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It’s the PowerPoint that redefined American politics – The Boston Globe

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Once politicians choose their own voters, they can build barriers that make it more difficult for the other side to vote.

Demonstrators outside of the Supreme Court in Washingston, D.C. during oral arguments in Gill v. Whitford called for an end to partisan gerrymandering on Oct. 3, 2017.Olivier Douliery

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Ten years ago, while Democrats were enjoying complete control of Washington and believed that changing American demographics would ensure large majorities for a generation, Ed Gillespie and his team at the Republican State Legislative Committee quietly hopscotched the nation and sold top conservative donors and lawmakers a different and audacious vision. Republicans would retake power in states and in Congress by weaponizing the oldest trick in the book: the gerrymander.

Gillespie outlined an elegant plan. Sure, 2008 had been a tough election for Republicans and historic for Democrats. But approached from the right angle — down-ballot, state legislative races — 2010 could prove far more consequential. After all, this wasn’t any old election. It was a census-year election. And following the census, state legislatures (in most states) redraw every state legislative and congressional district nationwide.

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There would be 6,000 state legislators elected in the fall. Republicans, he said, would target 107 key races across 16 battleground states — including Florida, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Texas, and Pennsylvania. Success would change the GOP’s prospects overnight — and last for another decade. The strategy’s name? The Redistricting Majority Project. REDMAP for short. It produced exactly that.

Gillespie’s private presentation, which I obtained exclusively while reporting a book on REDMAP, lays out the stakes. Win those seats, and the GOP could fully control the drawing of nine new congressional seats after the decennial reapportionment of the US House of Representatives. They could affect the new maps in five states that would lose seats. And they could strengthen Republican redistricting power in swing states, wiping expensive competitive districts off the board and handing Republicans the dominant position in state legislatures and congressional delegations.

REDMAP succeeded beyond the GOP’s wildest dreams. It proved a bargain — and a heist. Republicans spent $30 million that fall, submerging slackjawed Democratic incumbents in sleepy local races under a torrent of sophisticated negative ads and sweeping control of those state legislatures. The following year, they locked Democrats out of the room and remapped Wisconsin, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and more behind closed doors of secret “Bunkers” and “Map Rooms,” with the help of the most powerful computers, advanced mapping software, and precise data sets ever set loose on redistricting. And they haven’t lost power in any of these states yet.

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We live in the nation REDMAP created. More than 59 million Americans — nearly 1 in 5 of us — live in a state where Republicans won fewer statewide votes during the 2018 elections but nevertheless control one or both chambers of the state legislature. There are no people who live in a state where Republicans win more votes but Democrats maintain power. In Wisconsin, where voters in 2018 reelected a Democratic US senator, defeated incumbent governor Scott Walker, swept Democrats into every statewide office, and preferred Democratic state assembly candidates by a margin of 200,000 voters, Republican maps provided an overwhelming 63-36 GOP majority anyway.

Gerrymandered maps remake policy. Sometimes it’s the difference between life and death. In Michigan, a gerrymandered legislature reinstated a controversial municipal emergency manager law that voters overrode via initiative. In Flint, that led to the emergency manager switching the city’s water supply to the Flint River. In Florida, after 64 percent of voters embraced a constitutional amendment restoring voting rights to 1.4 former felons, a gerrymandered legislature attached a 21st-century poll tax that would allow only a fraction of that number to re-register. In Ohio, Alabama, and Georgia, gerrymandered legislatures approved “personhood” bans on abortion despite public opinion polls that showed majorities opposed to these tough new restrictions, even in these reliably red states.

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Gerrymandering makes elections less competitive and reincentivizes politicians to cater to extremes and act as an accelerant on polarization in divisiveness. In Wisconsin and North Carolina, half of all state legislative races lacked any major party challengers at all in 2016. In Georgia, that number was a staggering 80 percent. When general elections don’t matter, low turnout off-season primaries become all important, meaning politicians bend over backward to please their base — compromise and consensus-building become impossible.

Gerrymandering sends a new breed of politicians to Washington. In North Carolina, one of the congressional districts redrawn via REDMAP turned a consistent swing seat in the western part of the state into hard-core red territory. The moderate Democrat took one look at the new lines and retired. A local sandwich shop owner named Mark Meadows jumped into the race, ran on a “birther” platform of sending President Obama “back to Kenya or wherever it is he comes from,” and won the all-important primary. In Washington, Meadows helped overthrow then-Speaker John Boehner, orchestrated a government shutdown over Obamacare funding, and is now Donald Trump’s chief of staff. He’d still have the sandwich shop if not for gerrymandering.

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Gerrymandering remakes history. Americans reelected Barack Obama, gave Democrats control of the Senate in 2012, and cast 1.4 million more votes for Democratic US House candidates. Republicans kept control of the House anyway, 234-201, and Obama’s second term agenda was over the night of his reelection.

Finally, gerrymandered state legislatures target voting rights, often as task one. Once politicians choose their own voters, they can build barriers that make it more difficult for the other side to vote. Republican legislatures have enacted new voter ID bills, purged voting rolls, closed precincts, eliminated early voting, and made it more difficult for activists to conduct voter registration drives. In Wisconsin, a federal court found that a voter ID bill there had the potential to keep as many as 300,000 voters from casting a ballot in 2016. Donald Trump carried the state by less than 24,000 votes.

Now, amid the coronavirus pandemic that may make in-person voting this fall dangerous, some of those same gerrymandered legislatures have toughened eligibility for absentee ballots, added onerous witness requirements, tightened voter registration procedures, and stopped secretaries of state from covering postage costs or sending mail ballot applications to everyone.

It’s a census year once more. Democrats seem aware of the stakes this time. But Republicans retain the upper hand and have a sophisticated plan for REDMAP 2.0. Yes, the White House is on the ballot this fall. But so is the next decade of maps. The president elected this fall wins a term that runs through 2024. No one gets another crack at these maps until 2031.

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David Daley is the author of “Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count” and “Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy.

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Larry David shares how he feels about Trump – CNN

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Larry David shares how he feels about Trump

“Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Larry David shares how he feels about former President Donald Trump and the 2020 election. Watch the full episode of “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace,” streaming March 29 on Max.


03:21

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Trump's claims on crime rates clash with police data – NBC News

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Surging crime levels, out-of-control Democratic cities and “migrant crime.”

Former President Donald Trump regularly cites all three at his campaign rallies, in news releases and on Truth Social, often saying President Joe Biden and Democrats are to blame.

But the crime picture Trump paints contrasts sharply with years of police and government data at both the local and national levels.

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FBI statistics released this year suggested a steep drop in crime across the country last year. It’s a similar story across major cities, with violent crime down year over year in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.

NBC News analyzed crime data to evaluate Trump’s assertions about the topic.

U.S. and big city crime rates

Trump’s campaign often refers to crime levels, regularly pointing the finger at Biden.

“On Joe Biden’s watch, violent crime has skyrocketed in virtually every American city,” the campaign said in a news release published this month on its site.

Trump himself has made similar remarks.

“Four years ago, I told you that if crooked Joe Biden got to the White House, our borders would be abolished, our middle class would be decimated and our communities would be plagued by bloodshed, chaos and violent crime,” Trump said in a speech last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “We were right about everything.”

Government figures don’t support that characterization.

Reported violent crime dropped 6% across the board when comparing the last three months of 2022 to the same period in 2023, the FBI reported.

The reported drops were especially pronounced in the big cities that Trump often assails, many of which have Democratic mayors. Violent crime dropped by 11% in cities with populations of 1 million or more, according to FBI data, while murders dropped by 20%, rape was down 16%, and aggravated assault fell by 11%.

Reached for comment, the Trump campaign pointed to other reports indicating that certain types of crimes increased in specific cities.

At the national level, the reported rate of violent crime in 2022, the most recent full year with comprehensive FBI data, was 380.7 offenses per 100,000 people. That’s lower than the overall reported violent crime rate from 2020 — the last full year Trump was in office — when the figure was at 398.5.

The lowest reported violent crime rate of Trump’s presidency was in 2019, when the metric was at 380.8 — in line with the 2022 rate.

The FBI said it will release more comprehensive 2023 crime data in October, just before the election.

The Trump campaign, reached for comment, cited certain categories of violent crime, such as motor vehicle theft, as having increased during the Biden administration, according to FBI figures.

“Joe Biden is trying to convince Americans not to believe their own eyes,” campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, adding that “Democrats have turned great American cities into cesspools of bloodshed and crime.”

New York City crime

Trump, who was born and raised in New York but now lives in Florida, often rails against what he portrays as an increasing crime rate in his former hometown.

Those references to soaring violence have only increased as he faces criminal charges in New York accusing him of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump, who has pleaded not guilty in that case, must also post a $175 million bond to prevent state Attorney General Letitia James from collecting the judgment from a New York civil fraud case.

“I did nothing wrong, and New York should never be put in a position like this again,” Trump posted on Truth Social about the civil judgment in all capital letters. “Businesses are fleeing, violent crime is flourishing, and it is very important that this be resolved in its totality as soon as possible.”

In a separate post, he claimed that “murders & violent crime hit unimaginable records” in the city.

However, major crimes in New York City are down this year by 2.3%, according to police department data comparing year-to-date figures to the same period in 2023.

Those figures for last year were also far below the highs from recent decades. In 1990, more than 527,000 major crimes were reported, compared to more than 126,000 last year, according to New York police data — a drop of more than 75%.

In 2001, more than 162,000 major crimes were reported in New York. The figure dropped by more than 20% over the next two decades.

At the same time, New York City data indicates that the number of major crimes increased in the past few years, though reported violent crimes like murder and rape were down last year from previous years.

‘Migrant crime’

Trump’s dehumanizing language about migrants has become a mainstay of his political speeches since he first sought office in 2015.

In a news release this month, his campaign said the “border Crisis has created a tragic surge in violent crime against innocent American citizens at the hands of some of the world’s most violent criminals.”

Trump has also focused his energy on high-profile cases such as the death of Laken Riley, who was killed in Georgia while jogging. The suspect is a Venezuelan citizen who entered the U.S. illegally in 2022.

“Every day, innocent citizens are being killed, stabbed, shot, raped and murdered because of Biden migrant crime,” Trump said in a video posted to his campaign’s X account last week.

However, there is no evidence of a migrant-driven crime wave in the U.S., according to local police department data.

Crime reports have decreased in several major cities targeted by Texas’ Operation Lone Star, a program backed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott that flies or buses migrants from the state to Democratic-run cities across the U.S.

Several of those cities — New York, Chicago, Washington and Philadelphia — have had decreases in year-to-date reported crime totals compared to the same period last year.


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Federal government promising a 'renters' bill of rights' in upcoming budget – CBC.ca

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government will introduce new measures — including a new “bill of rights” — that he says will help protect those who rent their homes as part of the upcoming budget.

Trudeau said the new measures are specifically geared toward younger people, who are renting more than previous generations.

“It’s about changing the rules of the game in a way that meets young people where they are,” he said on Wednesday.

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Ottawa will work with provinces and territories to develop a “renters’ bill of rights” that would introduce a national standard lease agreement and implement requirements for landlords to disclose an apartment’s pricing history to allow tenants to negotiate their rent.

The new measures will also include a $15-million fund for provincial legal aid organizations that help tenants fight against “renovictions” and landlord abuse.

The Liberals are also proposing to change federal rules so that making rental payments on time will count toward someone’s credit scores, something Trudeau said is meant to help renters looking to one day buy a house.

“If you look at someone who pays a $2,000 [per month] mortgage, they’re getting recognition and credit for that from their bank as part of their credit score,” the prime minister said.

“But if you’re paying $2,000 a month on rent, you get no kudos.”

Typically the government doesn’t discuss what is in an annual budget until it is introduced in the House of Commons. But the announcement was made weeks prior to the release of the Liberals’ next budget, which is slated to drop on April 16.

Releasing tidbits from the budget ahead of time is part of a new communications strategy for the Liberals, sources told CBC News. Trudeau and his ministers are expected to make a number of similar announcements in the run-up to the budget, the sources said.

WATCH | Trudeau says new measures aim to help tenants: 

Liberals promise ‘renters’ bill of rights’ to fight housing crisis

5 hours ago

Duration 2:07

The Liberals are looking to create a ‘renters’ bill of rights’ to help deal with Canada’s housing crisis. Justin Trudeau says the plan is geared toward younger people suffering from a rising cost of living. The Conservatives call the measures meaningless.

Before revealing the planned rental measures on Wednesday, Trudeau took a moment to plug the April 16 fiscal plan, saying that the budget will be about “fairness.”

“For Canada to succeed, we need everyone to succeed,” he said.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland joined Trudeau for his announcement and hinted about further announcements ahead of budget day.

“Over the coming days and in the April budget, we are going to launch a no-holds-barred plan to wrestle down the cost of owning and renting a home,” she said.

Wednesday’s announcements came on the same day that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation released a report that found a surge in new apartment construction drove housing start increases in several major Canadian cities last year.

But the report also cautions that demand continues to outweigh supply.

The opposition Conservatives, who have enjoyed a healthy lead in recent polls, have made housing — and other cost-of-living issues — a key point of attack against the governing Liberals.

Following his announcement, Trudeau was asked whether he thinks he bears any responsibility for people feeling left behind in the current economy and whether the new measures would be enough to convince younger people to support him in the next election.

In response, Trudeau suggested that a recent rise in the cost of living is not unique to Canada.

“Young people who are key to our present, and obviously key to our future, are seeing a system that is stacked against them. That’s true in Canada but also true elsewhere around the world,” he said. “What we’re focused on now is making sure that young people can see their success in the economy.”

Opposition parties criticize Liberal announcement

Scott Aitchison, the Conservative housing critic, said Wednesday’s announcement was Liberal posturing that won’t get results.

“Today’s photo op is just another set of meaningless measures that won’t result in building the homes Canadians need,” he said in a statement.

NDP housing critic Jenny Kwan criticized the announcement for not going far enough.

“The Liberals are so out of touch with what Canadian renters are experiencing that they keep offering half-measures instead of a real action,” Kwan said in a statement.

The NDP is calling on the government to invest more in affordable housing while temporarily preventing for-profit firms from buying designated affordable-housing spaces.

WATCH | Liberal government promises better protections for renters in upcoming budget: 

Liberal government promises better protections for renters in upcoming budget

9 hours ago

Duration 11:39

The Liberal government unveiled three new proposals Wednesday to better protect renters in Canada. Power & Politics speaks to Marci Ien, minister of women, gender equality and youth, about the proposed protections.

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