Salon.com > elections

Is abortion about to doom Republicans again?

Tue, 21 May 2013 20:56:00 +0000

Recently, I asked Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, one of the most fiercely pro-choice members of Congress, why she thought the House of Representatives had been so muted this year in its introduction of anti-abortion and anti–Planned Parenthood bills. “It pays to fight,” she said.

The implication was that House Republicans had decided that the lesson of the bruising 2012 election was to back off on anything that Democrats could tar as a war on women. (In the meantime, their allies in the states could push through real changes in abortion and contraception access, with very few political barriers.) But that fragile detente may be over, both nationally and in this year’s key state races. The question is whether it's a battle Republicans even want to fight.

How to oust Michele Bachmann from Congress

Tue, 21 May 2013 19:43:00 +0000

Democrat Jim Graves was feeling good as he sat down for an interview with Salon in Washington Monday, the same day his campaign released a poll showing him two points ahead of Rep. Michele Bachmann, whom he narrowly lost to in 2012.

This time around, he'll start with higher-name ID -- "I think we started off last time around at 18 percent and now we're pushing 75 to 80 percent" -- and more support from national Democrats, who were initially skeptical about his chances and didn't get heavily involved until mid-October. "I don't think they jumped in at all," Graves quipped of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, before quickly excusing them in a typical Minnesota-nice fashion: "There was lower-hanging fruit, I don't blame them."

In Montana, dark money brings down a judicial candidate

Thu, 16 May 2013 04:01:00 +0000

When Ed Sheehy looked at his mail one day last fall, he was startled to see his face staring back at him, posed alongside the notorious “Christmas Day Killer.” Sheehy, as a public defender, had represented the man a year earlier. Now Sheehy was running for a seat on the Montana Supreme Court and someone was using the double-murder to accuse him of being soft on crime.

“I was furious,” the 60-year-old Sheehy, who was born in Butte, Mont., and now resides in Missoula, told the Center for Public Integrity. “It was misrepresenting what I did and what I do as a lawyer.”

So who was behind the attack?

The mailer showed only that it was paid for by the “Montana Growth Network,” a “social welfare” nonprofit, registered under Section 501(c)(4) of the U.S. tax code. Montana election records revealed next to nothing about the organization, which, because of its tax status, is not required to disclose its donors. The nonprofit’s website says its goal is to make Montana “more business friendly.”

New York City Council considers letting non-citizens vote

Thu, 09 May 2013 13:18:00 +0000

The New York City Council will hold a hearing on Thursday to again consider allowing non-citizen residents to vote in municipal elections, a measure that appears to have a veto-proof majority in the Council, after a similar measure failed to pass in 2004.

The proposal would extend voting rights to "not a United States citizen, but is lawfully present in the United States" and "has been a resident of New York City, as defined herein, for six months or longer by the date of such election." This would include local elections, including for mayor, the comptroller, the public advocate, members of the city council, and the borough presidents.

The New York Daily News reports:

Report: Looks like Ashley Judd is running

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 21:23:00 +0000

The Huffington Post reports that sources in Ashley Judd's camp say the 44 year-old actress is running for Senate in Kentucky against Senate Minority Leader and staunch Obama antagonist Mitch McConnell.

Reached via email, Judd

...offered a not-quite-ironclad denial to The Huffington Post. “I am not sure who is saying this stuff, but it is not I! I’d prefer as a fan of your journalism that you stay accurate and credible. We told everyone who called us yesterday these stories are fabrications.”

But she declined to specify which "stories,” did not say what wasn't "accurate,” and did not respond when asked directly whether she had, in fact, decided to run or chosen a time to declare her intentions.

According to the piece, Judd plans to go public with her decision around the time of the Kentucky Derby when Kentuckyis in the media spotlight.

Judd, sources say, is working with New York pollster Jefrey Pollock; has interviewed a number of media consultants including Anita Dunn, formerly of the Obama campaigns, and J.B. Poersch, the former head of the Democrats' national senate campaign committee, as well as leaders of Emily's List; and is lining up allies and field organizers.

Venezuela election set

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 13:51:00 +0000

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Opposition leader Henrique Capriles must make what could be the most important decision of his political life, now that Venezuela's elections commission has called an April 14 vote to pick a successor to the late Hugo Chavez.

The 40-year-old state governor is expected to announce on Sunday whether he will run against Chavez's hand-picked successor, who's a heavy favorite amid lingering sympathy for the charismatic president.

The stakes are high: A defeat for Capriles just six months after he lost the presidential vote to Chavez would likely finish his political career. If he waits, a Chavista government might prove inept and give him a better shot in a later election.

On a personal Twitter page that bore all the rah-rah adornments of a campaign site, Capriles wrote Saturday afternoon: "I am analyzing the declaration of the (electoral commission setting the date) and in the next hours I will talk to the country about my decision."

Whoever the opposition runs, analysts say the election is the government's to lose. They also predict the next five weeks will up the nasty, heated rhetoric that began even before Chavez's death Tuesday after a nearly two-year fight with cancer.

Artist with completely tattooed face runs for Czech president

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 13:54:00 +0000

PRAGUE (AP) — An opera composer and painter tattooed from head to toe is running in a surprising third place ahead of this week's Czech presidential elections.

Vladimir Franz seems the most unlikely of candidates for a prestigious post previously held by beloved playwright-dissident Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus, a professor credited with plotting the economic transition from communism to a free market.

Some have a nickname for Franz: 'Avatar.' And during a televised debate a caller compared him to "an exotic creature from Papua New Guinea."

But he's not short of admirers in a country where voters are increasingly tired of politicians they say are corrupt and failing to deliver on years of promises, more than two decades after the fall of communism.

Do millennials care about abortion?

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 19:59:00 +0000

On the eve of Roe v. Wade's 40th anniversary, NARAL Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan, 60, announced she would celebrate by stepping down and handing the reins to a younger generation -- the same one she had been arguing for years lacks the pro-choice intensity and commitment of her own.

Formed originally to repeal abortion bans before Roe, NARAL is now most closely associated with lobbying on the federal and state level, and for its close ties to the Democratic Party. Keenan's departure after eight years follows an election cycle when Democrats didn't apologize for being pro-choice -- and won.

This last election year also featured unprecedented public mobilization, across generations, on issues around abortion, birth control and rape. Two men, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, most closely associated with a total abortion ban lost Senate bids they'd seemed poised to win. Akin, too, came from a House of Representatives where antiabortion and anti-family planning legislating had seemed like a full-time job, but whose actual legislative victories have been few.

Election Day registration: The anti-voter ID

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 20:15:00 +0000

"Voter ID" has become the GOP's weapon of choice in the fight to keep Democrats from voting, but progressives may have found an answer: Election Day registration.

Virtually unknown two years ago, voter ID laws, which require citizens to present a certain form of government-issued photo identification at the polls, came into vogue when Republicans used their electoral gains in 2010 to pass them in states from Texas to Wisconsin to South Carolina. Approximately one in 10 potential voters in these states lack photo ID, according to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, without which they will not be able to cast a ballot in November. Studies have found that minorities, college students and poor voters -- groups that tend to vote Democratic -- will be disproportionately impacted by these new laws.

38 dead as raids continue in Kenya

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 15:08:00 +0000

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — As clashes between farmers and herders in southeast Kenya escalated Monday with 38 people killed, including nine police officers, the Red Cross suggested the military be deployed to the area.

The tit-for-tat cycle of killings may be related to a redrawing of political boundaries and next year's general elections, the U.N. Humanitarian coordinator for Kenya, Aeneas C. Chuma, said late last month, although on the surface it seems driven by competition for water, pasture and other resources. As the next year's general election in March approaches, political tensions and tribal animosities have increased due to competitions among potential candidates.

In the latest bloodshed, armed farmers allegedly attacked a village of their semi-nomadic livestock-herding neighbors, the Red Cross said. Eight children were among those killed in the dawn attack in which over 300 people from the Pokomo tribe allegedly raided Kilelengwani village of the Orma tribe of herders, said Kenya Red Cross Secretary General Abbas Gullet. The raiders torched 167 houses.

Gullet said the government should consider dispatching the military to the area to reinforce police patrols and impose a curfew in the area to prevent further escalation of the deadly counter-attacks.

Mexico’s alcohol ban

Sat, 30 Jun 2012 18:00:00 +0000

GUADALAJARA, Mexico -- American holiday makers planning to head south to Mexico for the weekend be warned: bring your own alcohol.

La Ley Seca, or the dry law, will be in force from midnight tonight to midnight Sunday for the Mexican elections.

Nearly 80 million people are eligible to vote for the country's president, mayors, governors and lawmakers, and the government wants them to be sober and compos mentis when they do it.

The law dates back to the Mexican revolution at the beginning of the 20th century and bans the sale of booze 24 hours before a major election and on the day of the vote, though some areas are now exempt from the restriction.

Elections will be held Sunday.

Viva la diferencia

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 13:36:00 +0000

MEXICO CITY, Mexico — Heartthrob Justin Bieber packed more than 200,000 screaming fans into the Zocalo square in the heart of Mexico City for a free concert promoted by the local government earlier in June.

Paul McCartney packed a large number into the same place one month earlier. An outdoor ice rink, billed as the biggest on the planet, occupies the square during the Christmas season.

These spectacles — sometimes derided as circuses — arrive often in Mexico City, and have proved popular.

It's also a prop in the local political picture, as Mayor Marcelo Ebrard and his left-wing Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) have played ringmaster promoted the "circus" as a way of winning votes among working-class and poor residents.

Ebrard cannot run for re-election, but his party and its allies are expected to retain Mexico City in a landslide in the July 1 local elections. That’s the exact opposite of other parts of Mexico, where the once long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) leads polls for the presidential contest scheduled for the same day.