activists successfully forced nine Republican-run states to pull out of the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a non-partisan central database that helps election officials maintain updated voter rolls.

Leaked emails indicated that officials in many of those states knew it was a stupid idea, and in some cases they’ve struggled to compensate for the lost data, but because GOP governors cater to their movement leaders, they went ahead and did it anyway. Florida, which has invested heavily in disenfranchising poor people, was one of the states that withdrew from the ERIC exchange, and a little over a year later, the consequences are becoming clear.

Forcing state officials to withdraw from ERIC wasn’t just about making their lives difficult. Instead, it was the first step in a plan to trigger voter purges across the country.

Last year, the Election Integrity Network, an expansive network of kook election deniers headed by former Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell, began training with software called EagleAI, which purports to use an algorithm that can spot potential ineligible voters. In reality, it simply produces gigantic lists of voters that conservative activists then submit to state election boards, which have become inundated with voter challenges in the wake of new laws passed after the 2020 election.

Those lists tend to include a disproportionate number of vulnerable and low-income voters, who are less likely to be able to respond in a timely matter to state inquiries. Not coincidentally, they’re also more likely to vote for Democrats.

Earlier this month, a right-wing activist sent a list of 10,000 names cobbled together by EagleAI to a top election official in Florida, who then sent it on to county officials with a note urging them to “take action.” How many people wind up having their registrations challenged or purged remains to be seen, but the stakes are especially high in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis now has a so-called “election police” force at his disposal. Last year, the force handled 1300 complaints and challenges, and the number is likely to be far higher this year.

4️⃣ Grow a pair, Dick: As a journalist, you’re taught to stick to verifiable facts and never assume intent, but it’s becoming increasingly hard not to suspect that Dick Durbin is some kind of Federalist Society sleeper agent.

That’s actually the kindest explanation for Durbin’s performance over the past week, including a rote, borderline catatonic first response to the latest revelation about Sam Alito’s treasonous allegiances. Presented with photos of the unofficial flag of Christian nationalist insurrectionists flying at Alito’s beach house, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee again pretended that he was powerless to conduct oversight of the high court.

Perhaps stung by assertions that he’s useless, Durbin on Friday followed up by sending a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts asking him to meet and discuss Alito’s participation in cases concerning Donald Trump and the insurrection. Written with his Judiciary Committee vice chair, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the letter implored Roberts to make sure that Alito recuses himself from those cases, which should be about as successful as Durbin’s letters imploring Roberts to implement a binding code of ethics on the court.

Whitehouse also on Friday affirmatively tweeted an article quoting Rep. Jamie Raskin, who said that should Democrats sweep this November’s elections, “we will look at the Supreme Court and figure out what can be done about that extremely corrupted and contaminated body.”

It’s a perfect encapsulation of how disingenuous Democratic leaders have been on this subject for years now. What minimal attention they’re paying to an ongoing judicial coup is spent positioning it as a third-tier campaign issue, with no effort put toward uncovering and publicizing the crimes and corruption that now define the court.

Meanwhile, Alito and fellow MAGA crank Clarence Thomas, confident in their total impunity, continue to turn back the clock on more than a century’s worth of civil rights and government protections. On Thursday, Alito had the pleasure of releasing a decision in the South Carolina redistricting case that comes within inches of fully legalizing racial gerrymanders. In his concurring opinion, Thomas challenged the validity of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark case that led to the forced integration of American public schools.

5️⃣ Not so fast: Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has called on state legislators to pass a bill that would correct an obscure provision of state election law that would prevent President Biden from appearing on the ballot in November.

As is often the case with DeWine, what sounds like a noble appeal to the spirit of bipartisanship is actually an underhanded attempt to seize a bit more power.

Biden is currently facing the prospect of being omitted from the Ohio ballot because he won’t officially become the Democratic nominee for president until late August, nearly two weeks after the state requires parties to confirm their candidates.

Republicans in both the state House and Senate have each put forth bills that would extend the deadline, the key difference between the two being that the Senate’s legislation contains several additional provisions that would make it far harder for nonprofits to participate in the political process and almost impossible for Ohioans to pass ballot initiatives and amend the constitution.

DeWine, of course, supports the Senate legislation, which House Speaker Jason Stephens has refused to consider. His resistance is actually quite valiant, given the circumstances: DeWine and state Senate President Matthew Huffman have been slamming him and framing the extra provisions as pivotal to banning foreign money from flowing to ballot initiative and amendment campaigns, fantasies that are highly salient among Republicans.

Instead of caving, Stephens says this imaginary problem can be addressed with legislation that doesn’t impact regular Ohioans’ chances of putting a question before voters.

6️⃣ Speaking of initiatives: Delano, CA is probably best known for being the hub for farm worker union activism led by in part Cesar Chavez in the 1960s and ‘70s. Now, a new generation of activists is working to make the San Joaquin Valley town synonymous with housing justice.

Nearly two-thirds of Delano residents spend 50% or more of their monthly income on housing, according to Fair Rents Delano, a coalition of community organizations working to pass a rent control law via ballot initiative there. That dismal statistic did come with one silver lining: it wasn’t hard for organizers to collect nearly double the number of petition signatures required to get the policy on the ballot.

Should it pass, annual rent increases in Delano would be capped at 3% and tenants would be afforded additional protections from unjust evictions and harassment by landlords.

7️⃣ Benzing the law: The United Auto Workers are contesting the results of last week’s union election at the Mercedes-Benz manufacturing plant in Tuscaloosa, AL, alleging that the company committed rampant violations of NLRB policy.

Mercedes’s open opposition to workers joining the UAW fueled what the union is calling “a relentless antiunion campaign marked with unlawful discipline, unlawful captive audience meetings, and a general goal of coercing and intimidating employees.”

The UAW laid the groundwork for the objection by filing individual ULP charges against Mercedes over the course of the campaign. The NLRB is in the midst of investigating those charges, which is likely to take many months given the arduousness of the task and understaffing that has handicapped the agency.

As a result, the legal battle between the UAW and Mercedes will carry over into next year and ultimately hinge on who wins the presidency and how federal courts rule in several cases challenging the NLRB’s structure and internal court system.

More than 2000 workers at the facility voted to join the UAW, which lost by around 600 votes in an unusually high-turnout election.

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