Justin Miller at The Texas Observer writes—Republicans Come to Texas to Prepare for the 2021 Redistricting Battle:
Last week, more than 200 conservative state lawmakers from around the country packed into a hotel conference room in Austin for a panel session entitled “How to Survive Redistricting.” The verdict? As the panel of battle-hardened Republicans advised, it’s a political bloodsport. Be cautious, yet ruthless.
The session was part of the annual conference for ALEC, a powerful cohort of legislators and corporations that develops and advances right-wing legislation in statehouses around the country. For a group that largely focuses on the free-market priorities of its industry backers, the focus on redistricting is a sign of just how high the stakes are for conservatives in the upcoming redistricting cycle.
“If Republicans lose seats in the redistricting process, ALEC loses power,” said Jay Riestenberg, deputy communications director at the national government reform group Common Cause. “At the end of the day, the legislators are what ALEC offers to their corporate funders.”
The conference came at a critical moment in the battle over how electoral maps are determined. The Supreme Court recently delivered a huge victory for Republicans, ruling that the federal judiciary has no ability to police partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts. As Democrats and redistricting reformers are trying to prevent Republicans from locking in another decade of politically skewed maps, the GOP is beginning to organize their strategy for the next round of redistricting—and ALEC is poised to play a central role.
ALEC became a dominant force in state-level politics in the wake of the Republican takeover of state legislatures in 2010. The group is on the policy vanguard of the right, drafting model legislation for legislative members on everything from “Stand Your Ground” gun laws and anti-Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions measures to industry-backed laws that make it a felony to physically protest oil and gas pipelines and other infrastructure. In many ways, Texas is the epicenter of ALEC-style politics. [...]
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BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2011—Michelle Rhee still refuses to answer questions about cheating scandal:
"Why won't Michelle Rhee talk to USA Today," The New York Times asks.
USA Today, of course, broke the story of suspicious erasure patterns on standardized tests taken by Washington, D.C. students during Rhee's tenure as the city's schools chancellor. The story was the product of serious investigative journalism by reporters Jack Gillum and Marisol Bello, who marshaled significant amounts of data as well as talking to parents, academics, DC schools administrators and the consultant hired to do a cursory investigation of the possibility of cheating. But Rhee would not talk to them.
Now, the Times is telling the story of Rhee's refusal. Michael Winerip contrasts her typical eagerness to talk to the press—"It’s hard to find a media outlet, big or small, that she hasn’t talked to. [...] Always, she preens for the cameras"—with her determined evasion of the USA Today reporters.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Trump's shock troops insist on making Greenland, like covfefe, a thing. But which of the real crises Greg Dworkin rounds up is it supposed to divert us from? Dems win/lose in court on emoluments/subpoenas. Giuliani puts the cheating out for bids.