Tag: voting rights
Trump Susman Godfrey order

Law Firm That Won Fox Defamation Case Files Suit Against Trump

Susman Godfrey, the firm that won a $787 million defamation lawsuit against Fox News for spreading lies about Dominion Voting Systems, is now suing the administration over President Donald Trump’s executive order “penalizing firms that employed his enemies or engaged in work he opposes,” the Daily Beast reports.

“No administration should be allowed to punish lawyers for simply doing their jobs, protecting Americans and their constitutional right to the legal process,” the firm wrote in a statement about the suit.

As the Beast reports, “On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order barring Susman Godfrey from federal contracts held by the firm’s clients, removed its employees’ security clearances, and banned them from accessing federal buildings.”

According to the suit, Trump has made “no secret of its unconstitutional retaliatory and discriminatory intent to punish Susman Godfrey for its work defending the integrity of the 2020 presidential election.”

“But this goes far beyond law firms and lawyers,” Susman Godfrey said in a statement, “Today it is our firm under attack, but tomorrow it could be any of us. As officers of the court, we are duty-bound to take on this fight against the illegal executive order.”

According to the Beast, “Four firms—including the two largest firms in the country, Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins—cut deals on Friday to avoid falling victim to one of Trump’s executive orders. They agreed to provide a total of at least $500 million in pro bono work for the current administration.”

“Susman Godfrey joined the handful of firms—including Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and WilmerHale—that have taken action against the president, calling the president’s spree of executive orders ‘so obviously unconstitutional,’” the Beast reports.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Allison Riggs

In North Carolina, Political Power Grab Thwarts Voters

Some people just won’t take no for an answer.

Put in that category the Republican candidate for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court. Jefferson Griffin lost that race to incumbent Democratic Justice Allison Riggs by just 734 votes out of more than 5.5 million cast, which has to hurt. Ask Democrat Cheri Beasley, who in 2020 lost her North Carolina chief justice race to Republican Paul Newby by about 400 votes from almost 5.4 million ballots cast.

Since two recounts have confirmed the Riggs win, you might think Griffin would have conceded by now, as Beasley did after two recounts.

You would be wrong.

Without pointing to one illegal or fraudulent vote, Griffin is trying to have 60,000 votes thrown out — including the votes of Riggs’ parents — mostly because either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number were not attached to those voters’ registrations.

There may be good reasons for that, as many registered before those items were required, or the “missing” information was not attached because of bureaucratic error. Last year, a federal judge, a Trump appointee, dismissed part of a suit brought by the Republican Party that sought to purge 225,000 voters from the rolls.

Because of North Carolina law, everyone who voted in November had to show an accepted form of ID — for many, a driver’s license. They walked out of their polling places satisfied they had performed their civic duty.

If Griffin and state Republicans have their way, many of their votes may not count.

It’s no coincidence that analysis has shown that voters the GOP point to as suspect are disproportionately young, non-white or less likely to vote for Republicans.

Griffin, who hasn’t tried to defend his reasoning out loud, is only questioning results in his race, knowing the doubt and confusion it would cause in other, already certified state races. State and federal courts, and even some right-wing, so-called voter integrity groups have in the past rejected the arguments Griffin makes.

It’s easy yet dangerous to dismiss it as the usual GOP tactic of sowing doubt about any election a Republican loses, crying “wolf” or “rigged,” while declaring an election free and fair if it goes the other way; it gradually causes Americans to reject the integrity of any election.

And it is a tactic overwhelmingly used by one party.

The difference between the two major parties on how they handle wins and losses is why the transfer of power in January 2025 — with Vice President Kamala Harris honorably certifying an electoral count she lost — looked nothing like the violent insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, when losing candidate Donald Trump incited followers to resist instead of choosing democracy.

Now, Griffin’s case is getting national attention because the GOP-dominated, seven-member North Carolina Supreme Court is giving it oxygen, offering national Republicans a blueprint. Four of the five GOP justices voted to temporarily put the brakes on the certification. Riggs understandably recused herself, and Justice Anita Earls, the only other Democrat on the court, voted to let the state Board of Elections decision, and the Riggs win, stand.

Showing some independence as well as common sense, Republican Justice Richard Dietz joined Earls in rejecting the post-election maneuvering, and wrote in dissent: “Permitting post-election litigation that seeks to rewrite our state’s election rules — and, as a result, remove the right to vote in an election from people who already lawfully voted under the existing rules — invites incredible mischief.”

A challenge to the state Supreme Court action has already come in the form of a recent filing from the Democratic National Committee. On a press call earlier this week, former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, outgoing DNC Chair Jaime Harrison and state party chair Anderson Clayton talked about what the case means beyond North Carolina.

“The eyes of the entire country are on this race because the implications of having free and fair elections that are being questioned and potentially overturned are devastating,” said Cooper. “If they are successful in this scheme,” he said, “there will be copycat lawsuits across this country for races where they don’t like the result.”

“This time it’s 60,000 ballots, next time it’s 100,000 ballots, and then it’s 250,000 ballots until no ballots get counted,” said Clayton, whose national profile rose during the swing state attention North Carolina received in the last election cycle. “This playbook is not new to our state, but it is one that Republicans will take and make a national playbook if they’re able to succeed here.”

“As a party, our responsibility is to the voters — not a politician,” said Harrison. He admitted the result at the top of the ticket was not what Democrats worked for or wanted, but noted how well his party did downballot in North Carolina, including capturing the offices of governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, and breaking, by one seat, the GOP supermajority in the state legislature.

The move to reject ballots to put Griffin on the court is a Republican reaction to those wins, Harrison said, a “temper tantrum” to try to change the rules, something GOP state legislators already did when they passed, while they still held that supermajority, last-minute laws to diminish incoming Gov. Josh Stein’s already limited powers.

Harrison, a South Carolinian, recalled a time in the South when not all Americans, including his own grandparents, had the right to vote.

Maybe Griffin and his enablers have forgotten that all-too-recent history, when brave patriots fought and died expanding that precious franchise so all Americans’ voices could be heard and respected.

Or maybe a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court is more important.

Reprinted with permission from Roll Call.

Republicans Enraged Their Wives Might 'Secretly' Vote For Harris

Republicans Enraged Their Wives Might 'Secretly' Vote For Harris

Right-wing Republicans are up in arms over a new campaign ad that reminds women their vote is private and they do not need to vote for former President Donald Trump just because their husbands want them to.

"In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want, and no one will ever know," actress Julia Roberts narrates in the ad. "Remember, what happens in the booth, stays in the booth. Vote Harris-Walz."

Pastor Doug Pagitt, the executive director of Vote Common Good, the group that made the ad, told The Wall Street Journal that he often hears from evangelical women that they feel obligated to vote the same way as their husbands. This ad, he said, gives those women the permission structure to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.

The ad has Trump-supporting Republicans pissed.

Charlie Kirk, whose Turning Point USA organization is working on the turnout operation for Trump’s campaign, said it's horrible that women would “undermine their husbands” even though the husband “works his tail off to make sure that she can have a nice life.”

Fox News' Jesse Watters went even further, saying Wednesday night that he would consider it a form of cheating if his wife voted for Harris.

“If I found out Emma was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that's the same thing as having an affair,” Watters said of his wife, who at one point was his mistress during his first marriage.

After seeing the Julia Roberts ad, John McEntee, a former Trump White House aide and Project 2025 author joked that giving women the right to vote should be repealed.

“This video has made me rethink the 19th Amendment,” McEntee said.

Trump-supporting “Christian influencer” Dale Partridge explicitly said women must vote how their husbands tell them. “In a Christian marriage, a wife should vote according to her husband’s direction. He is the head and they are one. Unity extends to politics. This is not controversial,” Partridge wrote on X.

The Republican rage that women would dare to vote Harris over Trump is yet another sign that they still do not understand that women are angry about Trump abortion bans across the country.

The Associated Press reported that women worried about reproductive freedom could swing the election to Harris in battleground states. Polling shows that women are supporting Harris by large margins, while men are backing Trump.

“In modern presidential politics, the gender gap has never been wider,” Democratic pollster Celinda Lake and Republican pollster Amanda Iovino wrote in a joint New York Times op-ed published Wednesday.

Democratic strategists added that the male reaction to the Julia Roberts spot is evidence that the ad needs to exist.

“This type of sentiment is likely not new, but it's troubling that they're so willing to be out there with it,” Christina Reynolds, communications director of EMILY’s List, which backs female candidates who support abortion rights, wrote on X. “This is why we are reminding people their vote is private.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Voting By Women

'Best News For Democrats': Surge In Early Voting By Women

On Election Night 2024, decision desks will be paying especially close attention to the vote count in Pennsylvania — a crucial swing state that has 19 electoral votes and will help decide the outcome of the presidential race.

National and battleground state polls have been showing a very close race in the Keystone State, where Republican Donald Trump and Democratic Kamala Harris are tied in CBS News and CNN polls released in late October. A Quinnipiac University poll released on October 30 showed Trump with a two percent lead in Pennsylvania. A Marist poll released on November 1 showed Harris two points head there.

Early voting is underway in Pennsylvania. And according to Politico reporters Megan Messerly and Jessica Piper, Democrats view a heavy turnout among female voters as a very good sign for Harris.

"Across battlegrounds, there is a 10-point gender gap in early voting so far," Messerly and Piper explain in an article published on October 29. "Women account for roughly 55 percent of the early vote, while men are around 45 percent, according to a Politico analysis of early vote data in several key states. The implications for next week's election results are unclear; among registered Republicans, women are voting early more than men, too. But the high female turnout is encouraging to Democratic strategists, who expected that a surge in Republican turnout would result in more gender parity among early voters."

Messerly and Piper add, "It's impossible to know who these women are voting for, including whether Democrats are winning over unaffiliated or moderate Republican women disillusioned with former President Donald Trump. But the gender gap has been one of the defining features of the 2024 campaign, and Harris allies see the lack of a surge of male voters as an encouraging sign."

Tangle News' Issac Saul tweeted that Politico's "analysis of early voting data in Pennsylvania found that women registered as Democrats made up nearly a third of early votes this year from people who did not vote in the state in 2020." And this, Saul added, is the "best news for Dems in weeks."

Democratic strategist Tom Bonier told Politico, "In some states, women are actually exceeding their vote share from 2020, which is, at this point, shocking to me. I never would have bet on that.”

Messerly and Piper report, "According to TargetSmart’s analysis, Black and Latino women under the age of 30 are not only showing up at higher rates than their male peers — but by even a larger margin than they did in 2020."

The Politico reporters add, "That finding is echoed by internal data shared with Politico by the progressive, women-focused organization Supermajority, which is targeting many of these women: More than a third of the 3.6 million low-propensity women the organization is focused on turning out have already voted, which Democrats see as a good sign given that infrequent voters tend to vote later or on Election Day."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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