Welcome to a Friday night edition of Progress Report.
Thank you to the many of you that tuned in last night for my live-stream conversation with Run for Something co-founder and president Amanda Litman! We went deep on the big special election win in Texas, young voters, the big issues that candidates are focused on this year, and their master plan to win in 2026 — and, critically, many election cycles beyond that.
You can watch the whole conversation above, and when you’re done, check out some of the big news stories you may have missed this week.
Note: I’m not going to lie, I lost a decent number of paid subscribers while I was out undergoing and then recovering from open-heart surgery this winter. It was a bummer, and while I totally get it, I’m also hoping that folks can help me make up those numbers now that I’m back at it, running this newsletter and our growing live streams.
The news has never been crazier and democracy has never been more in danger, so I’ve put aside a longer recovery to push hard this year. I’ve got a lot planned for 2026, including all kinds of interviews with lawmakers and candidates, deep issue dives, and much more. But I can really only do these things if I have the resources to pursue them, so your subscription or contribution would be immensely helpful.
The Fight Against ICE
🫠 🧊 New York lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul are negotiating the finer points of a bill to allow residents to sue federal agents for violating their constitutional rights. The main sticking point is that Hochul’s version of the proposal codifies qualified immunity for those agents, which would make it far more difficult to actually win a lawsuit. A number of other states, including California, Illinois, Maryland, and Colorado, are pursuing similar legislation to protect residents against occupying federal forces.
🚨 New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed an executive order aimed at limiting ICE and holding it accountable for violating residents’ civil rights. Her order bars immigration agents from using non-public state property to launch enforcement operations without a judicial warrant; it also launched an online portal for residents to report ICE interactions to the attorney general.
The portal, which can be found here, includes a series of questions about alleged incidents and provides the public a space to upload photos and videos of altercations. ICE and DHS agents have been reportedly ramping up enforcement in the Garden State, as I wrote about a few weeks ago.
The partial government shutdown that went into effect tonight is good politics. According to a new poll, voters have turned decisively against ICE and believe that funding for the Department of Homeland Security should be predicated on major reforms to the rogue, murderous agency. A year after being terrified of talking about immigration and enforcement, it is now the issue that is emboldening Democrats (at least for the moment) in DC.
A republic, if you can keep it
💪 A federal judge tossed the Department of Justice’s lawsuit seeking Michigan’s full voter roll data, noting that the federal government is not entitled to sensitive personal information in this context. It’s another big L for the DOJ, after losing similar lawsuits in states including California, Oregon, and Georgia. Earlier this week, I spoke with Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows about her battle with the DOJ over unredacted voter roll information (among other things).
💪💪 The Virginia Supreme Court will allow voters to weigh in on the proposed constitutional amendment on mid-decade redistricting. It’s a big boost for Democrats after a lower court judge had originally tossed their amendment on a technicality. The special election is scheduled for April 21st. Should voters approve the amendment, Democrats will have to defend the referendum in front of the state high court, which is likely to respect the will of voters.
Wins at the ballot box and in the court room would allow Democrats to create a Congressional map that would likely give them ten of the state’s 11 seats. The party currently controls just six of the 11 districts.
📨 🗳️ The battle over voting rights in Arizona is likely to be decided at the ballot box. Some Republicans in the state House want to pass a bill that would ask voters to give the legislature the right to end early voting; at the same time, a bipartisan group is seeking to qualify an amendment that would enshrine the right to early and mail-in voting in the state constitution.
The amendment would also protect the state’s permanent vote-by-mail list, which was sunsetted after the far-right whipped up a fit over the 2020 election. More than 90% of voters in Arizona use mail-in voting.
🛑 Lawmakers in Washington state are pushing to make it much harder for right-wing troublemakers to challenge a voter’s registration. It’s a response to the organized mass challenges that have been burdening both local election officials and voters, who can be intimidated or inconvenienced away from the ballot box.
Assorted policy news
🫘 🏘️ Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is reluctantly supporting the statewide rent control ballot initiative that will likely be put to voters in November. The progressive star says she’d rather see a law that permits local governments to dictate caps on rent increases — they’re currently banned statewide — and hopes that the legislature works out a compromise with housing activists. They have until May 5th to work out a deal; otherwise, activists would need to collect about 12K more signatures to put it on the ballot.
Even Wu’s qualified support is a big deal for the initiative, which has drawn opposition not just from real estate interests, but top statewide elected officials like Gov. Maura Healey, and it’s possible that her influence could help make a deal possible.
🤖 🥊 Democrats are increasingly focusing their campaigns on artificial intelligence, which is becoming one of the defining issues of our times. Democratic candidates and lawmakers are taking advantage of and further stoking the backlash that’s fomenting all across the country as people grow wary of the technology’s impacts and rebel against the construction of huge, energy-sucking data centers.
This is exactly what I prescribed earlier this winter, and I’m glad it’s starting to come to fruition.
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