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Climate Change, Poverty, and Small Business  funding.

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-Be Dependable
-Justice
-Honesty

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Biden Under Pressure to Appoint First Native American to Head Interior Department

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Biden Under Pressure to Appoint First Native American to Head Interior Department

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President-elect Joe Biden is under pressure to make history with his pick to lead the Department of the Interior by nominating the first-ever Native American to lead the federal agency, which oversees federal land and natural resources, and administers most programs related to the more than 550 federally recognized tribes.

A leading contender is Deb Haaland, a second-term House of Representatives lawmaker from New Mexico whose potentially history-making nomination has inspired a persuasion campaign by tribal leaders, environmental groups and progressive leaders. They say the congresswoman - a lawyer, climate activist and enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo - is uniquely suited to be Interior's first Indigenous leader.

"We believe it is long past time that a Native American person serve as Secretary of the Interior," more than 150 elected leaders of tribal nations wrote in a letter last week to Biden's transition team.

"Rep. Haaland has championed the environment, helped lead efforts to address climate change, and worked to improve the nation-to-nation relationship between our Tribes and the United States - all issues within the Department of the Interior's responsibilities."

The high-profile push to bring Haaland's Interior candidacy to the fore began just days after television networks declared Biden and Kamala Harris the winners of the 2020 election.

On November 13, a dozen environmental organizations said in a letter to Biden that they could "think of no better person to run the Department of the Interior" than Haaland, who would make the agency a "true long-term steward of our nation's most precious resources."

The next day, three dozen groups affiliated with the Indigenous Environmental Network sent a letter saying Haaland was the ideal pick to "help facilitate the Biden/Harris vision for dealing with climate change, addressing the COVID-19 pandemic in Indian Country, ensuring an effective economic just recovery plan for Tribes and communities, overseeing the protection of public lands and fulfilling all treaty and statutory obligations."

"The first Indigenous woman to head the Department of Interior will inspire and provide hope not only to the Indigenous Peoples of this land, but also to all those who have vision for the future," the network wrote.

Haaland's congressional office declined to comment on the selection process for the Interior post. Biden's transition team declined to comment on its deliberations or when the president-elect will make an announcement.

Haaland has made history before. When she was elected to the House of Representatives in 2018, she was one of the first two Native American women to serve in Congress, along with fellow Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids from Kansas. Haaland, a former state party chair, had centered her campaign on combating climate change.

During Haaland's first term, she became vice chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, where she also chaired its subcommittee on national parks and public lands. Haaland, the daughter of two veterans - her father was in the Marines and her mother in the Navy - also serves on the chamber's Armed Services Committee. She handily won her re-election bid in November by more than 15 points.

More than 50 of Haaland's Democratic House colleagues said in a letter to Biden last month that "she has distinguished herself as a respected leader within our caucus" during her first two years in office, citing her leadership on climate issues and her committee stewardship of two public lands bills that were signed into law.

"You can make history by giving Native Americans a seat at the Cabinet table for the first time. We strongly recommend that you nominate Rep. Deb Haaland for this important role," National Resources Committee Chair Raul Grijalva wrote on behalf of the lawmakers.

If Haaland has a factor working against her it is the same one that her supporters believe makes her the best pick for the job: her bona fides with the Democratic Party's progressive wing and policy positions that are to the left of Biden's.

Haaland protested the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock in 2016. She backs the Green New Deal to address climate change and economic inequality, which Biden does not support in full but calls a "crucial framework." She holds a leadership role in the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Before backing Biden, Haaland co-chaired the presidential campaign of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a fellow progressive.

Haaland then became enthusiastically involved in Biden's campaign, joining his Climate Engagement Advisory Council and hosting Indigenous Women for Biden events. She helped the campaign mark Indigenous Peoples' Day by appearing with other elected officials and tribal leaders at an October event that highlighted Biden's plan for tribal nations.

In recent weeks, unnamed "Biden advisers" have questioned whether Haaland has the right experience for the Interior role. A Biden representative said the remarks were not coming from members of the transition team. "No one is trying to discount Deb Haaland - or her experience," he said.

No decision has been made, and other candidates are still under consideration, including Michael Connor, a member of the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico and a former deputy Interior secretary during the Obama administration. Also thought to be a serious contender is New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall, a Democrat who is retiring at the end of the year and, shortly after the election, released a document highlighting his work on behalf of Native communities.

The Interior Department was created in 1849 and its leader holds a Cabinet-level position that requires Senate confirmation. It employs about 70,000 people across nine divisions, including the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the National Park Service and the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.

Biden's Interior pick will likely move early on to reverse a push during the Trump administration to open additional federal lands to oil and gas extraction. Trump's first Interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, left the post after the department's Office of Inspector General began investigating expensive flights and other expenditures. His replacement, David Bernhardt, was a deputy secretary and oil industry lobbyist. Biden has promised to end all new fossil fuel extraction on public lands.
Originally published by The 19th

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Biden Under Pressure to Appoint First Native American to Head Interior Department

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President-elect Joe Biden is under pressure to make history with his pick to lead the Department of the Interior by nominating the first-ever Native American to lead the federal agency, which oversees federal land and natural resources, and administers most programs related to the more than 550 federally recognized tribes.

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Scientists Suggest U.S. Embassies Were Hit With High-Power Microwaves – Here’s How The Weapons Work

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Scientists Suggest U.S. Embassies Were Hit With High-Power Microwaves – Here’s How The Weapons Work

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The mystery ailment that has afflicted U.S. embassy staff and CIA officers off and on over the last four years in Cuba, China, Russia and other countries appears to have been caused by high-power microwaves, according to a report released by the National Academies. A committee of 19 experts in medicine and other fields concluded that directed, pulsed radiofrequency energy is the "most plausible mechanism" to explain the illness, dubbed Havana syndrome.

The report doesn't clear up who targeted the embassies or why they were targeted. But the technology behind the suspected weapons is well understood and dates back to the Cold War arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. High-power microwave weapons are generally designed to disable electronic equipment. But as the Havana syndrome reports show, these pulses of energy can harm people, as well.

As an electrical and computer engineer who designs and builds sources of high-power microwaves, I have spent decades studying the physics of these sources, including work with the U.S. Department of Defense. Directed energy microwave weapons convert energy from a power source - a wall plug in a lab or the engine on a military vehicle - into radiated electromagnetic energy and focus it on a target. The directed high-power microwaves damage equipment, particularly electronics, without killing nearby people.

Two good examples are Boeing's Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), which is a high-power microwave source mounted in a missile, and Tactical High-power Operational Responder (THOR), which was recently developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory to knock out swarms of drones.

Cold War origins

These types of directed energy microwave devices came on the scene in the late 1960s in the U.S. and the Soviet Union. They were enabled by the development of pulsed power in the 1960s. Pulsed power generates short electrical pulses that have very high electrical power, meaning both high voltage - up to a few megavolts - and large electrical currents - tens of kiloamps. That's more voltage than the highest-voltage long-distance power transmission lines, and about the amount of current in a lightning bolt.

Plasma physicists at the time realized that if you could generate, for example, a 1-megavolt electron beam with 10-kiloamp current, the result would be a beam power of 10 billion watts, or gigawatts. Converting 10% of that beam power into microwaves using standard microwave tube technology that dates back to the 1940s generates 1 gigawatt of microwaves. For comparison, the output power of today's typical microwave ovens is around a thousand watts - a million times smaller.

The development of this technology led to a subset of the U.S.-Soviet arms race - a microwave power derby. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, I and other American scientists gained access to Russian pulsed power accelerators, like the SINUS-6 that is still working in my lab. I had a fruitful decade of collaboration with my Russian colleagues, which swiftly ended following Vladimir Putin's rise to power.

Edl Schamiloglu, University of New Mexico, CC BY-ND

Today, research in high-power microwaves continues in the U.S. and Russia but has exploded in China. I have visited labs in Russia since 1991 and labs in China since 2006, and the investment being made by China dwarfs activity in the U.S. and Russia. Dozens of countries now have active high-power microwave research programs.
Lots of power, little heat
Although these high-power microwave sources generate very high power levels, they tend to generate repeated short pulses. For example, the SINUS-6 in my lab produces an output pulse on the order of 10 nanoseconds, or billionths of a second. So even when generating 1 gigawatt of output power, a 10-nanosecond pulse has an energy content of only 10 joules. To put this in perspective, the average microwave oven in one second generates 1 kilojoule, or thousand joules of energy. It typically takes about 4 minutes to boil a cup of water, which corresponds to 240 kilojoules of energy.

This is why microwaves generated by these high-power microwave weapons don't generate noticeable amounts of heat, let alone cause people to explode like baked potatoes in microwave ovens.

High power is important in these weapons because generating very high instantaneous power yields very high instantaneous electric fields, which scale as the square root of the power. It is these high electric fields that can disrupt electronics, which is why the Department of Defense is interested in these devices.

[ Understand new developments in science, health and technology, each week. Subscribe to The Conversation's science newsletter.]
How it affects people
The National Academies report links high-power microwaves to impacts on people through the Frey effect. The human head acts as a receiving antenna for microwaves in the low gigahertz frequency range. Pulses of microwaves in these frequencies can cause people to hear sounds, which is one of the symptoms reported by the affected U.S. personnel. Other symptoms Havana syndrome sufferers have reported include headaches, nausea, hearing loss, lightheadedness and cognitive issues.

The report notes that electronic devices were not disrupted during the attacks, suggesting that the power levels needed for the Frey effect are lower than would be required for an attack on electronics. This would be consistent with a high-power microwave weapon located at some distance from the targets. Power decreases dramatically with distance through the inverse square law, which means one of these devices could produce a power level at the target that would be too low to affect electronics but that could induce the Frey effect.

The Russians and the Chinese certainly possess the capabilities of fielding high-power microwave sources like the ones that appear to have been used in Cuba and China. The truth of what actually happened to U.S. personnel in Cuba and China - and why - might remain a mystery, but the technology most likely involved comes from textbook physics, and the military powers of the world continue to develop and deploy it.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Scientists Suggest U.S. Embassies Were Hit With High-Power Microwaves - Here's How The Weapons Work

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The mystery ailment that has afflicted U.S. embassy staff and CIA officers off and on over the last four years in Cuba, China, Russia and other countries appears to have been caused by high-power microwaves, according to a report released by the National Academies.

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Tens of Thousands of Federal Workers Can Expect to Receive the COVID-19 Vaccine As Early As Next Week

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Tens of Thousands of Federal Workers Can Expect to Receive the COVID-19 Vaccine As Early As Next Week

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Civilian federal personnel are likely to begin receiving COVID-19 vaccinations as soon as Monday, officials said on Friday, though only employees at certain offices will receive the doses directly from their agencies.

The Indian Health Service plans to inoculate its entire health care staff of 44,000 in its initial distribution of vaccines, the agency said on Friday. That process will begin as soon as Monday, though not all workers will receive their first of two doses at that time. IHS will receive 22,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine within 24 hours of the Food and Drug Administration issuing an emergency use authorization, which is expected shortly. Individual facilities around the country will make their own determinations as to which employees they vaccinate first, based on a variety of factors including whether the employees work in emergency services.

The rest of the workforce will wait until IHS receives an initial batch of 46,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine upon its authorization, which FDA is also expected to issue before the end of the year. That will allow all IHS health care personnel to receive their first shots. That total includes both federal and non-federal staffers. All health care employees, as well as residents of long-term care facilities, are part of "phase 1-A" of IHS' distribution plan. They will have to await additional distributions to receive their second dose, which must take place within three-to-four weeks of the first shot.

IHS' National Supply Service Center will eventually oversee the delivery of vaccines directly from manufacturers to 338 IHS facilities and Urban Indian Organizations. Officials said on Friday IHS has facilitated "extensive collaboration" with each of its geographic areas to ensure "robust distribution plans," including the requisite freezer capacity or ultra-cold shipping containers. After the initial distribution of vaccines, IHS will allocate additional doses as they become available based on population and various constituent risk factors.

The Defense Department also anticipates vaccinating 44,000 employees next week, officials said on Wednesday, the vast majority of whom will be health care staff. The Pentagon plans to provide vaccines to both military and civilian staff, though it has not committed to vaccinating to its entire civil service workforce.

"The eligibility we defined in terms of dependents, select contractors, civilian employees, and it's going to be then how do they match up in terms of the prioritization tiers," said Tom McCaffery, the assistant secretary of Defense for Health Affairs.

In the initial phase, Defense will target health care workers who are closest to patients, early emergency responders and public security staff. Defense will distribute vaccines to 16 sites in that phase, 13 of which are located within the United States. McCaffery said the department recently held a "virtual tabletop exercise" to go through the first phase "in great detail to ensure seamless distribution and dissemination" of the vaccine. Defense will ultimately be responsible for vaccinating millions of individuals, including active duty personnel, civilian workers, at-risk dependents and some contractors.

All told, Defense maintains 83 sites that have ultra-cold storage, including all 13 of those in the initial distribution. The Veterans Affairs Department announced this week it would kick off its inoculation program with a distribution of 73,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, to be followed by 128,000 doses of Moderna's product. Those vaccines will only inoculate a small portion of VA's 400,000-person workforce and the 8 million veterans who receive care through the department, all of whom VA will eventually offer to vaccinate.

There is no mandate for employees offered the vaccine to take it, but both Defense and IHS officials plan messaging campaigns to encourage those within their jurisdictions to voluntarily get inoculated, including by holding up high-ranking officials as examples. Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, as well as the deputy secretary, the chairman of the joint chiefs, the vice chairman of the joint chiefs and the senior enlisted advisor to the joint staff will receive the vaccine in the initial phase of the Pentagon's distribution along with health care staff. At IHS, U.S. Public Health Force Cmdr. Kailee Fretland said the agency will work with tribal elders to ensure they get early doses and can communicate the importance of vaccination to their tribes. IHS will also work with the Health and Human Services Department and bring on contractors to help with messaging to the "vaccine hesitant," Fretland said.

The plan to vaccinate political leaders at Defense will anger at least some federal employee groups, who had pushed the Trump administration to ensure only career workers went to the front of the line.

"Essential workers and others who are critical to our nation's infrastructure, defense, economy, justice system and health should be moved toward the front of the line to receive the vaccine," said Paul Shearon, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers union. "But we are concerned that political appointees who are leaving government service next month may try to overtake them or skip the line altogether prior to their departure."

In addition to IHS, Defense and VA, the Bureau of Prisons and State Department will receive their own vaccine distributions. A State spokesperson said the department's Bureau of Medical Services is carrying out the vaccine delivery plan, which is encountering "significant distribution challenges." The department has declined to share details on the timing or logistics of deployment "due to operational sensitivity." State is weighing vaccine availability against the risk posed to each foreign post and domestic facility in deciding to whom and where its doses go, the spokesperson said.

"This will allow the department to advance U.S. national security interests and ensure America's essential diplomacy continues unimpeded," the spokesperson explained. "Protecting and promoting the health, safety, and security of the department's workforce is our top priority so that we can continue to carry out our mission on behalf of the American people."

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Tens of Thousands of Federal Workers Can Expect to Receive the COVID-19 Vaccine As Early As Next Week

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Civilian federal personnel are likely to begin receiving COVID-19 vaccinations as soon as Monday, officials said on Friday, though only employees at certain offices will receive the doses directly from their agencies. The Indian Health Service plans to inoculate its entire health care staff of 44,000 in its initial distribution of vaccines, the agency said on Friday.

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Threat of government shutdown looms amid holdups to spending bill vote

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Threat of government shutdown looms amid holdups to spending bill vote

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threat of government shutdown looms amid holdups to spending bill vote  - cnnpolitics

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Threat of government shutdown looms amid holdups to spending bill vote

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Senate leaders are trying to resolve last minute objections to two must-pass bills, which could trigger a brief government shutdown, even as they struggle to reach critical deals on a new pandemic stimulus and a sweeping government funding package before the end of the year.

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Supreme Court rejects Republican attack on Biden victory

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Supreme Court rejects Republican attack on Biden victory

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HOUSTON (AP) - The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a lawsuit backed by President Donald Trump to overturn Joe Biden's election victory, ending a desperate attempt to get legal issues rejected by state and federal judges before the nation's highest court.

The court's order was its second this week rebuffing Republican requests that it get involved in the 2020 election outcome. The justices turned away an appeal from Pennsylvania Republicans on Tuesday.

The Electoral College meets Monday to formally elect Biden as the next president.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP's earlier story follows below.

HOUSTON (AP) - More than half of House Republicans, including their top two leaders, are backing a Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate President-elect Joe Biden's victory in an extraordinary display of the party's willingness to subvert the will of voters.

Seventeen Republican attorneys general and 126 members of Congress have joined Texas and President Donald Trump in urging the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out millions of votes in four battleground states based on baseless claims of fraud. On Friday, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana signed onto a brief backing the longshot bid, demonstrating Trump's remarkable political power even even as he spreads false claims that many Democrats and others fear risk deeply damaging democracy.

"This lawsuit is an act of flailing GOP desperation, which violates the principles enshrined in our American Democracy," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in a message to Democrats on Friday.

A few Republicans have expressed concerns about the case. Many others have remained silent.

"Texas is a big state, but I don't know exactly why it has a right to tell four other states how to run their elections. So I'm having a hard time figuring out the basis for that lawsuit," Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander told NBC's Chuck Todd in an interview for "Meet The Press" that will air Sunday.

To be clear, there has been no evidence of widespread fraud. Election law experts think the lawsuit will never last.

"The Supreme Court is not going to overturn the election in the Texas case, as the President has told them to do," tweeted Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine. "But we are in bad shape as a country that 17 states could support this shameful, anti-American filing" by Texas and its attorney general, Ken Paxton, he said.

The lawsuit filed against Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin repeats false, disproven, and unsubstantiated accusations about the voting in four states that went for Trump's Democratic challenger. The case demands that the high court invalidate the states' 62 total Electoral College votes. That's an unprecedented remedy in American history: setting aside the votes of tens of millions of people, under the baseless claim the Republican incumbent lost a chance at a second term due to widespread fraud.

Two days after Paxton sued, 17 states filed a motion supporting the lawsuit, and on Thursday six of those states asked to join the case themselves. Trump has acted to join the case, tweeting Thursday that "the Supreme Court has a chance to save our Country from the greatest Election abuse in the history of the United States." Hours later, Trump held a meeting at the White House, scheduled before the suit was filed, with a dozen Republican attorneys general, including Paxton and several others who are backing the effort.

Still, some of the top state Republican prosecutors urging the Supreme Court to hear the case have acknowledged that the effort is a long shot and are seeking to distance themselves from Trump's baseless allegations of fraud. North Dakota's Wayne Stenehjem, among the 17 attorneys general supporting the case, said North Dakota is not alleging voter fraud in the four states at issue.

"We're careful on that," said Stenehjem, who noted that his office has received thousands of calls and emails from constituents asking the state to support the suit. "But it's worth it for the Supreme Court to weigh in and settle it once and for all," he said.

The case has inflamed already high tensions over the election. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said his office staff received two death threats Thursday after he signed onto the brief supporting the case.

The lawsuit has also divided officials in some states.

Montana Attorney General Tim Fox is supporting Texas' case, even though he said the suit was "belated" and its chances "are slim at best." Fox said the case raised "important constitutional questions about the separation of powers and the integrity of mail-in ballots in those defendant states."

But Gov. Steve Bullock, D-Mont., urged the court to reject the case. He said the fact that Texas is not suing Montana, which Trump won, even though the state similarly used mail-in ballots underscores that "this action is less about election integrity than it is about attempting to overturn the will of the electorate."

The litigation rankled Democratic attorneys general. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, co-chair of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, called the attempt to overturn votes "unconscionable." Support among other leading lawyers was disturbing, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, who's also co-chair of the Democratic attorneys general group, told The Associated Press.

"I do think that these individuals are kowtowing to a president who has implemented some level of control and authority over the duly elected attorneys general in their states in a way that is unfortunate," he said.

"I do think that this is a dangerous precedent to initiate."

Suits brought by Trump and his allies have failed repeatedly across the country, and the Supreme Court this week rejected a Republican bid to reverse Pennsylvania's certification of Biden's victory.

Trump has spent the week relentlessly tweeting about the Texas case with the hashtag "overturn" and claiming, falsely, that he had won the election but was robbed.

Many of the attorneys general supporting the case have shown greater political ambitions.

In Kansas, Republican Attorney General Derek Schmidt, who is considering a bid for governor in 2022, announced that he would back the effort only hours after former Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer - another potential candidate for governor - tweeted that Schmidt's office should.

Officials in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin say the suit is a publicity stunt. More than 20 other attorneys general from states including California and Virginia also filed a brief Thursday urging the court to reject the case.

Despite the political pressure, Idaho's Republican attorney general chose not to join Texas.

"As is sometimes the case, the legally correct decision may not be the politically convenient decision," Lawrence Wasden said in a statement. "But my responsibility is to the state of Idaho and the rule of law."

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Richer reported from Boston. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers David Pitt in Des Moines, Iowa; John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; Amy Beth Hanson in Helena, Montana; James MacPherson in Bismarck, North Dakota, Keith Ridler in Boise, Idaho; Michelle Price in Las Vegas and Sophia Eppolito and Lindsay Whitehurst in Salt Lake City.
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Hundreds of GOP members sign onto Texas-led election lawsuit | Federal News Network

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HOUSTON (AP) - The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a lawsuit backed by President Donald Trump to overturn Joe Biden's election victory, ending a desperate attempt to get legal issues rejected by state and federal judges before the nation's highest court.

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Things I “know” and “want to know” about Government/Government related topics/issues

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Things I “know” and “want to know” about Government/Government related topics/issues

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Know: Protests about BLM, Lawsuit filed against "Illegal" voting, Climate Change
Want To Know: How is the government dealing with BLM?

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"Make All Debts Dischargeable in Bankruptcy"

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With Joe Biden leading the charge for the democrats he wins the presidential election.

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" The Democratic Party was founded on the promise of an expanded democracy... Democrats believe we must make it easier to vote, not harder."

Voter purging . Voter fraud . Voter suppression . Russian interference . If you've ever had an issue with voting, you know that it can be daunting. It can be overwhelming. It might even start to feel like no one else is paying attention. Well, here's the good news: We're paying attention. The Civic Engagement and Voter Protection team is dedicated to protecting our democracy. We are working around the clock to educate voters and fight voter suppression. We are dedicated to ensuring that all voters have equal access to the ballot box. Together we can protect the right to vote and take back the White House in 2020.

Who we are & what we do

The Civic Engagement and Voter Protection department is concerned with safeguarding the right to vote by ensuring fair, accessible elections. To further our mission, our department works closely with local, state, and national partners to implement voter education and voting rights programming and strategies.

How we can help

We can provide assistance for two areas: simple issues and complex issues. Simple issues such as voter registration, updating voter information, and checking polling locations can be done through IWillVote.com.

If the issue is outside of the scope of IWillVote, it is probably a complex issue. In such instances, we recommend voters call us at 1-833-DEM-VOTE (1-833-336-8683). Our voter hotline is monitored by DNC employees 24/7/365 who are ready to field questions pertaining to felon disenfranchisement, voter purging, poll worker misconduct, voter machines, accessibility, and more.

How you can help

There are tangible ways that you can help promote and protect voting rights in your own community! Applying to be a poll worker in your community can have a huge impact on elections. We also have an Election Advocate Program, in which volunteers advocate for programs and policies in their counties.

You can also join our Facebook group! We encourage our members to share voting information pertinent to their state and respective communities!

Resources

IWillVote: Use IWillVote to register to vote, update voter information, locate your polling location, and more!

Voter Hotline: Call 1-833-DEM-VOTE (1-833-336-8683) for complex issues. Our 24/7 hotline is monitored by DNC employees.

Facebook: Connect with us on Facebook to stay up to date on voter protection news, events, volunteer opportunities, and more in your area!

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" The Democratic Party was founded on the promise of an expanded democracy... Democrats believe we must make it easier to vote, not harder." Voter purging . Voter fraud . Voter suppression . Russian interference . If you've ever had an issue with voting, you know that it can be daunting.

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Thoughts and opinions on Absentee vs in-person voting

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Thoughts and opinions on Absentee vs in-person voting

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By submitting votes through online/ mail it will be safer for the voters however if they do in-person voting it's more legit and is harder for voters to make "illegal" votes.

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Trump Nominates Amy Coney Barrett To the Supreme Court (Supreme Court Nominee/confirmation Article)

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Trump Nominates Amy Coney Barrett To the Supreme Court (Supreme Court Nominee/confirmation Article)

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President Trump's selection of Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg came just 38 days before the presidential election on Nov. 3.

The move to have her on the court by then has ignited a major partisan battle on Capitol Hill.

Democrats have lambasted Trump and Republicans for moving forward with the nomination so close to the election, especially when the Republican-led Senate in 2016 refused to hold hearings for then-President Barack Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, nearly eight months before that year's election.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says this year is different because Republicans control both the White House and the Senate.

"The Senate has more than sufficient time to process the nomination. History and precedent make that perfectly clear," he said.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is slated to begin hearings on Oct. 12. The committee is expected to vote on the nomination on Oct. 22, but the timing for voting on her nomination on the Senate floor is not yet settled.
What modern history shows
Only two justices since President Gerald Ford's administration in the 1970s have been confirmed in so quick a time: John Paul Stevens, confirmed 16 days after his nomination was sent to the Senate; and Sandra Day O'Connor, confirmed 33 days after her nomination was sent to the Senate.

Chief Justice John Roberts is also considered to have had a short nomination process - but with a caveat: It was his second nomination. He was first nominatedas an associate justice to fill the seat of O'Connor after she announced her retirement in July 2005.

However, after the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist two months later, Roberts' nomination was withdrawn and resubmitted to fill Rehnquist's seat. That second nomination process was short: only 24 days from the announcement to the final Senate vote.
What's the process?
After a president announces a nominee to the bench, the Senate Judiciary Committee does a background and credential check before undergoing a series of hearings, in which senators can ask the nominee questions about his or her experience and qualifications.

There can be lag time between when a president initially announces his nominee to the court and when the Senate officially receives the nomination. In the case of O'Connor, the distinction is especially important. President Ronald Reagan announced his intention to nominate O'Connor in early July of 1981 but it wasn't until mid-August that she was officially nominated, following a background check.

Some nominees have taken themselves out of the process, like Harriet Miers, who withdrew her name from consideration 24 days after being announced as President George W. Bush's nominee to fill O'Connor's seat.

After hearings, the Senate committee then sends the nomination to the full Senate for a vote, noting whether or not it does so with a recommendation.

One of the longest confirmation processes in recent history belongs to Justice Clarence Thomas, which took 106 days from the time he was initially announced to the Senate's final vote.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court seat made vacant by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has a relatively short record as a federal judge, but a long track record as a conservative lawyer and law professor.

Barrett met Tuesday with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Republican senators ahead of her confirmation hearing that begins Oct. 12. As part of the process, the Senate Judiciary Committee released a 65-page questionnaire Barrett answered, along with 1,800 pages of documents, 150 speeches and writings, and nearly 100 opinions she has written and more than 800 appeals in which she participated.

Here are highlights from the questionnaire:
The White House contacted Barrett a day after Ginsburg's death
Barrett says she received a call on Saturday, Sept. 19, from Pat Cipollone, counsel to the president, and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to discuss the vacancy created by Ginsburg's death the previous day.

A day later, she says, the two men called her again and asked her to come to Washington. Trump called her later that day to confirm the invitation.

On Monday, Sept. 21, three days after Ginsburg's death, Barrett met with Trump, Vice President Pence, Cipollone and Meadows in Washington, where Trump offered her the nomination and she accepted - pending vetting.
What Barrett would recuse herself from
Barrett said she'd recuse herself from cases involving her husband, Jesse Barrett, and her sister Amanda Coney Williams, both attorneys. She also said she'd recuse herself from those cases involving Notre Dame, where she taught law, and from matters in which she participated in while a judge on the court of appeals.

But it is what's not in the list of recusals that's more interesting: Barrett did not say she would recuse herself from cases related to the outcome of November's presidential election.

Trump has made Barrett's confirmation a key election issue, noting that a full complement of nine justices should hear the case if the election is legally challenged. Senate Democrats have called for Barrett to publicly recuse herself from any election-related cases before the courtbecause of Trump's comments. Her silence on the matter is likely to add to their uneasiness about her nomination.

Barrett previously provided "briefing and research" assistance in Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court case that decided the 2000 election, while she worked as an associate at Baker Botts, the law firm that represented then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

"I worked on the case on location in Florida for about a week at the outset of the litigation," Barrett wrote in her questionnaire. "I worked with Stuart Levy, a partner at the firm, while the case was in Florida courts. I did not continue working on the case after my return to Washington."

The Supreme Court ultimately decided the case in Bush's favor.
Speaking engagements with conservative groups
Barrett has a long history of talking to conservative groups that share her philosophy.

Her questionnaire lists a total of 25 appearances before the conservative Federalist Society, whose leaders helped Trump screen his potential nominees for the Supreme Court, including this one. Sixteen of Barrett's Federalist Society appearances occurred after she became a federal judge in November 2017.

In terms of her other speaking engagements, she has spoken multiple times before the Blackstone Legal Fellowship, a Christian group run by the Alliance Defending Freedom, the organization that represented a funeral home in a pivotal LGBT employment-discrimination case that came before the Supreme Court in the 2019-2020 court term.

According to its website, the Alliance Defending Freedom, or ADF, was founded in 1993 with the stated goal of advocating, training and funding legal cases on the issues of "religious freedom, sanctity of life, and marriage and family."

When asked in 2017 during her confirmation hearings for the 7th Circuit about her connection to the group and its anti-LGBTQ worldview, Barrett replied: "I would never impose my own personal convictions upon the law."

Previous disclosure forms show that between 2015 and 2017, when she became a judge, Barrett received $4,200 in honoraria from the ADF and $7,000 from the Federalist Society, and she went on 10 Federalist society-funded trips.

Fix The Court, a non-partisan judicial watchdog group, reports that Barrett's most recent financial disclosure form in 2019 listed investments of $3.1 million, in addition to her ownership of two homes in South Bend, Ind., one that she lives in with her family, and another that has, in the past, been rented out.

Senate Republicans plan to move forward with Judge Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court nomination with hearings before the Judiciary Committee starting Oct. 12.

Barrett's likely confirmation will lock in arguably the most conservative Supreme Court since the 1930s, with the potential to weaken patient protections of the Affordable Care Act and abortion rights in Roe v. Wade, among other decisions.

"I think she's a strong nominee," said Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who sits on the committee.

Barrett, a judge on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, has conservative views on abortion rights, the Affordable Care Act, guns and campus sexual assault issues. She clerked for the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, calling his "judicial philosophy ... mine, too."

Cruz told NPR's Steve Inskeep on Morning Edition that Barrett "has an impeccable background."

She has only been on the appeals court since 2017 after President Trump nominated her.

"I think she handled herself quite well" at confirmation hearings in 2017, Cruz said. "So I think she has strong attributes. My preference is always someone with a longer proven record. But I think she will make a strong justice."

Cruz said he believes that "Republicans have a much lousier record" historically than Democrats when it comes to appointing Supreme Court justices.

"Almost every Democratic nominee votes exactly as the Democratic president who appointed them would have wanted in virtually every case," Cruz said. But Republican nominees "bat .500 at best."

Too often, as Cruz argues in his new book, One Vote Away, justices appointed by Republican presidents violate "their oath of office and the Constitution" by switching to make what he views as liberal decisions.

Cruz writes in the book that having five conservative justices on the Supreme Court "can ensure the American experiment continues to thrive, but five liberal activist justices could fundamentally transform our Nation."

He adds, "And far more often than we should be comfortable with, we are
just one vote away from losing these fundamental rights and freedoms."

Barrett's likely confirmation will mean conservatives will have a 6-3 majority on the high court. Chief Justice John Roberts, who is considered a conservative, has in the past sided with the court's liberals in some controversial decisions, including to uphold the ACA. With Barrett's addition, a potential Roberts swing vote will no longer be enough to sway divided court decisions in liberals' favor.

The most pressing Supreme Court decision may come in November. Trump said he expects the election results to end up at the court and wants nine justices in place by then. Republican lawyers are on standby to file aggressive legal challenges around voting issues.

Cruz said he does not think Barrett should recuse herself from a court decision on the election should it come before her as a justice.

"The reason we need a fully functioning court is to have nine justices who can resolve any dispute and ensure that the law and Constitution are followed," Cruz told NPR.

A Supreme Court with eight justices, as it is now, "lacks the constitutional authority to decide anything," Cruz said. "And so we could have multiple conflicting opinions from multiple courts of appeals and weeks or months of chaos and uncertainty."

That differs from what Cruz said in 2016. After Scalia's death, Senate Republicans refused to consider President Barack Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, for most of the year.

"There is certainly long historical precedent for a Supreme Court with fewer justices," Cruz told reporters in October 2016.

Republicans now argue they were justified in their inaction because Obama was a Democrat while the Senate was GOP-controlled. This time, they say, both the White House and the Senate are held by Republicans.
Reena Advani and Jim Wildman produced the audio interview.

Sen. Ted Cruz Says Judge Amy Coney Barrett 'Will Make A Strong Justice'

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Sunday implored Senate Republicans not to act on President Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court until after the American people finish selecting their next president.

"There are Senate Republicans out there who know in their hearts that if they shut out the voices of those during a voting period, during an election, they're closing the door on American democracy thereafter," Biden said during a speech in his hometown of Wilmington, Del.

"I urge every senator to take a step back from the brink, take off the blinders of politics for just one critical moment, and stand up for the Constitution you swore to uphold," said Biden, a longtime former senator himself. "Just because you have the power to do something doesn't absolve you of your responsibility to do right by the American people. Uphold your constitutional duty, summon your conscience."

Biden argued that since voters have already begun participating in the democratic process through early-voting and casting their mail-in ballots, it's crucial to hold off on any consideration of a Supreme Court nominee until the election results are known.

"If we're going to call ourselves a democracy, their voices must be heard," Biden said.

The Democratic nominee also emphasized the proximity of Barrett's nomination to an upcoming case before the Supreme Court that challenges the Affordable Care Act.

Barrett could cast a pivotal vote in that decision, as she has previously criticized Chief Justice John Roberts for his reasoning in upholding the health care law.

"The Republican Party has been trying to eliminate [the ACA] for a decade. Twice already, the Supreme Court has upheld that law. And the Congress, expressing the popular will of the American people, has rejected President Trump's efforts as well," Biden said. "It should come as no surprise that on Saturday, President Trump would nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett and on Sunday lay out clearly what is objective is: to terminate Obamacare."

Trump tweeted Sunday morning that the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, would be replaced with a "cheaper alternative if it is terminated in the Supreme Court."

Obamacare will be replaced with a MUCH better, and FAR cheaper, alternative if it is terminated in the Supreme Court. Would be a big WIN for the USA!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2020

This isn't the first time Biden has asked Republican lawmakers to respect the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dying wish that she "not be replaced until a new president is installed."

Speaking in Philadelphia two days after Ginsburg's death, Biden called on a "handful" of Republicans to "follow your conscience."

On Sunday, Biden told reporters he hasn't reached out directly to any Senate Republicans, saying he didn't want to put them in a compromising position.

"I concluded that that would put them in a position if they were to vote the right way that they'd be compromised because I called them. I have great respect for a number of my former Republican colleagues and I'm hoping they will do the right thing."

The second-highest ranking Senate Democrat conceded Sunday that his side can't halt Judge Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation to the nation's high court.

President Trump on Saturday nominated the 48-year-old Barrett to fill the vacancy left by the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

"We can slow it down, perhaps a matter of hours, maybe days at the most. But we can't stop the outcome," Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin said on ABC's This Week.

A Senate Republican aide has told NPR that confirmation hearings for Barrett are set to begin on Oct. 12.

Barrett's nomination and the resulting political repercussions dominated the Sunday political talk shows.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told NBC's Meet the Press he sees the Republicans scheduling a vote for Barrett as the "height of hypocrisy."

In 2016, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., successfully blocked then-President Barack Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, eight months before the election.

"Which precedent do you really believe in?" Booker asked. "Because you can't say one thing and then do another. Barack Obama was putting up a nominee 269 days before an election and now we see Donald Trump doing it while people are voting in the midst of an election."

But Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., doesn't see it that way.

"In 2018, we had about as clear a national referendum as we could," he told CNN, referencing the expansion of the Republican majority in the Senate, while neglecting the Democrats' victories in the House. "It was a clear mandate for a Republican Senate to continue confirming this president's outstanding judicial nominees - and that's what we're going to do to Judge Barrett next month."

Barrett is Trump's third Supreme Court nominee in three-plus years.

A new poll from The New York Times and Siena College on Sunday found that a majority of likely voters in this year's presidential election said that whoever wins the contest should nominate a justice.

Senate Judiciary Committee member John Kennedy, R-La., also defended the decision to proceed with Barrett's nomination, telling Fox News Sunday that the Constitution's provisions on Supreme Court vacancies are "unaffected by the electoral calendar."

"When the Democrats are in charge of the process, they do what they think is right, consistent with the Constitution," Kennedy said. "When the Republicans are in charge of the process, they do what they think is right."

He added: "We have a Republican president. We have a Republican Senate. If the shoe were on the other foot, I can assure you Sen. [Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer would do what the Republicans are doing right now."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told CNN's State of the Union that she's concerned about a case scheduled to be heard before the Supreme Court a week after the Nov. 3 election, on the Affordable Care Act.

"Anyone that President Trump would have appointed was there to undo the Affordable Care Act," Pelosi said. "That is why he was in such a hurry, so he could have someone in place for the oral arguments, which begin Nov. 10."

Barrett has previously criticized Chief Justice John Roberts for his reasoning in upholding the Affordable Care Act. If confirmed, Barrett's vote on the upcoming challenge to the ACA could be pivotal.

Durbin, the Senate minority whip who's also a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he believes Barrett should recuse herself on any case brought before the court dealing with the results of the 2020 election.

"I certainly wish she would; it would really help matters and it would evidence the fact that she wants to be fair in addressing this," Durbin said. "To think that [Trump] would not accept the verdict of the election, and that he would make it clear that he's filling this vacancy on the Supreme Court to make sure it tips his way if there's any election contest, that is an outrage."

In response to President Trump's nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, Democratic nominee Joe Biden urged Democrats to vote in the presidential election to protect the Affordable Care Act.

"Vote like your health care is on the ballot - because it is," Biden tweeted.

Congressional Democrats have signaled that's how they are going to try and fight Barrett's nomination.

"The American people should make no mistake-a vote by any Senator for Judge Amy Coney Barrett is a vote to strike down the Affordable Care Act and eliminate protections for millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement on Saturday.

In his own longer statement, Biden noted that voting is already underway in the United States, and referenced health care and other issues important to progressives.

"They are voting because their health care hangs in the balance," he said. "They are voting because they worry about losing their right to vote or being expelled from the only country they have ever known. They are voting right now because they fear losing their collective bargaining rights. They are voting to demand that equal justice be guaranteed for all. They are voting because they don't want Roe v. Wade, which has been the law of the land for nearly half a century, to be overturned."

Barrett, a textualist, was critical of John Roberts' logic in upholding the ACA.

"Chief Justice Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute," Barrett wrote in 2017. "He construed the penalty imposed on those without health insurance as a tax, which permitted him to sustain the statute as a valid exercise of the taxing power; had he treated the payment as the statute did - as a penalty - he would have had to invalidate the statute as lying beyond Congress's commerce power."

On abortion, Barrett has said she expected the Supreme Court would uphold the core of Roe v. Wade, giving women the right to an abortion, but she said she thought it was likely that restrictions would be increased.

But that was before Trump was elected and before the court became majority conservative, so it's not clear how far Barrett would go exactly.

Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, argued in their statements that a Supreme Court nominee should be left to whoever wins the presidency.

"Americans across the country are already casting votes, and we will soon know the president and senators who will be sworn in next January," said Harris, who also serves on the Judiciary Committee, which is is responsible for the hearings of court nominees. "We must respect Americans' voices and allow the winners of the election to nominate and confirm the next Supreme Court Justice."

Democrats especially feel that way because Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., refused to even hold a hearing for then-President Barack Obama's pick to replace the late-Justice Antonin Scalia on the court. Scalia died in February 2016, many more months ahead of that election than this vacancy.

"Just yesterday, I paid my respects to the legendary Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who devoted her life to fighting for Equal Justice Under Law and a more fair and just world," Harris added in her statement. "Her passing is devastating, and it would be a travesty to replace her with a justice who is being selected to undo her legacy and erase everything she did for our country."

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to begin Barrett's confirmation hearings on Oct. 12, an aide told NPR on Saturday.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, on Oct. 12, according to a Senate Republican aide who is not authorized to speak on the record ahead of the official announcement.

The aide says the hearings will follow the same format as the recent ones - which means they are expected to last four days between opening statements, questions and testimony from outside witnesses.

The president's announcement comes just 38 days before the Nov. 3 election, and sets up an expedited timeline compared with most recent confirmation fights.

Barrett is expected to meet with members of the Judiciary Committee ahead of the hearings, but some Senate Democrats on the panel have indicated they will not privately meet with her and would only question her in public.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said after the president's announcement, "As the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I'm very committed to ensuring that the nominee gets a challenging, fair, and respectful hearing. We move forward on this nomination knowing that the President has picked a highly qualified individual who will serve our nation well on the highest court in the land."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has the support he needs to move ahead with the confirmation process and many Senate Republicans expect the floor vote to happen before the election, but the short window means the process has little room for any hiccups.

"I look forward to meeting with the nominee next week and will carefully study her record and credentials," McConnell said in a statement Saturday. He added, "As I have stated, this nomination will receive a vote on the Senate floor in the weeks ahead, following the work of the Judiciary Committee supervised by Chairman Graham."

President Trump has yet to formally name his Supreme Court nominee, but clues are piling up that he will pick Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

A source with knowledge of the process told NPR on Friday that Trump will nominate Barrett, with the caveat that the president is known to change his mind. The source was not authorized to confirm the selection before Trump does.

On Saturday morning, NBC News posted video of Barrett leaving her home in South Bend, Ind., with her husband and children, all dressed in formal attire.

NEW: Judge Amy Coney Barrett and her large family left their Indiana home this afternoon dressed up for a special occasion. Our @GaryGrumbach on the scene for us. Announcement at 5pm at WH for Supreme Court nomination. pic.twitter.com/A4yVNo7jgE
- Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) September 26, 2020

Flight records show that a military Special Air Mission plane originating at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland landed at South Bend International Airport just after 11 a.m.

The plane took off about two hours later, heading back toward the Washington, D.C., region.

Trump has said he will announce his nomination at 5 p.m. ET. Watch the event live here.

Updated 5:54 p.m. ET
Saturday is a big day for the future of the country.

President Trump formally announced conservative federal Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Barrett, a former law professor at Notre Dame and Supreme Court law clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, said she would be a justice in Scalia's mold.

"His judicial philosophy is mine, too," Barrett said.

At 48, she would have a prominent role in reshaping American society and culture for generations.

But while that is a factor in Trump's decision, he has a more short-term concern - the upcoming elections.

"I think this will end up in the Supreme Court. And I think it's very important we have nine justices," Trump said Wednesday.

What's more, later in the day, he wouldn't committo a peaceful transfer of power in response to a reporter's question.

"We're going to have to see what happens, you know, but I've been complaining very strongly about the ballots," Trump said, repeating his unfounded claim of widespread voter fraud. "The ballots are a disaster."

Responding to a follow-up question, Trump added, "Get rid of the ballots, and you'll have a very peaceful - there won't be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation."

When Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was asked about Trump's remarks, Biden asked facetiously, "What country are we in? Look, he says the most irrational things. I don't know what to say." Biden said in a later interview that Trump's comments were a "distraction" and that at the end of the day, if Trump loses, "he'll leave."

The White House tried to walk back Trump's comments, but on Thursday, Trump again questioned the legitimacy of the election because of mail-in ballots.

"We want to make sure the election is honest," he said, "and I'm not sure that it can be."

At a Friday night rally, Trump mocked the media for raising alarms about his comments. "Then they say, 'He doesn't want to turn over government' - of course I do. But it's got to be a fair election," he said, before rattling off a litany of complaints about mail-in voting in Democratic states.

"You know a real big problem? I like watching television, and have, 'The winner is.' You might not hear it for months, because this is a mess," he said, noting it could take a week or two to count mail-in ballots. "If we're waiting for one state, does that mean the whole nation - the whole world - is going to wait for one state?"

The New York Times reported Friday that "senior leaders at the Pentagon, speaking on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that they were talking among themselves about what to do if Mr. Trump, who will still be president from Election Day to Inauguration Day, invokes the Insurrection Act and tries to send troops into the streets, as he threatened to do during the protests against police brutality and systemic racism."

It can be hard to know when Trump is being serious or just trying to get attention and troll the left and the news media. But voting is underway this election, and nothing should be surprising in these next five weeks - or beyond.

Updated at 6:20 p.m. ET
President Trump says he will nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett to succeed the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court, spurring what's likely to be a bitter confirmation fight just weeks before the presidential election.

If confirmed by the Senate, the 48-year-old judge will solidify the court's conservative majority, shaping the trajectory of health care law, abortion rights and many corners of American life for generations to come.

From a White House Rose Garden draped with flags, Trump called nominating a Supreme Court justice one of the most important duties of his office and praised Barrett as a "one of our nation's most brilliant legal minds."

Cheers rippled through the crowd of about 200 people when Trump finally said Barrett's name.

"This should be a straightforward and prompt confirmation," Trump said. "Should be very easy. Good luck. It's going to be very quick. I'm sure it will be extremely noncontroversial. We said that the last time, didn't we?"

(Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Trump's previous Supreme Court nominee, was subjected to extra scrutiny by the public and Senate Democrats because of a sexual assault allegation.)

Barrett began her speech acknowledging the shoes she is being asked to fill, calling Ginsburg a "woman of enormous talent and consequence" who not only cracked, but "smashed" glass ceilings and won the admiration of women around the world.

The judge said she has been inspired by Ginsburg's close relationship with Antonin Scalia, the late conservative justice for whom Barrett once clerked.

"His judicial philosophy is mine, too," Barrett said as Scalia's wife and son looked on from the audience. "A judge must apply the law as written. Judges are not policymakers and they must be resolute in setting aside any policy views they might hold."

In introducing his nominee, Trump linked the weight of a Supreme Court appointment with a message he touts on the campaign trail, calling "law and order" the foundation of the U.S. justice system.

"The stakes for our country are incredibly high," Trump said. "Rulings that the Supreme Court will issue in the coming years will decide the survival of our Second Amendment, our religious liberty, our public safety and so much more. To maintain security, liberty and prosperity, we must maintain our priceless heritage of a nation of laws and there is no one better to do that than Amy Coney Barrett."

Barrett also introduced her husband and seven children, who were seated in the audience, joking that it makes sense that Trump is nominating her to join a bench of nine justices.

"As it happens, I'm used to being in a group of nine: my family," Barrett said, telling the audience that in addition to federal judge, she wears other hats: carpool driver, birthday party planner and, recently, teacher, as her children attend school remotely because of the pandemic.

Barrett also seemed to acknowledge the charged political moment she's stepping into, saying she has "no illusions that the road ahead for me will be easy."

"The president has nominated me to serve on the United States Supreme Court, and that institution belongs to all of us. If confirmed, I would not assume that role for the sake of those in my own circle and certainly not for my own sake. I would assume this role to serve you. I would discharge the judicial oath, which requires me to administer justice without respect to persons, do equal right to the poor and rich, and faithfully and impartially discharge my duties under the United States Constitution."

Trump appointed Barrett to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago just three years ago. Before that, she taught law at the University of Notre Dame for 15 years and had clerked for Scalia, widely seen by conservatives as a legal legend.

Barrett is admired by conservatives for her positions on abortion rights and the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. A devout Catholic, she is also a favorite of religious conservatives. At 48, Barrett would be the youngest justice on the Supreme Court if confirmed, allowing her to potentially shape American law and society for generations.

Within hours of Ginsburg's death last Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., pledged to bring Trump's nominee for a vote on the Senate floor. The president has made clear he wants his nominee approved by Election Day, predicting that the results of the presidential election may end up in front of the Supreme Court.

Democrats, including presidential nominee Joe Biden, say whoever wins in November should pick the next justice, citing McConnell's successful effort in 2016 to block President Barack Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, about eight months before the election. Now, Trump is setting up a Supreme Court fight just over a month before the 2020 election.

While Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have said they do not support a vote on a nominee before the election, other Republican senators considered to be potential swing votes, including Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, announced they would support moving forward with a Supreme Court confirmation.

That support likely gives Trump the votes he will need to get his nominee on the bench. Still, Capitol Hill is bracing for a high-stakes political battle in the weeks and even days leading up to the election, spilling onto the campaign trail both in the presidential contest and for several tight Senate races.

A Senate Republican aide told NPR on Saturday that confirmation hearings are set to begin on Oct. 12 and last four days.

The Democrats have already been framing the nomination as a battle to preserve health care - with a major challenge to the Affordable Care Act on the court's schedule this fall - while Republicans see abortion as a salient issue to bolster support for Trump's filling the seat as soon as possible.

Trump began promoting his forthcoming nomination the day after the court announced Ginsburg had died. During a rally in North Carolina last Saturday night, Trump promised to pick a woman for the seat, a nod to Ginsburg's lifelong efforts to promote the equality of women under the law.

This week, thousands of mourners lined up outside the Supreme Court where Ginsburg's casket lay in repose at the top of the court's marble steps. On Friday, Ginsburg lay in state inside the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall, the first woman and the first Jewish American to receive such an honor.

Ginsburg will be buried at Arlington Cemetery on Tuesday, following the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur.

Listen to special coverage of Trump's Supreme Court announcement

Republicans expect President Trump to name Judge Amy Coney Barrett as the next nominee to the Supreme Court, according to a source with knowledge of the process, but the source cautioned that Trump could change his mind.

The source declined to be named, because the individual was not authorized to confirm the selection before the president announced it.

The White House declined comment.

Trump told reporters on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Friday that he had made a decision on whom he would nominate to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg but said that "we have not made our intentions felt."

He added that he did not meet with Judge Barbara Lagoa, who was also under consideration to replace Ginsburg, during his trip to Miami and Atlanta.

Barrett, who has served on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago for three years, has a clear conservative record. If confirmed, the 48-year-old would become the youngest justice on the Supreme Court and would likely serve for decades to come.

Barrett is widely admired among conservatives for her views against abortion rights and the Affordable Care Act.

Trump considered Barrett to succeed Justice Anthony Kennedy when he retired in 2018 but instead chose Brett Kavanaugh, reportedly saying he was "saving" Barrett for Ginsburg's seat, should she die or retire during his presidency.

Trump nominated Barrett to the federal bench in 2017. As a federal judge, she has written about 100 opinions, accumulating a judicial record on issues such as guns, abortion rights and campus sexual assault that conservatives have lauded.

Before her ascent to the federal bench, Barrett taught law for 15 years at the University of Notre Dame, where she graduated from law school. She also clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative legend on the court, who like Barrett does, subscribed to an "originalist" or "textualist" judicial philosophy in which constitutional questions are considered through the lens of the framers' original intent.

Democrats have raised concerns about how Barrett's devout Catholic faith may influence her interpretation of legal issues such as abortion rights. Democrats raising that issue in Barrett's confirmation hearing to the appellate benchdrew hackles from Republicans; Barrett said she would not let her religion interfere with her actions as a judge.

Barrett's stance on abortion and the landmark decision Roe v. Wade are likely to play a prominent role in her confirmation hearing to the high court. In the past, Barrett has said she could envision the court upholding the basic right to an abortion but chipping away at the precedent in a way that would give states leeway to make it harder to obtain one.

But that was before Trump's election and before the court became majority conservative. If the Senate confirms Barrett to replace Ginsburg, conservatives would solidify their majority at 6-3 and could potentially make a more sweeping ruling on abortion or the Affordable Care Act, which has twice been preserved by the swing vote of Chief Justice John Roberts.

Democrats are framing the fight over the Supreme Court seat as primarily a battle to preserve health care, namely under the Affordable Care Act. Health care was a winning issue for Democrats during the 2018 midterms, and the party now hopes that issue can help galvanize opposition to Trump's pick.

Trump and the Republicans want to vote on a nominee before Election Day and began promising to hold a vote without delay shortly after the court announced Ginsburg had died. Trump said this week that he wants his nominee confirmed before the election, predicting that the result may come down to a decision before the Supreme Court, as it did in 2000.

But Democrats point to the successful efforts of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to block President Barack Obama's nomination to the court, Merrick Garland, in 2016 because the vacancy came up too close to the election. Now, Democrats, including Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, say Republicans should follow the precedent they set back then and allow whoever wins the 2020 election to nominate Ginsburg's successor.

Despite early signals from Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski that they would join Democrats in opposing a vote before the election, enough Republicans have said they would likely support a vote on Trump's selection, paving the way for the president to put a third justice on the court after just four years in office.

Updated Saturday at 5:22 p.m. ET
President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, is a judge on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago and is a favorite among social conservatives. They, and others on the right, view her record as anti-abortion rights and hostile to the Affordable Care Act.

If confirmed, the 48-year-old Barrett would be the youngest justice on the Supreme Court and could help reshape the law and society for generations to come.

When Justice Anthony Kennedy retired from the court in 2018, President Trump passed over Barrett, giving the nod instead to then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh. At the time, Trump told Barrett supporters that he was "saving" her to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat, should the justice retire or die, sources say.

Behind the scenes, though, Barrett's interview with Trump then did not go particularly well, say sources close to the process but who are not authorized to speak publicly. She had conjunctivitis, had to wear dark glasses during the interview and was "not at her best," as one source put it.

But this week, Barrett's interview seems to have gone far better. Moreover, these sources say, she has the support of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who views her as a judge with a clearly proven conservative track record.
What kind of judge would Barrett be?
Barrett was raised in Metairie, La., a suburb of New Orleans. Her father, Mike, was an attorney for Shell Oil, and her mother was a stay-at-home mom. Barrett attended St. Mary's Dominican High Schoolfor girls, then graduated with honors from Rhodes College, a Presbyterian-affiliated school in Tennessee, followed by graduation, summa cum laude, from Notre Dame Law School.

She clerked for the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, and during her clerkships, she was nicknamed "The Conenator" by fellow law clerks "for destroying flimsy legal arguments," the Chicago Tribune reported.

Afterward, Barrett briefly practiced law and then taught for 15 years at Notre Dame Law School in South Bend, Ind.

She is married to Jesse Barrett, a former prosecutor now in private practice, and the couple have seven children, one with Down syndrome and two adopted from Haiti. They live in South Bend, and she commutes to Chicago - almost an hour and 45 minutes away - where the appeals court sits.

Barrett has been a federal judge for three years. She has written about 100 opinions and "several telling dissents in which Barrett displayed her clear and consistent conservative bent," The Associated Press noted of her judicial record.

From guns and sexual assault on campus to health care and abortion rights, Barrett has shown herself to be a conservative jurist and legal thinker in her rulings and academic writings.
"The dogma lives loudly within you"
Barrett's confirmation hearing for the appeals court in 2017 raised hackles on both the right and the left.

The left saw Barrett as a socially conservative mirror image of Scalia, famous for his conservative approach to constitutional interpretation and passionate dissents from the high court's abortion- and gay-rights rulings. Barrett, like Scalia, is seen as an "originalist" or "textualist." It's a philosophy that looks strictly at the text of the Constitution or statute and tries to apply original intention from the framers.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, in particular, infuriated Republicans when she ticked off a list of the nominee's writings and speeches about faith and the law.

"The dogma lives loudly within you, and that's of concern," Feinstein told the nominee.

Barrett responded, "If you're asking whether I take my Catholic faith seriously, I do, though I would stress that my personal church affiliation or my religious belief would not bear on the discharge of my duties as a judge."

Republicans charged that Feinstein's question betrayed an anti-Catholic bias, and Barrett was confirmed by a 55-43 vote, with three Democrats voting in favor of confirmation, and two not voting.

Barrett is a member of a particularly conservative Christian faith group, People of Praise. Newsweek reported that the group "teaches that husbands should assume authority as the head of the household." (Her parents are also members, and her father was a coordinator of the group's Southern chapters.)

The New York Times reported that People of Praise "grew out of the Catholic charismatic renewal movement that began in the late 1960s and adopted Pentecostal practices such as speaking in tongues, belief in prophecy and divine healing."

If confirmed for the Supreme Court, Barrett would be the sixth Catholic justice. All but Sonia Sotomayor were nominated by Republican presidents. Justice Neil Gorsuch was raised Catholic but now lists himself as Episcopalian. Two other justices - Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan - are Jewish.

Barrett has also received thousands of dollars in honoraria for appearances from the Alliance Defending Freedom, according to a 2017 financial disclosure posted by Fix the Court, a group that seeks to reform the Supreme Court and federal court system, advocating for term limits and cameras in the courtroom.

ADF describes itself as advocating "for religious liberty, the sanctity of human life, freedom of speech, and marriage and family." ADF represented Jack Phillips, who owns Masterpiece Cake shop and declined to bake a cake for a same-sex couple celebrating their marriage.

Barrett reported receiving $4,200 from ADF in the disclosure, which covers 2016 through the first four months of 2017.

Barrett has been critical of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court's 1973 abortion decision, but in 2016, she suggested that the court most likely would hollow out the decision, leaving the basic right to abortion in place, but allowing states wide latitude to make abortion difficult to obtain.

"I don't think the core case, Roe's core holding that women have a right to an abortion, I don't think that would change," Barrett said in a discussion at Jacksonville University. "But I think the question of whether people can get very late-term abortions, you know, how many restrictions can be put on clinics, I think that will change."

That, however, was before Trump's election and the composition of the court moved more starkly to the right, making the outright reversal of Roe more plausible.

Similarly, the future of Obamacare could be at stake with Barrett's nomination. The court is scheduled to hear a third challenge to the law the week after the election. Twice before the court has upheld much of the law, but that could change now, with a possible Barrett vote pivotal.

Indeed, she criticized Chief Justice John Roberts' reasoning in upholding the Affordable Care Act.

"Chief Justice Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute," Barrett wrote in 2017. "He construed the penalty imposed on those without health insurance as a tax, which permitted him to sustain the statute as a valid exercise of the taxing power; had he treated the payment as the statute did - as a penalty - he would have had to invalidate the statute as lying beyond Congress's commerce power."
Precedent
In her academic work, Barrett has written dismissively about the doctrine of respecting the Supreme Court's precedents, known as stare decisis.

"I tend to agree with those who say that a justice's duty is to the Constitution and that it is thus more legitimate for her to enforce her best understanding of the Constitution rather than a precedent she thinks clearly in conflict with it," she wrote in a 2013 law review article.
Guns
While on the 7th Circuit, Barrett wrote that the Second Amendment did not necessarily ban people convicted of felonies from owning a gun. She declared a Wisconsin law, barring anyone convicted of a felony even if they aren't convicted of a violent crime, to be unconstitutional.

"[L]egislatures have the power to prohibit dangerous people from possessing guns. But that power extends only to people who are dangerous," Barrett wrote in a 37-page dissent.

Her reliance on originalism also came through a few lines later: "In 1791 - and for well more than a century afterward - legislatures disqualified categories of people from the right to bear arms only when they judged that doing so was necessary to protect the public safety."
Immigration
Barrett voted to uphold the Trump administration's "public charge" rule, which "adds barriers for immigrants seeking green cards if they rely on public benefits, food stamps or housing vouchers," Courthouse News Service reported.

The 7th Circuit blocked the administration's ability to enforce its interpretation of the public charge rule in Illinois. Barrett wrote in a dissent that the Department of Homeland Security's definition is not "unreasonable," especially considering that "the text of the current statute ... was amended in 1996 to increase the bite of the public charge determination."

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President Trump's selection of Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg came just 38 days before the presidential election on Nov. 3. The move to have her on the court by then has ignited a major partisan battle on Capitol Hill.

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With Donald Trump fighting in the presidential election for the republicans, they lost it.

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Last updated: September 11, 2020
General elections are often the focal point of election-year media coverage as they determine control of elected offices up and down the ballot. Primary elections, however, can provide insight on future elections as they help dictate the direction each party takes.

Although many of the most competitive primaries take place for open seats or offices that are held by a different party, even high-ranking federal officeholders can lose renomination to primary challengers. In the 2014 primary for Virginia's 7th Congressional District, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R), ranked behind only then-Speaker John Boehner (R) in Republican House leadership, was defeated by economics professor Dave Brat (R).

On this page, you will find information on noteworthy and notable Republican Party primaries taking place across the country for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and state executive offices.

Ballotpedia has identified 76 Republican battleground primaries taking place in 2020. This page is updated weekly. To nominate a primary for inclusion on this page, click here to email us.

Click here for information on Democratic Party battleground primaries in 2020.

It is typically difficult to predict how competitive primaries will be until after filing deadlines take place. However, Ballotpedia used a number of factors to give insight into the most interesting 2020 primary elections. Factors that were used to determine the competitiveness of primaries included:

Whether or not the seat was open (retiring or resigning incumbent)

Notable endorsements of multiple candidates

Significant fundraising from multiple candidates

Number of candidates

Incumbent's years in office (if seeking re-election)

Whether or not the district's general election was expected to be a battleground

U.S. Senate primaries

The following map shows each state with a Republican battleground primary for U.S. Senate in 2020. Use the buttons in the upper-right hand corner of the map or your mouse's scroll wheel to zoom in and out. Hover over or tap a state to view the incumbent's name. There are seven U.S. Senate Republican battleground primaries in 2020.

U.S. House primaries

The following map shows each U.S. House district with a Republican battleground primary in 2020. Use the buttons in the upper-right hand corner of the map or your mouse's scroll wheel to zoom in and out. Hover over or tap a district to view the incumbent's name. There are 53 U.S. House Republican battleground primaries in 2020.

State executive primaries

The following map shows each state with Republican state executive battleground primaries in 2020. Hover over or tap a state for information on which primaries are battlegrounds and who the incumbent is in each. There are eight Republican state executive battleground primaries in 2020.

State legislative primaries

The following maps shows each state with a Republican state legislative primary battleground chamber in 2020. Hover over or tap a state for more information on which chambers are battlegrounds and how many seats Democrats control in each. There are seven Republican primary battleground chambers in 2020.

Republican state legislative primary battleground chambers, 2020

Chamber

Primary date

Seats controlled by Republicans

Seats controlled by Republicans that are up for election in 2020

Number of contested Republican primaries

Top-two primaries for Republican seats

There are two top-two battleground primaries for Republican-held seats in 2020.

California uses a top-two primary system, in which all candidates appear on the same ballot. The top two vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, move on to the general election. In states that do not use a top-two system, all parties are usually able to put forward a candidate for the general election if they choose to.

Unlike the top-two format used in some states (Louisiana and Georgia special elections for example), a general election between the top two candidates in California occurs regardless of whether the top candidate received 50 percent of the vote in the first round of elections.

As of 2019, California was one of three states to use a top-two primary system. Washington used the system for congressional and state-level elections, and Nebraska utilized a top-two system for its nonpartisan state legislature.

This section lists every change that was made to our battleground list since we launched the page in September 2019.

August 7, 2020: Removed two battleground races from the list: MN-02 and WI-07.

July 27, 2020: Removed one battleground race from the list: AZ-04.

July 10, 2020: Added three battleground races to the list: FL-13, FL-26, and Alaska State Senate.

July 6, 2020: Added one battleground race to the list: NH-01.

May 18, 2020: Added two battleground races to the list: OR-Sen and NJ-03. Removed two races: IA-02 and Montana Attorney General.

April 26, 2020: Added two battleground races to the list: AZ-04 and South Dakota State Senate.

April 8, 2020: Added two battleground races to the list: VA-02 and VA-05.

March 31, 2020: Added one battleground race to the list: Utah Attorney General.

March 23, 2020: Added two battleground races to the list: FL-15 and NV-03.

March 15, 2020: Added two battleground races to the list: TX-23 and Montana Attorney General.

March 1, 2020: Added five battleground races to the list: NM-02, NY-02, OR-02, UT-04, and Montana Secretary of State.

February 14, 2020: Removed two battleground races from the list: TX-23 and TX-24.

February 7, 2020: Added two battleground races to the list: TN-Sen and TX-12.

January 31, 2020: Added two battleground races to the list: GA-09 and GA-14.

January 24, 2020: Added nine battleground races to the list: KY-04, MS-03, Indiana Attorney General, North Carolina Lieutenant Governor, Alaska House of Representatives, Kansas State Senate and House of Representatives, Ohio House of Representatives, and Texas House of Representatives

January 13, 2020: Added eight battleground races to the list: IA-02, MN-02, NC-11, OK-05, TN-01, TX-13, TX-32, and VA-0. Removed NC-Sen.

January 3, 2020: Added two battleground races to the list: FL-03 and NJ-02. Removed two battleground races from the list: GA-06 and NC Gov.

December 3, 2019: Added one battleground race to the list: PA-7.

November 15, 2019: Added one battleground race to the list: FL-19.

September 18, 2019: Added five battleground races to the list: NH Senate, GA-6, GA-7, KS-3, and TX-23.

September 12, 2019: Launched initial battlegrounds list with 35 races.

2018 battlegrounds

Ballotpedia identified 78 Republican federal and state battleground primaries in 2018. There were eight senate battleground primaries, 43 house battleground primaries, and 27 state executive battleground primaries.

Disputes between potential members of the House Freedom Caucus and other members of the Republican Party occurred in U.S. House primaries in 2018.

Led by U.S. Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the House Freedom Caucus supported candidates who were likely to join its ranks if elected to the House. Other wings of the Republican Party, including those aligned with House Republican leadership, often preferred candidates not aligned with the Freedom Caucus.

The Freedom Caucus said it "gives a voice to countless Americans who feel that Washington does not represent them" and supported "open, accountable and limited government, the Constitution and the rule of law, and policies that promote the liberty, safety and prosperity of all Americans." The Pew Research Center said the group formed in January 2015 "with the declared aim of pushing the House GOP leadership rightward on certain fiscal and social issues" and wanted "power shifted away from the leadership to the rank-and-file."

Other House Republican caucuses more closely allied with leadership included the Republican Main Street Partnership, which aimed for "conservative, pragmatic, solutions-oriented policies that can gain support from legislators on both sides of the aisle," and the Republican Study Committee, which "is dedicated to a limited and Constitutional role for the federal government, a strong national defense, the protection of individual and property rights, and the preservation of traditional family values."

Scott Wong wrote for The Hill that the primaries were a "proxy battle over how much influence...the Freedom Caucus can exert over the House GOP conference next year- and who might lead Republicans after retiring Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) steps down." Jordan emerged as a speaker contender and announced he would run for the position against Ryan's preferred candidate, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). After Republicans lost their majority in the general elections, McCarthy defeated Jordan in a contest for Republican minority leader. The vote was 159 to 43.

To detail this fight, we identified competitive open Republican primaries where the Freedom Caucus or its leaders backed a candidate. We also considered primaries where candidates said they would join the Freedom Caucus if elected.

The chart below shows a summary of results in the competitive open Republican primaries we tracked where either the Freedom Caucus or its leaders backed a candidate.

Top 10 Republican primaries in 2018

The list below was selected by Ballotpedia staff at the end of the 2018 primary season. Click the links to learn more about each primary.

1. Arizona Senate (August 28)

2. South Carolina's 1st Congressional District (June 12)

3. Florida governor (August 28)

4. Georgia governor (May 22) & runoff (July 24)

5. Kansas governor (August 7)

6. Ohio's 12th Congressional District (May 8)

7. Wyoming governor (August 21)

8. Minnesota's 1st Congressional District (August 14)

9. Texas state legislative Republican primaries (March 6 and May 22)

10. Michigan's 11th Congressional District (August 7)

1. Note: Candidates for Indiana state executive offices (other than governor and lieutenant governor) are nominated at party conventions rather than selected in primaries.

2. Ballotpedia research conducted December 26, 2013, through January 3, 2014, researching and analyzing various state websites and codes.

3. The original 35 races identified were: AL Senate, AZ Senate, KS Senate, NC Senate, WY Senate, AL-1, AL-2, IL-6, IL-14, IL-15, IN-5, IA-4, KS-1, KS-2, ME-2, MI-3, MI-10, MN-7, MT-AL, NY-27, PA-1, SC-1, TX-7, TX-11, TX-17, TX-22, TX-24, UT-1, WI-5, WI-7, MO Gov, MT Gov, NC Gov, UT Gov, and WV Gov.

4. We chose to focus on open primaries in order to see how many new members the caucus could potentially add after the 2018 elections.

5. We chose to focus on open primaries in order to see how many new members the caucus could potentially add after the 2018 elections.

6. This includes all seats not held by members of the Freedom Caucus prior to the 2018 elections, including those held by Democrats.

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Republican Party battleground primaries, 2020 - Ballotpedia

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Last updated: September 11, 2020 General elections are often the focal point of election-year media coverage as they determine control of elected offices up and down the ballot. Primary elections, however, can provide insight on future elections as they help dictate the direction each party takes.

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Trump Files A Lawsuit to Accuse the Counting of Illegal Votes (Election Post)

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Trump Files A Lawsuit to Accuse the Counting of Illegal Votes (Election Post)

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President Donald Trump on Wednesday latched on to a long-shot Texas lawsuit seeking to overturn a presidential election that handed the White House to Joe Biden.

Legal experts say Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's effort to contest election results of four key battleground states is all but certain to fail. But it has drawn support from the Republican attorneys general of 17 other states.

As the president's legal team loses case after improbable case in federal district and appellate courts, the Texas lawsuit offers a major advantage: It goes straight to the top. Under a special legal avenue unique to states, Paxton filed the case directly with the U.S. Supreme Court, a body Trump has suggested could deliver him the victory that voters did not.

"This is the big one!" the president tweeted Wednesday morning.His legal team sought to intervene in the case later Wednesday.

The Texas lawsuit takes issue with changes to election procedures in four battleground states: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Paxton argues those changes were unlawful and call into question Biden's victories in those states. He is asking the high court to block the critical battlegrounds from participating in the Electoral College.

Trump personally asked U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to argue the case before the court if the justices agree to hear it, The New York Times first reported Wednesday. Cruz - who argued several cases at the high court as Texas solicitor general - agreed, his office confirmed.

Although the Supreme Court has a six-member conservative majority, including three justices appointed by Trump, it has so far shown no interest in siding with him in the election cases his campaign has lobbed. On Tuesday, it decisively rejected Pennsylvania Republicans' effort to overturn Biden's victory there in a one-sentence order with no dissents.

Legal experts and court watchers expect a similar outcome in the Texas case. The court has asked for a response from the four battleground states Texas is suing, setting a Thursday deadline, but has given no indication about how it will decide the matter.

"This is the Hail Mary with time running out the clock kind of play here," said David Coale, an appellate attorney in Dallas. "This is really the last little window to sort of sneak in there and try to get a court involved."

States have a special legal ability to take cases directly to the Supreme Court, though such cases are rare, and more typically involve boundary disputes like water rights. If the high court accepts Texas' argument that it can sue the four battlegrounds in this case, Coale said, "then any state can sue any other state about just about anything."

Even if the court gets past tricky procedural issues, Texas' case faces an uphill battle.

Officials in the battleground states have roundly rejected Paxton's argument, calling it "false," "irresponsible," "a publicity stunt," "genuinely embarrassing," "beyond reckless" and "beneath the dignity of the office of attorney general."

They also point out that many of the claims Paxton makes about election irregularities in their states have already been litigated and roundly rejected. Experts, state election officials and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr have all said there is no evidence of voter fraud on a scale that could have affected the outcome of the election.

"Texas alleges that there are 80,000 forged signatures on absentee ballots in Georgia, but they don't bring forward a single person who this happened to. That's because it didn't happen," said Jordan Fuchs, Georgia's deputy secretary of state.

Still, the long-shot odds of the Texas case have not kept it from sparking hope among Republicans in Texas and across the country.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a firebrand conservative who has served as Trump's Texas campaign chairman, said Paxton was right to challenge the battleground states, as did state GOP Chairman Allen West.

Gov. Greg Abbott, a former Texas attorney general, treaded a characteristically careful line, signaling support for the lawsuit insofar as it "tries to accelerate the process, providing certainty and clarity about the entire election process."

But U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, who is also a former Texas attorney general, was more critical of the lawsuit, telling a reporter, "I frankly struggle to understand the legal theory of it."

"Why would a state, even such a great state as Texas, have a say so on how other states administer their elections?" Cornyn asked. "I'm not convinced."

Texas was alone in filing the case this week, but on Wednesday, 17 states with Republican attorneys general signed onto an amicus brief at the high court backing Texas.

"Missouri is in the fight," said the state's attorney general, Eric Schmitt, who led the filing.

Beyond its unusual requests, the case was unusual for the attorneys who are arguing it.

Paxton was listed as the state's lead attorney on the case, a highly unusual move for the attorney general, who has rarely been involved in such a hands-on way in the state's cases.

Texas Solicitor General Kyle Hawkins, the state's top appellate attorney and a former clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court, didn't sign his name to the filing. Hawkins is the agency's appellate expert, so it's unusual for him not to appear on the case, legal experts said. Neither Hawkins nor the agency answered questions about why he was not involved.

Instead, the agency appears to have brought on an outside attorney, Lawrence Joseph, to handle the high-stakes case.

But court documents show he has often played a role in politically hot litigation. According to his website, he formed his firm in 2003 to undertake "politically incorrect" representation.

In 2014, Joseph authored a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of dozens of Texas Republicans, including U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz and a number of members of Congress. In it, he argued against the Affordable Care Act. The case was filed by Steve Hotze, a prominent conservative activist in Houston who has sued Abbott and others numerous times this year over pandemic-related restrictions and changes to election protocols.

In 2020, Joseph wrote another amicus brief, siding with Trump, on behalf of the conservative group Eagle Forum Education and Legal Defense Fund. He argued that Congress lacked the power to subpoena Trump's tax returns.

The Texas attorney general's office did not respond to questions about how much Joseph is being paid for his work on the case.

Paxton, who has been indicted since 2015 on felony securities fraud charges, has been facing fresh legal trouble this fall after eight of his top deputies told authorities they believed he broke the law in using the agency to do favors for a political donor. The FBI is reportedly investigating the allegations. Paxton has fired five of the eight whistleblowers and now faces a lawsuit from four of them, alleging wrongful termination. He has denied wrongdoing.

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Trump, Republicans pin hopes on Texas lawsuit to overturn election results, but legal experts say it's a long shot

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Donald Trump's legal team filed to intervene in the Texas lawsuit contesting the election results on Wednesday. The president reportedly asked U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz if he would argue the case before the U.S. Supreme Court, if it agrees to hear it.