Month: November 2023

Wisconsin Supreme Court hearing arguments on redistricting that could result in new maps for 2024

Posted on by Associated Press

The liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a redistricting case that Democrats hope will result in new, more favorable legislative maps for elections in 2024 that will help them chip away at the large Republican majority.

The case is being closely watched in battleground Wisconsin, a state where four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by fewer than 23,000 votes, but where Republicans have built large majorities in the Legislature under maps they drew over a decade ago.

Conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley immediately interrupted the first attorney arguing for new maps, questioning why they waited until after August when liberal justices took majority control of the court. She noted that the newly elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz said during her campaign that the current maps were “rigged.”

“Everybody knows that the reason we’re here is because there was a change in the membership of the court," Bradley said. "You would not have brought this action, right, if the newest justice had lost her election?”

Attorney Mark Gaber, from the Campaign Legal Center, said the election result had nothing to do with the timing of the lawsuit. He said the challenge over whether the districts are unconstitutionally not contiguous would have been filed regardless of the makeup of the court.

“I don't see that as a partisan issue,” Gaber said.

The lawsuit was filed the day after the Wisconsin Supreme Court became controlled 4-3 by liberal justices in August.

Arguments began shortly before 9 a.m. and were slated to run all morning. The court was expected to issue its ruling no later than early in 2024. The state elections commission has said maps must be in place by March 15 if the new districts are to be in play for the 2024 elections.

Democratic voters who filed the lawsuit heard by the court Tuesday argue that the maps passed in 2022, which vary little from those drawn in 2011, are unconstitutionally “unsalvageable” and must be struck down and redrawn. The Legislature counters that Democrats are exercising “raw political power” and trying to take advantage of the new liberal majority on the court to overturn its 2021 ruling that adopted the current maps.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is controlled 4-3 by liberal justices, following the April election victory by Protasiewicz. She called the GOP-drawn maps “unfair” and “rigged” during the campaign, leading Republicans to threaten to impeach her before she had even heard a case. Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos backed off, for now, but has kept the threat alive if she votes to strike down the maps.

Democrats want the court to strike down the legislative maps, draw new ones, and order elections under those maps for all 132 state lawmakers in 2024. If the court were to rule that way, the case would certainly be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and it's unclear whether there would be a ruling in time for the 2024 election.

The Legislature argues that if new maps are ordered, nothing should be enacted any sooner than the 2026 election.

Litigation is ongoing in more than dozen states over U.S. House and state legislative districts enacted after the 2020 census. New York is among the most prominent. The state’s highest court heard arguments last week on whether an independent redistricting commission must take another crack at drawing congressional districts. Democrats are hoping a redraw could help them gain seats and, potentially, the House majority.

New Mexico’s Supreme Court heard arguments Monday on an appeal of a lower court ruling that rejected assertions the Democratic-led Legislature had illegally gerrymandered the state’s congressional districts. Last week, a federal judge in North Dakota ruled that state legislative districts drawn by the Republican majority violated the voting rights of two Native American tribes and must be redrawn by Dec. 22.

The Democrats' case in Wisconsin centers on whether the current districts are not contiguous and if they violate the Wisconsin Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine.

The majority of current legislative districts — 54 out of 99 in the Assembly and 21 out of 33 in the Senate — violate the state constitution’s contiguity requirement, attorneys challenging the maps argued in filings with the court.

That makes Wisconsin an outlier nationally, with 46 other states having no noncontiguous districts, and Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Tennessee having a total of nine noncontiguous districts, attorneys argued.

Wisconsin’s redistricting laws, backed up by state and federal court rulings over the past 50 years, have permitted districts under certain circumstances to be noncontiguous, attorneys for the Legislature argued. Even if the court decided to address the issue, it could only affect alleged areas where districts aren’t contiguous and not upend existing district lines, Republicans argued.

Those seeking new maps contend that the Supreme Court violated the separation of powers doctrine when it adopted the Republican-drawn map that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers had previously vetoed, “improperly seizing powers for itself the Constitution assigns to other branches.”

The legislative electoral maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2011 cemented the party’s majorities, which now stand at 64-35 in the Assembly and a 22-11 supermajority in the Senate.

Since taking the majority in 2011, Republicans have enacted a wide range of conservative priorities. They have all but eliminated collective bargaining for public workers, and since 2019 they’ve been a block on Evers’ agenda, firing Evers appointees and threatening impeachment of Protasiewicz and the state’s elections leader.

Wisconsin’s Assembly districts rank among the most gerrymandered nationally, with Republicans routinely winning far more seats than would be expected based on their average share of the vote, according to an Associated Press analysis.

Campaign Action

House GOP nears decision on Biden impeachment articles

Posted on by By Jordain Carney

House Republicans are closing in on a make-or-break moment in their drive to impeach Joe Biden, with GOP centrists remaining highly skeptical of the effort even as its leaders look to decide in January on whether to file formal articles against the president.

Even with a planned deposition of Hunter Biden in the coming weeks, the party remains in a tense spot, with centrists signaling that the party’s investigation hasn’t yet met their bar for an impeachment vote and the right flank ratcheting up pressure to move forward.

It's all building to a decision on whether to pursue impeachment articles as soon as January. Republicans would likely accuse the president of improperly using his political office to further his family’s business dealings — though they haven’t yet found a smoking gun to that effect and some members acknowledge that seems increasingly unlikely. Impeachment advocates are still probing other issues as well, such as the federal investigation that resulted in a failed plea deal for Hunter Biden.

“We get those depositions done this year and … then we can decide on whether or not there’s articles,” House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told POLITICO, predicting that decision would happen early next year.

But a familiar obstacle for Republicans stands in their way here, too: their thin majority. Though Republicans can draft and file articles without a locked-in whip count, impeachment backers will need near unanimity to actually recommend booting Biden from office, since it's virtually assured no Democrat would vote to impeach Biden.

Ending an impeachment inquiry without a vote — or a failed one — would be an embarrassing political setback both for hardliners and Speaker Mike Johnson, who conservatives view as their ally on the issue. But centrists remain unconvinced that impeachment is necessary, and what’s more, that group has grown increasingly willing to buck leadership after the three-week speaker fight and with 2024 drawing closer.

“Any kind of an impeachment puts our Biden people in a really tough spot,” a GOP lawmaker involved in the investigation, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, said in an interview. “Impeachment hurts us politically — it makes our base feel better.”

Republicans are aware that the deeper they go into 2024 the larger the shadow of the upcoming election looms, both for Biden and their own vulnerable members. And there's no guarantee any potential political benefits of keeping the conversation in the spotlight into the presidential election will negate the added pressure on Biden-district Republicans.

“We understand that the further you go toward an election, the more politicized these conversations become. That’s why it’s all the more important for us to begin to take action sooner rather than later,” said Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Jordan estimated that he and Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) have a dozen to 15 interviews they still want to finish by the end of the year. At least one of those interviews is likely to spill over into January: Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, who purchased Hunter Biden artwork. Jordan, Comer and Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) also briefed Johnson on the status of their Biden investigations last week.

And more fights on that front could further drag out the inquiry. Comer has said that he wants to hold individuals who don’t comply with the subpoenas in contempt, though he acknowledged that it’s a decision for the conference. If anyone in Republicans' final batch of interviews fights a subpoena in court, that could tee off a lengthy legal challenge.

Not to mention, decisions on impeachment could easily run into a pair of government funding deadlines in mid-January and early February. But conservatives are eager to move the impeachment effort to its next phase, with the Judiciary Committee expected to take the lead on drafting any formal articles.

“I think it needs to move with alacrity. I’ve always felt that we should be able to move faster. … But I do anticipate that it comes to Judiciary soon,” said Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.), a member of that panel.

Republicans are months into their sweeping investigation into the Biden family. They’ve poked holes in some of Joe Biden's and the White House’s previous statements and found examples of Hunter Biden trading on his family name, including invoking his father to try to bolster his own influence. But they’ve struggled to find a direct link that shows Biden took official actions as president or vice president to benefit his family’s business deals.

But Republicans aren't putting all their bets on the one basket. They've hinted that they could also draw obstruction allegations into the impeachment articles, citing any refusal by the Biden administration to cooperate.

Meanwhile, Democrats and the White House are already previewing their rebuttal to that potential charge. They've cited a Trump-era Justice Department opinion that states investigative steps and subpoenas initiated so far aren’t valid because Republicans never held a formal vote to start the inquiry — and are likely to point back to fulfilled records requests and interviews.

“House Republicans have already spent a year on their expensive and time-consuming so-called ‘investigation’ and they’ve turned up zero evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden. In fact, their own witnesses and the thousands of pages of documents they’ve obtained have repeatedly debunked their false allegations,” Ian Sams, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement to POLITICO.

GOP lawmakers have also pointed to unproven allegations of bribery as a potential focus of impeachment articles, though they are facing doubt from some colleagues that they will be able to find the kind of direct evidence that shows Joe Biden participated in the sort of “pay for play” scandal that conservatives accuse him of. Oversight Committee Republicans also argued in a memo earlier this year that they didn’t need to show direct payments to Joe Biden to prove “corruption.”

The House GOP has also touted two payments from James Biden to Joe Biden — one for $200,000 and another for $40,000 — as evidence of “money laundering” and the president benefiting from his family’s business deals. The checks from James Biden are earmarked as loan repayments and the White House has said they were a loan, an idea contested by Republicans. Both payments came a month or two after an account that appears to be associated with Joe Biden, based on records reviewed by POLITICO, wired James Biden both $200,000 and $40,000.

“I don’t think we’re going to have a closed-caption video with some Chinese national handing Joe Biden the bank money,” the GOP lawmaker who was granted anonymity said, acknowledging the impeachment case would ride on a “mountain of circumstantial evidence.” But, they argued, some federal prosecutions had been built on similar bases.

Centrists have credited the GOP investigations with uncovering new evidence about Biden family business dealings and raised questions about Biden himself. But they’ve also warned leadership that they don’t want to move forward on a vote without a “smoking gun.” Johnson, during a recent meeting with that faction of the conference, indicated that he wasn’t yet ready to pull the trigger on impeachment, but that they should keep following the evidence, according to two Republicans in the meeting.

Still, that sparked quick pushback from his right flank, who worried that Johnson was trying to quietly pull the plug on impeachment. In a statement late last week that appeared aimed at trying to clear the air, Johnson said the GOP investigators “have my full and unwavering support.”

“Now, the appropriate step is to place key witnesses under oath and question them under the penalty of perjury, to fill gaps in the record,” Johnson said, adding that Republicans are moving “toward an inflection point in this critical investigation.”

Posted in Uncategorized

Tennessee Supreme Court justice announces retirement

Posted on by Latest Political News on Fox News

Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Roger Page announced on Monday that he plans to retire in August 2024.

In a statement from Tennessee's court system, the 68-year-old said his time as a judge has been humbling, inspiring and the honor of a lifetime. He was first appointed to the high court by former Republican Gov. Bill Haslam in 2016. His last day will be Aug. 31.

"The Tennessee judiciary is truly a family, and I have been fortunate to walk this path with my great friends in the judiciary," Page said in a statement. "I will miss all of them and treasure their friendship."

FORMER WISCONSIN CHIEF JUSTICE ORDERED TO TURN OVER RECORDS RELATED TO PROTASIEWICZ IMPEACHMENT ADVISEMENT

The decision will give Republican Gov. Bill Lee a chance to appoint his third justice on the five-member court. The five current justices were all appointed by Republican governors.

Page has spent more than 25 years as a judge at the trial court, intermediate appellate and Tennessee Supreme Court levels. Haslam appointed him to the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals in 2011 before picking Page for the state Supreme Court about five years later. Page served as the chief justice from 2021 to 2023.

During his tenure, Page helped secure funding for electronic filing for the court system, advocated for access to pro bono services and promoted livestreaming of appellate arguments, according to the statement.

SANDERS TAPS ARKANSAS GOP CHAIRMAN, EX-FEDERAL PROSECUTOR, FOR STATE SUPREME COURT SEAT

Page grew up on a farm in the Mifflin area of West Tennessee. Before his legal career, he worked as a chief pharmacist and assistant store manager for Walgreens.

"If I hurry, I might have time for one more career," Page said.

He praised the work done by Tennessee's judiciary system during the pandemic, including advances in technology.

"It has been incredibly gratifying to watch the start of an evolution across the judiciary," Page said. "I look forward to following those changes and to catching up with my judicial family in between trips I have been planning for years, watching my grandkids play sports, and spending time with my wonderful wife."

In Tennessee, the governor's picks for Supreme Court must also be confirmed by state lawmakers. Republicans have supermajority control in both legislative chambers. Additionally, Supreme Court justices face "yes-no" retention elections every eight years. Voters retained Page and the other four justices at the time during the 2022 election.

Sen Marshall endorses Trump for president, calls for end to ‘political primary charade’

Posted on by Latest Political News on Fox News

FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kans., endorsed former President Trump in the 2024 presidential race on Monday, calling for an end to the "political primary charade."

Marshall, an ally of Trump since the former president's one term in office, said he is endorsing Trump to bolster the priorities of farmers, restore border security and slash inflation rates caused by the Biden administration.

"Since the day Joe Biden stepped foot in the Oval Office, this White House declared war on American agriculture and American energy independence in pursuit of their Green New Deal agenda and electric vehicle mandates," Marshall said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

"Joe Biden declared war on American sovereignty by opening our borders, ceding control to the cartels, allowing nearly 10 million illegal aliens into our country, and permitting lethal fentanyl to pour into our communities," he continued.

TRUMP GAINS MORE SUPPORT FROM TEXAS REPUBLICANS

Marshall blamed Biden’s "absent leadership" and said he abandoned the country’s "Christian values and undermined our constitutional rights."

"Our farmers and ranchers feed the world, and Kansans deserve a President who understands that, and a leader who values the energy Americans produce. That is why I’m endorsing President Donald Trump. While others may try to imitate him, only President Trump will put our country back on track on day one," he said.

"Along with the onslaught of strangling regulations, Joe Biden declared war on our economy by unleashing a level of federal spending never seen in modern history, causing the highest inflation and interest rates that we’ve seen in decades," he said.

He added, "It’s time for the GOP to unite behind President Trump. Let’s end the political primary charade and focus on retiring Joe Biden."

RAMASWAMY CLASHES WITH CNN ANCHOR PRESSING HIM ON TRUMP'S 'VERMIN' COMMENTS: 'GIVE ME A BREAK!'

Marshall was a vocal critic against the Democrat-led impeachment hearing in 2021 following the Jan. 6 Capitol riots and voted to acquit Trump in February. At the time, he said "both sides of the aisle are guilty of heated rhetoric," regarding Jan. 6. 

"But, equally guilty are the House Managers and the Democrats for their hypocrisy, and President Trump’s defense team painted that picture clearly," he said in February 2021.

The senator also supported Trump’s efforts to tighten election integrity after the contested 2020 general election. 

TRUMP VS. BIDEN: A DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE IN HOW THE MEDIA TREAT EACH CAMPAIGN

Marshall joins a group of a dozen Republicans in the upper chamber who have already endorsed Trump. 

Meanwhile, Trump has the support of nearly 80 Republicans in the House. On Sunday, Trump also received the backing of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

Trump leads the GOP nomination race with the backing of a record 62% of Republican primary voters in a new Fox News survey published last week. That translates to a roughly 50-point gap between Trump and Ron DeSantis (14%), and Nikki Haley (11%). Vivek Ramaswamy (7%), Chris Christie (3%), and Asa Hutchinson (1%) trail even further. 

Morning Digest: Freedom Caucus clone sparks bitter primary challenge in South Carolina

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.

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Leading Off

• SC-04: Republican Rep. William Timmons, who is in his third term representing South Carolina's conservative 4th District, has earned a primary challenge from state Rep. Adam Morgan, who chairs his own chamber's far-right Freedom Caucus.

Morgan avoided leveling criticisms of the incumbent in his launch, but his most prominent endorser didn't hesitate. Ultra-conservative Rep. Ralph Norman, who represents the neighboring 5th District and is one of the most implacable extremists in Congress, castigated Timmons for "protecting former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy," according to the Greenville News' Devyani Chhetri. (Timmons voted to keep McCarthy as speaker in the historic early October vote that ousted him from the job, but Norman did as well.)

Timmons himself fired back at his new opponent in unusually harsh terms. While incumbents often act as though challengers are beneath their notice, Timmons eschewed that approach. "Adam's greatest 'legislative accomplishments' are filing a lawsuit and abandoning the Republican Party to form a third-party caucus that shrank in size under his 'leadership,'" he said in a statement.

Last year, Morgan led several rebel lawmakers in creating the state House's Freedom Caucus, a breakaway group modeled after its congressional counterpart that has accused GOP leaders of failing to pursue a sufficiently conservative agenda. Their accomplishments on the legislative front have been minimal, however, with one establishment Republican dismissing the faction as little more than "a headache on social media."

Chhetri explains that this local version of the Freedom Caucus was the "brain-child" of Mark Meadows, Donald Trump's former chief of staff who was indicted by Georgia prosecutors for attempting to overturn the 2020 election. But before he served Trump, Meadows was a founder of the congressional Freedom Caucus (of which Norman is also a member). Chhetri adds that Morgan's bloc has been funded in part by a nonprofit run by former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, another hard-liner who was notorious for feuding with colleagues.

But while Morgan may not have much to show for his efforts to usher in a conservative utopia, Timmons could nonetheless be vulnerable. Last year, he won his primary with just 53% of the vote while three little-known candidates split the remainder. Shortly after that election, he appeared on several radio shows to address rumors that he'd used the powers of his office to conceal an extra-marital affair. While he denied that he'd abused his position, he didn't deny being unfaithful to his wife, who filed for divorce shortly after he won reelection that fall.

With a much higher-profile opponent this time, the outcome could be very different, especially in a one-on-one race. But even if other critics also jump in, Timmons cannot escape with only a plurality of the vote, since South Carolina requires runoffs if no one wins a majority in the primary.

Redistricting

• ND Redistricting: A federal court has struck down the legislative maps that North Dakota Republicans enacted after the 2020 census, ruling that GOP mapmakers violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting power of Native Americans.

In North Dakota, legislative districts have traditionally elected one state senator and two state representatives, but following the most recent census, lawmakers split the 4th and 9th districts into two state House "subdistricts" to ostensibly comply with the VRA. However, said the court, the timing of the state's elections rendered the 9th noncompliant.

While the district has a 54% Native majority and went 51-47 for Joe Biden in 2020, its legislative elections are only held in midterm years, when Native turnout is often particularly low compared to that of white voters. (Lawmakers in both chambers serve staggered four-year terms.)

As a result, Republican Kent Weston won the 9th by a 54-46 margin last year, defeating longtime Democratic state Sen. Richard Marcellais. That left the Senate without any Native American members for the first time since 1991.

The House subdistricts were also flawed in another way, the court held. Rather than divide the 9th District in such a way that Native voters would be able to elect their preferred candidates in both subdistricts, Republicans instead deliberately packed Native Americans into just one of them.

That left District 9A with an 80% Native population while 9B was just 32% Native. The former consequently supported Biden 73-26 and elected a Democrat to the legislature, while the latter went for Donald Trump 61-37 and sent a Republican to the statehouse.

The court set a Dec. 22 deadline for North Dakota's Republican-dominated state government to pass a new map to remedy the violation and ordered that new elections be held in November 2024, when Native turnout should be higher. However, it's possible that a GOP appeal could drag out a resolution until after 2024.

Senate

• MI-Sen: Actor Hill Harper, who recently filed financial reports saying he has no bank accounts and earned no income during the last two years, now tells the Detroit News' Melissa Nann Burke that he'll submit revised statements. But, adds Burke (who broke the original story), Harper says he may not do so until the end of February, because of "the upcoming holiday season." Harper, who has self-funded a large portion of his campaign for the Democratic nomination for Senate, still has offered no explanation for the apparent omissions.

• NJ-Sen: Local Democratic leaders in New Jersey's two largest counties, Bergen and Middlesex, have given their support to former financier Tammy Murphy in next year's Senate primary, joining two other counties, Camden and Hudson, that previously backed her. As a result, Murphy will enjoy favorable placement on the ballot in counties responsible for a third of Joe Biden's total vote in the 2020 general election. Murphy's chief rival for the nomination, Rep. Andy Kim, has yet to win any such "county lines."

Murphy also won an endorsement from Rep. Josh Gottheimer, which makes him the first person in the state's House delegation to weigh in on the race. Gottheimer, a prodigious fundraiser, is considering a bid to succeed Murphy's husband, Gov. Phil Murphy, in 2025.

Governors

• WA-Gov: A new survey from Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling, taken for the Northwest Progressive Institute, finds former Republican Rep. Dave Reichert and Democratic state Attorney General Bob Ferguson advancing to next year's general election, where Reichert would have a narrow edge. It's the first publicly released poll since Reichert joined the governor's race in Washington, which is an open-seat contest because Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee is retiring after three terms.

In the Aug. 6 top-two primary, PPP shows Reichert and Ferguson tied at 31 apiece; another Republican, far-right Army veteran Semi Bird, is far back at 10%, while state Sen. Mark Mullet, a centrist Democrat, brings up the rear with 5%. In a head-to-head matchup, Reichert leads Ferguson 46-44.

House

• IA-01: Local Christian activist David Pautsch has launched a primary challenge against Republican Rep. Marianette Miller-Meeks, reports the Quad-City Times' Sarah Watson, complaining that the congresswoman "doesn't have a passion for the relevance of God in our community." Pautsch specifically criticized Miller-Meeks for her vote for the Respect for Marriage Act, which requires the federal government and the states to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages. He also attacked her for voting against Jim Jordan's speakership twice after supporting him on the initial ballot.

Far-right religious figures like Pausch often wage campaigns against GOP incumbents fueled by similar grievances, but it can often be hard to tell whether they have any juice. It's possible, though, that Pausch does have some: Watson says he's the founder of the Quad Cities Prayer Breakfast, an annual event that drew prominent Arizona election denier Kari Lake to its most recent gathering a few months ago.

Last year, Miller-Meeks defeated Democrat Christina Bohannon by a 53-47 margin in Iowa's 1st Congressional District, a swingy seat that Donald Trump carried 51-48. Bohannon kicked off a rematch in mid-August and raised a hefty $657,000 in the third quarter despite campaigning for just half that period. Miller-Meeks brought in $464,000 during that timeframe and ended September with $1.4 million in the bank versus $637,000 for Bohannon.

• MI-08: Former Trump immigration official Paul Junge, who lost to retiring Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee 53-43 last year, said he'd wage another campaign for Michigan's now-open 8th District on Friday. We'll have more on this announcement, as well as the developing field for both parties, in the next Digest.

• OH-02: Republican Charles Tassell, the chair of the Clermont County GOP, really meant it when he said he'd decide "as soon as possible": Just three days after he said as much to The Hotline's James Downs, he announced a bid for Ohio's open 2nd Congressional District. Clermont, in the Cincinnati suburbs, is by far the largest of the 16 counties that make up the district, with more than a quarter of its population, according to calculations by Daily Kos Elections.

• PA-03: The Philadelphia Inquirer's Chris Brennan flags that Democratic state Rep. Chris Rabb created a campaign committee with the FEC more than a month ago that would set up a potential primary with Rep. Dwight Evans, though Rabb "declined to comment" about his intentions. Brennan adds that "[r]umors have been swirling" that Evans might not seek reelection, but the congressman, who was first elected in 2016, says he will indeed run again for Pennsylvania's deep blue 3rd District.

There's also some history between the two pols. Last year, Brennan notes, Rabb was drawn into the same House district as fellow state Rep. Isabella Fitzgerald, a former aide to Evans who succeeded her old boss when he won his seat in Congress. While Fitzgerald had the support of Evans and many other local elected officials, Rabb, who portrayed himself as an outsider and railed against "machine" politics, won by a 63-37 margin.

• VA-07: Former National Security Council official Eugene Vindman says he's already raised over $800,000 in his first 24 hours after joining the Democratic primary for this open seat. Vindman, who is a retired Army colonel, also won an endorsement from VoteVets.

Vindman furthermore has the support of California Rep. Adam Schiff, an exceptional fundraiser himself, who is running for Senate this cycle and has been using his donor list to solicit donations for Vindman. Both Democrats gained national attention for their role in Trump's first impeachment: Vindman helped blow the whistle on Trump's attempt to extort the Ukrainian government into undermining Biden's presidential campaign, while Schiff led the House's effort to impeach Trump over it in 2019.

Timmons himself fired back at his new opponent in unusually harsh terms. While incumbents often act as though challengers are beneath their notice, Timmons eschewed that approach. "Adam's greatest 'legislative accomplishments' are filing a lawsuit and abandoning the Republican Party to form a third-party caucus that shrank in size under his 'leadership,'" he said in a statement.

Last year, Morgan led several rebel lawmakers in creating the state House's Freedom Caucus, a breakaway group modeled after its congressional counterpart that has accused GOP leaders of failing to pursue a sufficiently conservative agenda. Their accomplishments on the legislative front have been minimal, however, with one establishment Republican dismissing the faction as little more than "a headache on social media."

Chhetri explains that this local version of the Freedom Caucus was the "brain-child" of Mark Meadows, Donald Trump's former chief of staff who was indicted by Georgia prosecutors for attempting to overturn the 2020 election. But before he served Trump, Meadows was a founder of the congressional Freedom Caucus (of which Norman is also a member). Chhetri adds that Morgan's bloc has been funded in part by a nonprofit run by former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, another hard-liner who was notorious for feuding with colleagues.

But while Morgan may not have much to show for his efforts to usher in a conservative utopia, Timmons could nonetheless be vulnerable. Last year, he won his primary with just 53% of the vote while three little-known candidates split the remainder. Shortly after that election, he appeared on several radio shows to address rumors that he'd used the powers of his office to conceal an extra-marital affair. While he denied that he'd abused his position, he didn't deny being unfaithful to his wife, who filed for divorce shortly after he won reelection that fall.

With a much higher-profile opponent this time, the outcome could be very different, especially in a one-on-one race. But even if other critics also jump in, Timmons cannot escape with only a plurality of the vote, since South Carolina requires runoffs if no one wins a majority in the primary.

Redistricting

● ND Redistricting: A federal court has struck down the legislative maps that North Dakota Republicans enacted after the 2020 census, ruling that GOP mapmakers violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting power of Native Americans.

In North Dakota, legislative districts have traditionally elected one state senator and two state representatives, but following the most recent census, lawmakers split the 4th and 9th districts into two state House "subdistricts" to ostensibly comply with the VRA. However, said the court, the timing of the state's elections rendered the 9th noncompliant.

While the district has a 54% Native majority and went 51-47 for Joe Biden in 2020, its legislative elections are only held in midterm years, when Native turnout is often particularly low compared to that of white voters. (Lawmakers in both chambers serve staggered four-year terms.)

As a result, Republican Kent Weston won the 9th by a 54-46 margin last year, defeating longtime Democratic state Sen. Richard Marcellais. That left the Senate without any Native American members for the first time since 1991.

The House subdistricts were also flawed in another way, the court held. Rather than divide the 9th District in such a way that Native voters would be able to elect their preferred candidates in both subdistricts, Republicans instead deliberately packed Native Americans into just one of them.

That left District 9A with an 80% Native population while 9B was just 32% Native. The former consequently supported Biden 73-26 and elected a Democrat to the legislature, while the latter went for Donald Trump 61-37 and sent a Republican to the statehouse.

The court set a Dec. 22 deadline for North Dakota's Republican-dominated state government to pass a new map to remedy the violation and ordered that new elections be held in November 2024, when Native turnout should be higher. However, it's possible that a GOP appeal could drag out a resolution until after 2024.

Senate

● MI-Sen: Actor Hill Harper, who recently filed financial reports saying he has no bank accounts and earned no income during the last two years, now tells the Detroit News' Melissa Nann Burke that he'll submit revised statements. But, adds Burke (who broke the original story), Harper says he may not do so until the end of February, because of "the upcoming holiday season." Harper, who has self-funded a large portion of his campaign for the Democratic nomination for Senate, still has offered no explanation for the apparent omissions.

● NJ-Sen: Local Democratic leaders in New Jersey's two largest counties, Bergen and Middlesex, have given their support to former financier Tammy Murphy in next year's Senate primary, joining two other counties, Camden and Hudson, that previously backed her. As a result, Murphy will enjoy favorable placement on the ballot in counties responsible for a third of Joe Biden's total vote in the 2020 general election. Murphy's chief rival for the nomination, Rep. Andy Kim, has yet to win any such "county lines."

Murphy also won an endorsement from Rep. Josh Gottheimer, which makes him the first person in the state's House delegation to weigh in on the race. Gottheimer, a prodigious fundraiser, is considering a bid to succeed Murphy's husband, Gov. Phil Murphy, in 2025.

Governors

● WA-Gov: A new survey from Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling, taken for the Northwest Progressive Institute, finds former Republican Rep. Dave Reichert and Democratic state Attorney General Bob Ferguson advancing to next year's general election, where Reichert would have a narrow edge. It's the first publicly released poll since Reichert joined the governor's race in Washington, which is an open-seat contest because Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee is retiring after three terms.

In the Aug. 6 top-two primary, PPP shows Reichert and Ferguson tied at 31 apiece; another Republican, far-right Army veteran Semi Bird, is far back at 10%, while state Sen. Mark Mullet, a centrist Democrat, brings up the rear with 5%. In a head-to-head matchup, Reichert leads Ferguson 46-44.

House

● IA-01: Local Christian activist David Pautsch has launched a primary challenge against Republican Rep. Marianette Miller-Meeks, reports the Quad-City Times' Sarah Watson, complaining that the congresswoman "doesn't have a passion for the relevance of God in our community." Pautsch specifically criticized Miller-Meeks for her vote for the Respect for Marriage Act, which requires the federal government and the states to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages. He also attacked her for voting against Jim Jordan's speakership twice after supporting him on the initial ballot.

Far-right religious figures like Pausch often wage campaigns against GOP incumbents fueled by similar grievances, but it can often be hard to tell whether they have any juice. It's possible, though, that Pausch does have some: Watson says he's the founder of the Quad Cities Prayer Breakfast, an annual event that drew prominent Arizona election denier Kari Lake to its most recent gathering a few months ago.

Last year, Miller-Meeks defeated Democrat Christina Bohannon by a 53-47 margin in Iowa's 1st Congressional District, a swingy seat that Donald Trump carried 51-48. Bohannon kicked off a rematch in mid-August and raised a hefty $657,000 in the third quarter despite campaigning for just half that period. Miller-Meeks brought in $464,000 during that timeframe and ended September with $1.4 million in the bank versus $637,000 for Bohannon.

● MI-08: Former Trump immigration official Paul Junge, who lost to retiring Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee 53-43 last year, said he'd wage another campaign for Michigan's now-open 8th District on Friday. We'll have more on this announcement, as well as the developing field for both parties, in the next Digest.

● OH-02: Republican Charles Tassell, the chair of the Clermont County GOP, really meant it when he said he'd decide "as soon as possible": Just three days after he said as much to The Hotline's James Downs, he announced a bid for Ohio's open 2nd Congressional District. Clermont, in the Cincinnati suburbs, is by far the largest of the 16 counties that make up the district, with more than a quarter of its population, according to calculations by Daily Kos Elections.

● PA-03: The Philadelphia Inquirer's Chris Brennan flags that Democratic state Rep. Chris Rabb created a campaign committee with the FEC more than a month ago that would set up a potential primary with Rep. Dwight Evans, though Rabb "declined to comment" about his intentions. Brennan adds that "[r]umors have been swirling" that Evans might not seek reelection, but the congressman, who was first elected in 2016, says he will indeed run again for Pennsylvania's deep blue 3rd District.

There's also some history between the two pols. Last year, Brennan notes, Rabb was drawn into the same House district as fellow state Rep. Isabella Fitzgerald, a former aide to Evans who succeeded her old boss when he won his seat in Congress. While Fitzgerald had the support of Evans and many other local elected officials, Rabb, who portrayed himself as an outsider and railed against "machine" politics, won by a 63-37 margin.

● VA-07: Former National Security Council official Eugene Vindman says he's already raised over $800,000 in his first 24 hours after joining the Democratic primary for this open seat. Vindman, who is a retired Army colonel, also won an endorsement from VoteVets.

Vindman furthermore has the support of California Rep. Adam Schiff, an exceptional fundraiser himself, who is running for Senate this cycle and has been using his donor list to solicit donations for Vindman. Both Democrats gained national attention for their role in Trump's first impeachment: Vindman helped blow the whistle on Trump's attempt to extort the Ukrainian government into undermining Biden's presidential campaign, while Schiff led the House's effort to impeach Trump over it in 2019.

Biden to celebrate 81st birthday by honoring White House Thanksgiving tradition

Posted on by Latest Political News on Fox News

President Biden is set to celebrate his 81st birthday at the White House on Monday by honoring a Thanksgiving tradition.

Biden, the oldest president in U.S. history, will join first lady Jill Biden Monday afternoon for the presidential pardons of Liberty and Bell, two Thanksgiving turkeys that will be spared from becoming someone’s dinner. Later, the Bidens will continue holiday festivities by accepting the delivery of the official White House Christmas tree – an 18-and-a-half foot Fraser fir from Fleetwood, North Carolina.

The event marks the unofficial start of the holiday season in the nation's capital and will be held on the South Lawn this year instead of the Rose Garden.

From there, Biden will eat his Thanksgiving turkey with his family on Nantucket, a Massachusetts island, continuing a long family tradition. 

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Liberty and Bell will be spared in a tradition that dates back to 1947, when the National Turkey Federation, which represents turkey farmers and producers, first presented a National Thanksgiving Turkey to President Harry Truman.

Back then, and in preceding Thanksgivings, a turkey was given to the first family for their consumption on the holiday, but by the late 1980s, the tradition had evolved into an often humorous ceremony in which the birds are pardoned.

"We think that’s a great way to kick off the holiday season and really, really a fun honor," Steve Lykken, chairman of the National Turkey Federation and president of the Jennie-O Turkey Store, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

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Lykken introduced Liberty and Bell on Sunday at the Willard Intercontinental, a luxury hotel close to the White House. They were checked into a suite there on Saturday following their dayslong road trip from Minnesota.

The male turkeys, both about 20 weeks old and about 42 pounds, were hatched in July in Willmar, Minnesota. After Biden pardons his third pair of turkeys on Monday, Liberty and Bell will be returned to their home state to be cared for by the University of Minnesota's College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resources Sciences.

"They were raised like all of our turkeys, protected, of course, from weather extremes and predators, free to walk about with constant access to water and feed," Lykken said Sunday.

Markus Platzer, the Willard's general manager, called the turkeys "very special guests of ours" and said the hotel's involvement is its "highlight of the year." The Willard has housed turkeys for such events for more than 15 years, he said.

"There are so many bad things going on globally that this is something where everybody, you know, brings a smile [to] the face of the people, at least for a few minutes," Platzer said Sunday.

On Sunday, he and the first lady served an early Thanksgiving meal to hundreds of service members from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS Gerald R. Ford at Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia, the largest installation of its kind in the world.

More than 200 million turkeys will be eaten on Thanksgiving, Lykken said.

Biden was born on Nov. 20, 1942.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Wisconsin’s legislative maps are bizarre, but are they illegal?

Posted on by ProPublica

by Megan O’Matz, graphics by Lucas Waldron

ProPublica

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Any number of odd, zigzag examples can be used to make the case that legislative districts in Wisconsin are excessively gerrymandered.

There’s the pistol-shaped 31st Assembly District, held by a Republican, that was drawn with a western border that splits the Democratic city of Beloit in two.

There’s suburban Milwaukee’s 14th Assembly District, which stretches south, then east, then southwest, then east and again south, isolating Democrats and thereby limiting the Democratic vote in neighboring districts held by Republicans.

And in the northwest corner of the state, there’s the 73rd Assembly District, which resembles a Tyrannosaurus rex after a remap wiped out a reliable bloc of Democrats and added more rural conservative areas. The result: After 50 years of Democratic control, a Republican won in 2022.

Yet when the Wisconsin Supreme Court hears arguments next week in a widely watched lawsuit arguing that the existing maps fail to meet standards set out in the state constitution, that kind of political engineering will not be the focus.

Instead, much of the debate will center on exactly how to interpret the word “contiguous.” And the map shapes that are likely to get attention have elicited comparisons to Swiss cheese.

Fifty-five of the state’s 99 Assembly districts and 21 of 33 in the Senate contain “disconnected pieces of territory,” according to the most recent petition filed with the state Supreme Court by 19 Wisconsin voters. The suit seeks to have the state’s maps declared unfair and redrawn.

Some sections of the state’s maps “look like a 2-year-old drew them,” said Democratic Rep. Jodi Emerson, who represents the city of Eau Claire in northwestern Wisconsin.

In the interior of her district, the 91st, sits a free-floating chunk that actually belongs to the turf of the adjacent lawmaker, Republican Karen Hurd.

That may seem odd, but what is often left unsaid in discussions of Wisconsin maps is that the islands are not random parcels created by mapmakers to advantage Republicans at the behest of a Republican legislature. Rather, the irregular blobs largely follow municipal maps that reflect the history of Wisconsin cities and villages adding to their tax base by annexing bits of land in nearby areas. The practice often leaves towns with irregular maps and legislative districts with holes and satellites.

The plaintiffs, who are Democratic voters, claim that the legislative district boundaries violate Article IV, Section 4 of the state constitution, which says Assembly members must be elected from districts consisting of “contiguous territory.”

But the same section of Article IV also requires that Assembly districts “be bounded by county, precinct, town or ward lines.”

Senate districts, which are each made up of three Assembly districts, are governed by Section 5. It says they must consist of “convenient contiguous territory.”

So, which trumps which? Contiguity or municipal lines?

"This is the only case I’m aware of where contiguity has been the focus of a challenge,” said University of Colorado Law Professor Doug Spencer, an expert in redistricting. “This could give the new Supreme Court in Wisconsin a way to overturn the maps on neutral grounds."

Much is at stake. The case could decide the future of Wisconsin state politics, with possible ramifications for such hot-button issues as abortion and voting rights.

One election law expert, after reviewing the constitution, saw the Senate language as more straightforward to challenge. Section 5 does not mention a need for Senate maps to be bounded by any kind of government or municipal lines. It only mentions contiguity.

That language is “more of a slam dunk” for the plaintiffs, said Michael McDonald of the University of Florida’s political science department, where he studies mapping issues.

GOP legislators who oppose the suit argue in one legal brief that insisting all parts of a district must physically touch flouts prior court rulings and “is absurd and unworkable.”

Marooned on a Voting Island

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1964 that state legislative districts should have roughly equal populations, while federal law prohibits drawing lines that dilute the voting power of minorities. In addition to those parameters, states have adopted their own principles, which frequently include keeping districts contiguous.

The rationale behind contiguity is to create local districts where lawmakers live near and share common concerns with their constituents.

Contiguous means “you can draw a district without ever having to lift up your pencil,” Spencer explained.

But that’s not Wisconsin’s method.

According to the legal complaint, the majority of Wisconsin’s Assembly districts are noncontiguous — each consisting of between two and 40 disconnected pieces of territory. Two-thirds of the state’s Senate districts are noncontiguous — each with between two and 34 disconnected pieces.

Consider just a few of the Assembly districts referenced in the case.

High Stakes on the Highest Court

Wisconsin’s maps have long been a contentious political topic, even becoming an issue earlier this year in a fiercely competitive race for a seat on the state Supreme Court, a contest that attracted tens of millions of dollars in campaign donations and outside spending.

The liberal-leaning candidate, Janet Protasiewicz, won, tipping the balance of the court to the left for the first time in 15 years. During the race, she expressed her support for legal abortion and her concern that the legislative maps were “rigged.”

One day after Protasiewicz’s Aug. 1 swearing-in ceremony, the group of Democratic voters filed suit, challenging the maps as “extreme partisan gerrymanders.” The high court declined to hear arguments about how the maps created a political advantage and, instead, narrowed the case to two arcane issues. One was “contiguity.” The other was “separation of powers,” centering on whether the prior Supreme Court overstepped its authority last year when it adopted the Legislature's maps despite a veto by the state’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers.

When Protasiewicz and the liberal majority decided in favor of hearing the case, conservatives on the court didn’t hide their displeasure.

“Redistricting should not be an annual event,” griped Chief Justice Annette Kingsland Ziegler in a written dissent. She added that the decision to focus solely on contiguity and separation of powers, which are state Constitutional issues, was “an attempt to dodge appellate review.”

Another justice, Rebecca Grassl Bradley, expressed her dismay with the case by liberally citing Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and its sequel.

“Through the Looking Glass we go,” she wrote of what she considered to be a purely political, madcap exercise.

As the court date approaches, Republican legislators have been calling for Protasiewicz’s impeachment, claiming she’s biased. But she has said she won’t prejudge the issue and won’t recuse herself.

So far, Republicans haven’t acted on the impeachment threat. But even talk of such an extreme measure shows how significant the maps’ case is.

If redrawn, districts could become more competitive and less safe for incumbents — perhaps changing the power balance in the state capital. Republicans could lose complete control of the Legislature or, even if they retain power, lose their opportunity to gain a supermajority that would allow them to override Evers’ vetoes. A weakened state GOP could also be less helpful in 2024 to any Republicans who seek to again dispute presidential election results in Wisconsin, a swing state.

John Johnson, a Marquette University researcher who studies redistricting, noted that, ironically, it was Democrats who favored noncontiguous districts three decades ago.

Back then, maps drawn under the oversight of a Democratic legislature had created islands. Wisconsin Republicans at the time favored the dictionary definition, embracing “literal contiguity,” according to a key 1992 federal redistricting case that has been cited in the current controversy.

A federal three-judge panel, considering broader issues, didn’t endorse the islands but tolerated them, noting that the distance in the Democratic plan between the towns and the islands was slight.

The court held that “compactness and contiguity are desirable features in a redistricting plan,” but “only up to a point.”

Reaching “perfect contiguity and compactness,” the judges feared, would require “breaking up counties, towns, villages, wards and even neighborhoods.”

Campaign Action

Oregon Dem House candidate looks to ‘reclaim her sexuality’ after being outed as a Manhattan dominatrix

Posted on by Latest Political News on Fox News

An Oregon Democratic congressional candidate is embracing her past and looking to "reclaim her sexuality" after a clip of her working at a Manhattan BDSM dungeon was leaked online earlier this year.

Prior to being exposed for her past work in her 20s and 30s, Courtney Casgraux, a 41-year-old self-described international businesswoman who is seeking to represent Oregon's 1st Congressional District in the House, worked as a dominatrix and charged clients an estimated $500 per hour.

In an interview with the New York Post, Casgraux discussed how she felt when the video was released and how she's using the incident to empower her campaign for Congress.

"[I was] just panicking. . . . Then I was like, ‘Who did this?’ and I just started calling every single person that I pretty much knew from my past. . . . I was like hyperventilating, crying," Casgraux, the single mother of a teenage son, recalled of how she felt when she found out about the video.

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A native of California, Casgraux returned to the BDSM industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, this time working at Donatella's Dungeon — an S&M club located in Midtown Manhattan, according to the Post.

Though she was never able to identify who was responsible for leaking the video, Casgraux told the outlet she believes someone was attempting to "shame" her.

"To shame me for something that helped create the life that I have today where I have opportunity . . . made me really mad. Because it felt like an attack on women, not just an attack on me," Casgraux said.

Despite the incident that rattled Casgraux, she is now attempting to win a seat in the House that's currently held by Democrat Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, who's seeking re-election to her post. Casgraux's campaign has reportedly focused on abortion rights and reversing the decriminalization of certain drugs in Oregon.

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Casgraux, who the outlet reported is looking to use the "outing" in an effort to "reclaim her sexuality," recently created a Playboy profile where she can sell risqué pictures of herself for up to $150 each.

Through the Playboy profile, Casgraux, who doesn't receive compensation from Playboy, posts other material, such as an explanation of how Article 2 of the Constitution grants presidential powers and impeachment, as well as her views on challenges faced by American farms, according to the report.

"Once [the video] came out and I got the Playboy page, I was like, ‘Oh my God, I feel like I can just be me.’ And I could say the things that I wanna say, and I can be funny and be tongue in cheek with things, and reclaim my sexuality," she said of the experience thus far.

The Post reported that Casgraux's campaign has only raised $757 from a total of 13 donors so far, but her persistence in the race remains.

Casgraux explained that her campaign, which was launched in June, is about more than winning a seat in Congress.

"If I can win, that’s incredible — let’s go to Washington . . . and we’ll make amazing legislation," she told the outlet. "But there’s no losing if I can make one woman feel like there’s no shame in your past and what you have done. . . . You too can run for Congress."

Fox News Digital reached out to Casgraux, but did not receive an immediate response.

TX appeals court weighing whether state bar can discipline Ken Paxton for challenging 2020 election

Posted on by Texas Tribune

Texas appeals court weighing whether state bar can discipline Ken Paxton for challenging 2020 presidential election

By Joshua Fechter

The Texas Tribune

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

Whether the Texas State Bar can take away Attorney General Ken Paxton's law license could hinge on whether appellate justices believe the organization is trying to control what lawsuits he files on the state's behalf — or whether the group has the jurisdiction to punish him for pushing false theories in a lawsuit over the 2020 presidential election.

Lawyers for Paxton argued before a three-justice panel of the Texas Fifth Court of Appeals on Wednesday that the bar overstepped its bounds when it sued the attorney general last year for professional misconduct. A disciplinary committee for the State Bar of Texas, the organization that regulates law licenses in this state, alleged the attorney general made “dishonest” representations in a widely condemned lawsuit — quickly rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court — that tried to throw out election results from former President Donald Trump’s 2020 loss in four battleground states.

Paxton’s lawyers argue that, by suing him, the bar is “attempting to control the Attorney General's decision going forward about what types of lawsuits to file, and what kinds of legal theories to pursue,” Lanora C. Pettit, principal deputy solicitor general, told justices Wednesday.

That argument drew skepticism from Justice Erin Nowell.

“That’s a big leap,” Nowell said.

Paxton’s unsuccessful attempt to intervene in four other states’ elections leaned heavily on discredited claims of election fraud in those swing states.

The Texas bar has argued its conduct rules for lawyers apply to Paxton, too.

“The underlying attorney discipline case here is about ethics,” Michael Graham, an attorney representing the state bar, told justices. “The substantive questions at the heart of that attorney discipline case, like any other, have nothing to do with politics or anything else. They have everything to do with whether an attorney is engaged in professional misconduct and, if so, what's the appropriate disciplinary sanction for that misconduct?”

A Collin County judge hasn’t ruled on the merits of the case but sided with the bar earlier this year when he ruled the group has the ability to sue — a decision Paxton quickly appealed. The appeals court is weighing whether to reverse the lower court's ruling, but did not rule Wednesday.

The bar’s actions raise questions about whether any elected official who is also a lawyer could have their law license threatened if a member of the public doesn’t agree with them, Justice Emily Miskel said — with which Graham disagreed.

“General Paxton, for instance, has been Attorney General for almost a decade now, and to my knowledge, there's not a raft of complaints or attorney disciplinary actions against him for filing suits,” Graham said.

But there might be if the bar is successful, Miskel said.

“If it's effective, then everybody should (file a grievance against) any elected official who happens to be a lawyer because it's a great way to get a second bite at the apple of a policy decision you don't like,” Miskel said.

That may be the case, Graham said, but such a complaint would still have to pass muster with the bar.

If the bar prevails, Paxton could face punishment anywhere from a reprimand to full disbarment and the loss of his law license.

The bar’s attempt to discipline Paxton is among several legal battles he’s waging. The Texas Senate acquitted Paxton in September on 16 articles of impeachment alleging bribery and corruption. But Paxton is expected to go to trial in April on state securities fraud charges eight years after he was first indicted on those charges.

He also faces a federal investigation into claims by former top staffers that he abused his office to help Austin real estate magnate Nate Paul, a friend and donor — claims that formed the basis of impeachment allegations against the attorney general. And on Tuesday, a Burnet County judge said those former employees’ lawsuit against the attorney general could proceed.

Disclosure: The State Bar of Texas has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.