Democratic governors should start acting like Democrats
And other news
Welcome to a Sunday night edition of Progress Report.
Lots to discuss tonight, so just one quick note from me:
My birthday is next Saturday and while I’ve never been big on celebration or commemoration, this year I’m genuinely grateful to be alive. I won’t tell you how old I’m turning, but I am offering 40% off paid subscriptions this week in hopes of adding least 40 new paid subscribers before the big day. I’ve got some big interviews and features coming up and your support allows me to focus more on this work.
Thank you to our latest crowd-funding donors: Jane, Gigi, Deniece, Joette, Peter, Alexis, James, and Theodore!
The Battle for Democracy
New Jersey: Spurred by the Supreme Court’s further torching of the federal Voting Rights Act, lawmakers in the Garden State are one step away from finally enacting a state-level law designed to protect fair elections and ballot access. The John R. Lewis Voter Empowerment Act passed a Senate panel for the first time since being proposed in 2022, reflecting the sudden urgency of enacting election protections.
The bill “would expand language access requirements beyond those in federal law, afford state courts broad powers to rewrite discriminatory election rules, and require the state attorney general’s approval for any changes to election procedure,” according to New Jersey Monitor.
Redistricting: After several weeks of Southern Republicans rushing to strip people of color of their hard-earned representation, there were rays of hope for Democrats this week… for the most part, anyway.
To be clear, there will be no more Democratic redistricting this year, putting the party at a significant disadvantage heading into the midterm elections. And it could get just a little bit worse, as Republicans in South Carolina are still considering redrawing their map to eliminate Rep. James Clyburn’s seat. But the state Senate in South Carolina won’t consider that proposal until after the start of in-person early voting, which local outlets suggest could damper the enthusiasm for a last-minute gerrymander.
That’s not simply speculation: the lawmaker steering the gerrymandering bill, state Sen. Larry Grooms (incredible name for a Republican), said on Friday that this coming Wednesday morning represents the “drop-dead date” for getting it to the governor’s desk, and that would require forcing an unchanged bill through a cloture vote that is increasingly uncertain.
“My support doesn’t wane, but I believe that support of other Republicans begins to fade as the day progresses on Tuesday,” Grooms told The State.
If nothing else, it’s almost certain that South Carolina will redraw its maps for 2028, by which time more than half a dozen Democratic-controlled states could join the redistricting party. According to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, at least seven Democratic states could redistrict for the next cycle. That includes Virginia, where Jeffries said lawmakers could revive the voter-approved 10-1 map that the state Supreme Court shot down this month, as well as Maryland, where state Senate Majority Leader Bill Ferguson is finally coming to his senses after standing on ceremony like a wuss and nerd and refusing to draw out Rep. Andy Harris’s seat.
Primaries: As if I weren’t already sold on Sacramento City Council member Mai Vang and her primary challenge to 81-year-old Rep. Doris Matsui (CA-7), she won me over all over again by triggering a whole galaxy of right-wing media outlets with her refusal to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Vang explained why she doesn’t participate in the absurd nationalistic ritual in a Facebook post last year, writing that she loves America but believes the pledge is used to numb people to injustices and silence dissent. That post was recently discovered by conservatives, who are always looking for a new outrage to fill column inches and air time. The California Post, the new sibling to the reprehensible Murdoch tabloid here in New York, published an apoplectic editorial that began by calling for “rational debate and discussion” and ultimately devolved into a rant about Vang’s support for abolishing ICE, belief in Medicare for All, and opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
(You can watch my interview with Vang below:)
The folks at the CA Post are new to California and its politics, but you’d think they’d realize that Vang is running in a primary election from the left in a blue district in a very blue year. Vang has been slamming Matsui for voting to fund ICE and taking gobs of corporate money, while Matsui has countered by pointing out that Vang took donations from small businesses during her city council campaigns.
There is no viable Republican in the race, no matter how much Matsui tries to boost a penniless student technically running on the GOP line. Just what these right-wing outlets get from throwing a fit over Vang is unclear, but if they want to boost progressives in close upcoming primaries, they should feel free to continue doing so.
Polling: With Republicans cranking up the racism dial and shifting what could be up to 14 districts to the right this cycle, Democrats are going to need a significant margin in the midterm elections if they’re going to have any real shot of taking back the House.
According to a new poll from Data for Progress, they’re on the right track, with a +8 generic ballot edge over Republican candidates.
Democrat voters report much more enthusiasm about this fall’s elections, while voters across the board indicate that they trust Democrats more than Republicans on virtually every major issue. Notably, the percentage of voters who list immigration as their top issue has shrunk by more than 50% over the past 17 months, slipping from 15% in January 2025 to just 7% today.
Good policy headlines:
New York State: State Dems move to quickly advance upstate rent control bill
Syracuse, NY: Syracuse lawmakers approve law banning facial recognition tech by businesses
Illinois: ‘Junk fee’ ban heads to Pritzker as Senate OKs bill allowing minors to consent to birth control
HAHAHA: Maine transgender sports referendum poised to fall off the 2026 ballot
Supreme Court reform: Ro Khanna calls for ‘term limits’ and ‘expansion’ of the Supreme Court after voting rights ruling
The Trump administration sought to have half of the nation’s voting machines banned last year, according to a new report by Reuters, falling short only when they could not manufacture a reason that they should be considered national security risks.
While this news is shocking, it is not surprising. White House lawyer Kurt Olsen and underlings wanted to disqualify ballot counters from Dominion Voting Systems, the manufacturer at the center of conspiracy theories around the 2020 election that have been widely debunked yet continue to animate the right’s drive to impose mass voter suppression.
Many of the leading conspiracy theorists from the post-2020 fervor had their work funded by billionaire-financed organizations like Cleta Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network and have since migrated into the administration, as I detail in my extensive new report:
Former AG Merrick Garland’s fecklessness meant that there was little accountability for any of these frauds and charlatans, and in further proof that Democratic leaders have dangerously poor political instincts, one of the only scheming election deniers to suffer any consequences was allowed to walk free this week.
Forget the autopsy that Ken Martin finally published, everything you need to know about why Democrats lose on the biggest stage transpired in two solid blue states this week.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis took some time off from vetoing pro-labor bills and weakening tech regulations to grant clemency to Tina Peters, the MAGA former election clerk who was convicted of allowing unauthorized access to voting machines in 2020. It’s hard to understand why Polis made this decision, other than the fact that the ultra-wealthy libertarian’s heterodox tendencies always seem to benefit the right’s biggest kooks (this is the guy who cheered RFK Jr’s nomination to run the HHS). Part of me hopes that Polis issued the clemency because he’s planning to run for president, as doing so would be tantamount to setting a chunk of his personal fortune on fire.
The reason that decision was so problematic isn’t so much that Peters represents a real threat going forward as the fact that it confers legitimacy on the conspiracy-addled far-right’s attempt to gaslight Americans into believing that the law was weaponized against them by a liberal deep state. That it coincided with the Trump administration’s attempt to create a $1.8 billion slush fund for “victims” of such “persecution” makes it even more damaging; JD Vance has already suggested that Peters could benefit from the taxpayer-funded largesse, should the White House force it into the Senate budget.
At least Polis is on his way out after this year; Virginia Democrats are stuck with Gov. Abigail Spanberger for the next three and a half years. Last week, I wrote a bit of a rant about Spanberger’s unexpected but entirely in-character choice to break her promise and veto a bill that would have granted collective bargaining rights to public worker unions, and my only regret about it is not waiting a week so that it could cover even more outrageous betrayals to the Democratic Party’s base.
Spanberger went on an absolute rampage this week: along with her anti-union veto, Spanberger nixed bills that would have limited state law enforcement’s cooperation with ICE, created a legalized cannabis market, and established a Prescription Drug Affordability Board.
If that weren’t enough, Spanberger then went and told the New York Times that Democrats should stop talking about redistricting to keep up with GOP gerrymandering. As the Times noted, Spanberger watched her own approval ratings slip during the Virginia redistricting amendment campaign, an experience that likely motivated both those comments to the paper and her quick surrender to the state Supreme Court when it tossed out the special election. It’s very likely that the decline in support from more right-leaning voters pushed her to veto the slate of high-profile Democratic bills, given Spanberger’s very centrist political instincts.
What she likely didn’t expect was that those vetoes would draw blistering criticism from the Democratic Party base, inspiring a march on the capitol in Richmond by unions that had backed her election last fall.
For someone who wants to run for president as a Democrat, inspiring union protests and vetoing bills that could lower the cost of prescription drugs is a poor way to build political clout.
Polis, too, is suffering backlash for his outrageous decision to cater to some imagined Republican voter willing to vote for Democrats so long as they don’t believe in anything and break their own promises. In fact, it actually fostered rare unity in a fractured party: both of Colorado’s centrist senators condemned the clemency, progressives called for his impeachment, and the state Democratic Party voted overwhelmingly to censure Polis, a harsh rebuke that is likely the culmination of years of frustration with a guy who has regularly foiled popular priorities.
This, to me, is the silver lining: conservative Democrats are no longer being coddled, no longer being deferred to, no longer being treated like they have some great wisdom. Whether it’s Polis, Spanberger, Ken Martin, or entrenched corporate sell-outs like Matsui, the Democratic base is no longer willing to stay quiet and accept scraps and scolding.
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