12/28 Give It Up

Published: 12.28.20

We hope you enjoyed a restful holiday weekend. Yesterday’s front-page editorial from the New York Post said it all: “Give it up, Mr. President — for your sake and the nation’s.” Despite having endorsed Trump, The Post called on him to stop “cheering for an undemocratic coup” and undermining our democracy. Here is this week’s update:

National Update

A Coup in Congress?:  As President Trump and his allies continue to try to reverse his election loss, he’s reportedly taken an interest in Vice President Mike Pence’s role in the joint session of Congress on January 6th to count the Electoral College votes. Regardless of the President’s interest in the event, federal law does not give Pence or other members power to derail President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Read a brief preview here.

Scam-Artist-In-Chief:  GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) called on President Trump and his allies to drop their push to overturn the results of the 2020 election, referring to the effort as a “scam” during an interview Sunday with CNN’s State of the Union. Speaking with host Dana Bash, the Illinois Republican took issue with claims that Trump could overturn the election results and serve a second term. Read more here.

We Averted the Worst, But Voters Still Deserve Better: In 2020, our democracy survived some enormous threats: voter intimidation, frivolous lawsuits, harassment of election officials, and more. The  work of ensuring free, fair, secure, and accessible elections is far from complete. In a piece for The Hill,  Myrna Pérez, the deputy director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, notes “we need to learn from where our democracy came up short this year — especially for communities of color — and do even better next time.” Read more here.

State Updates

Arizona: A judge has refused to order Maricopa County supervisors to comply with a legislative subpoena demanding access to various voting records and equipment. In a ruling last week, Judge Randall Warner said he finds nothing in the Arizona Constitution that allows him to enforce such a subpoena. Read more here.

Georgia: Georgia’s election administrators are fighting bizarre conspiracy theories, ballooning costs, and coronavirus-related staffing problems as they prepare for the state’s contentious, nationally watched Senate runoffs next week. In interviews, eight Georgia election officials — including a top aide in the secretary of state’s office and county administrators from around the state — said they were confident in a smooth election on Jan. 5 to decide control of the Senate. But those runoffs have pushed election officials to their breaking point. Read more here.

Michigan: On Sunday, Trump tweeted that Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel should be “sanctioned” for stating that she would seek penalties for lawyers who filed frivolous lawsuits challenging the state’s election results, based on clearly erroneous statements. Trump referred to those lawyers as “true patriots.” Nessel responded by tweeting that “a patriot is a person who vigorously defends their country against its enemies and detractors . . . . History will reveal which you were.” Read more here.

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