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**AUGUST 9, 2023**

On the Prospect website

* Ramenda Cyrus on how Biden's infrastructure program is transforming
<[link removed]>
a North Carolina town

* Jarod Facundo & Maureen Tkacik on trucking company Yellow's
bankruptcy
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* Ryan Cooper on Trump's America-as-jury strategy
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* Lee Harris investigates the latest hedge fund outrage
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Kuttner on TAP

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**** The Ohio Vote as a Turning Point

Red-state voters reject both a ham-handed move to undermine democracy as
well as abortion restrictions.

The Republican grand strategy, quite apart from Trump's efforts to
become dictator, has been to push issues that are at odds with the views
of most voters, and then prevail by destroying democracy. They have done
this via voter suppression, extreme gerrymandering, rigging courts,
having red-state governors countermand the preferences of citizens in
blue cities, and by restricting reproductive rights.

But that strategy may have just reached its limits. In Ohio, the
Republican secretary of state, Frank LaRose, a candidate for U.S.
Senate, cooked up an August ballot initiative requiring all future
ballot initiatives to amend the state constitution to pass by a
supermajority of 60 percent. With a referendum expected on the normal
Election Day in November to protect abortion, the supermajority
initiative was deliberately held in August in order to hold down
turnout.

But the move backfired in every respect. In a state that lately has
voted Republican by at least 55-45, the measure went down in flames by
13 percentage points, or 56.5 to 43.5 percent. And the turnout strategy
also backfired. The measure was a magnet for abortion rights organizing.

Ohioans cast about 2.8 million votes, far in excess of the 1.66 million
ballots counted in the state's 2022 primaries, which featured contests
for governor, U.S. senator, and U.S. House seats. Several former
Republican officials were embarrassed by the raw power grab and opposed
the initiative.

The outcome shows two things. Even in red-leaning states, at least
outside the Deep South, a majority of voters don't want the state
messing with their bodies or their doctors. And some nontrivial fraction
of Republican voters and leaders draw the line at grotesque efforts to
stifle democracy.

LaRose put out a pathetic statement
<[link removed]> blaming the
defeat on out-of-state money. In fact, reports by Ballotpedia
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indicate that the roughly $32 million spent on the initiative, about 80
percent of which was from out-of-state sources, was divided about
equally between both sides. And the biggest single donation was $4
million from right-winger Richard Uihlein.

All this is of course very good news for Democrats nationally and bad
news for Republicans. This conundrum for the GOP was triggered by the
June 2022

**Dobbs** decision overturning

**Roe v. Wade**. But the opportunity for progressives now goes far
beyond

**Dobbs**.

While the Democrats' strategy is coherent and unified-sponsor as
many initiatives and legislative votes as possible to rally supporters
of abortion rights and embarrass Republicans-the GOP is divided. In as
many as 20 hardcore anti-abortion states, Republican true believers want
to push anti-abortion sanctions to ever greater extremes that offend
most citizens. Other Republicans, mindful of the consequences in swing
states, want the ultras to tone it down. But no compromise between the
two factions is in the offing.

All this is a kind of poetic justice. Despite decades of pummeling, the
instruments of democracy have just enough resilience that public
sentiment can be defied only to a point. Bring it on.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

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The Small Town That's Connecting America
<[link removed]>
Hickory, North Carolina, is home to nearly half of the country's
fiber-optic cable production, which is growing because of the Biden
infrastructure law. BY RAMENDA CYRUS

Yellow Scapegoats Teamsters for Apollo-Led Bankruptcy
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The trucking company alleges the Teamsters used the company as a
sacrificial lamb. BY JAROD FACUNDO & MAUREEN TKACIK

Activist Hedge Fund Turns the Screws at NRG Energy
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Elliott Management is asking FERC to let it purchase up to one-fifth of
the common stock in a Texas utility. BY LEE HARRIS

Donald Trump's Jury Will Be the American Electorate
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His legal strategy is to gum up the process until after the election. It
will probably work. BY RYAN COOPER

 

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