By Joe Miller
This Week: Midterm Election Results Offer Opportunities to Safeguard Democracy and Pursue Accountability
As the midterm election results rolled-in over the past week, it became clear that democracy was on the ballot – and democracy won. More importantly, the American people have offered some breathing room to get necessary work done to shore up democracy. One of the core principles of our democracy is accountable governance, and state and federal investigators are still working to hold those who conspired to overturn the 2020 election accountable. The January 6 Committee won a significant court ruling yesterday after the Supreme Court turned down a request from Arizona GOP chairwoman 2020 false elector Kelli Ward to shield her phone records from the congressional investigation. In Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp testified for three hours yesterday before the Fulton County grand jury investigation into illegal interference during the 2020 election. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham is expected to testify tomorrow, while former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn is working to contest his Fulton grand jury subpoena.
In Nevada, Secretary of State-elect Cisco Aguilar outlined plans to safeguard elections administration in the state by working to make it a felony to harass election workers and working with MAGA county officials to increase trust in the state’s democratic process and mitigate conspiratorial hand-counting. In Michigan, the newly-flipped state legislature made history last week by selecting state Senator Winnie Brinks (D) as Senate majority leader, the first woman to hold the position and state Rep. Joe Tate, the first Black man to be nominated state House speaker.
Unlike Trump in 2020, election deniers have largely accepted their own defeats this year. Top MAGA figures like Adam Laxalt in Nevada, Blake Masters in Arizona, and even Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania all conceded within a few days of their races being called. Arizona Republicans dismissed a sham lawsuit in Maricopa County baselessly alleging tabulation machine issues, ending one of the few remaining post-election legal challenges this cycle. Yet in Georgia, the state is facing a lawsuit over a ban on Saturday voting (based on a state holiday formerly commemorating Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s birthday) before the Senate runoff election on Dec. 6.
In Pennsylvania, control of the state House is likely to be decided later today, as the last two uncalled suburban seats await the last few hundred votes. Republicans are ahead in both by a handful of votes, and would need to win both seats to retain a one-seat majority in the chamber. As the vote count continues, the current GOP-controlled state House is accelerating a push to impeach Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner – the articles of impeachment passed a Republican-controlled House committee yesterday morning and the full state House is expected to vote later today.
Elsewhere, election deniers are still working to subvert the will of voters as they pivot to 2024:
Wisconsin Republicans came up two seats short of winning a supermajority in the state Assembly last week, but are still outlining plans to override vetoes by Governor Tony Evers.
In North Carolina, MAGA state lawmakers finished just one seat shy of taking a supermajority in the General Assembly. With the North Carolina Supreme Court flipping from 4-3 Democratic control to a 5-2 majority, the Governor’s veto may be the only firewall against an anti-democratic election denier agenda that has largely been stymied in state courts thus far.
In Nevada, the state Supreme Court rejected a request from the state ACLU seeking to end Nye County’s policy of hand-counting all paper ballots, suggesting that MAGA hand counts are here to stay.
And finally, in Michigan, election denier and failed Attorney General candidate Matt DePerno is looking to run for Michigan Republican Party chair.
