Ukraine hits back?

In Missouri, politics are getting in the way of innovation. A bipartisan group called Better Elections has proposed a state constitutional amendment that would give the state open primaries and some form of ranked-choice voting in the general election for statewide and U.S. congressional races. On Wednesday, the Republican-led House advanced a rival amendment that would block both possibilities. That's a shame. Both open primaries and RCV have shown considerable promise in reducing hyperpartisanship and giving unifying, independent candidates a fighting chance in competitive races. Those are good reforms no matter where you stand on the political spectrum. Fortunately, the choice will ultimately be left up to the voters themselves: if the State Senate approves the opposition measure, it will go before voters for final consideration. Choose wisely, Missouri. —Melissa Amour, Managing Editor

• Ukrainians seeking refuge at the U.S.-Mexico border stuck in legal limbo —NBC News

• Biden will tap oil reserve, hoping to push gasoline prices down —The New York Times

• Why Republicans say they're voting against Ketanji Brown Jackson for Supreme Court —NBC News

• Cloud of notoriety builds over Cawthorn after sex-and-drugs claims —Politico

• House passes landmark marijuana legalization bill —NBC News

An attack…or a justification?

Russia has accused Ukraine of carrying out an air strike against a fuel depot in the Russian city of Belgorod today, the first Ukrainian air strike on Russian soil since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. But is it what it seems? Ukrainian Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov has denied the charge on national television. To be sure, Russia is not above staging attacks to provide justification for further escalating conflict, and the Kremlin has already said the attack has set an unfavorable tone for peace talks with Kyiv. More on this story can be expected, but in the meantime, Russia is blocking aid to Mariupol, one of the hardest-hit Ukrainian cities, and recruiting fighters from Syria. —Reuters

• What are the Renewers saying? Renewer Rep. Fred Upton was part of a meeting this week between members of Congress and members of the Ukrainian parliament. “The message from these legislators was that they need more ammo, they need more training, obviously they are looking at more humanitarian aid as we have seen close to four million Ukrainians escape to the Polish and Romanian borders,” he said. “They’re not going to give up their country. They’ve fought harder than anybody thought. I think at the beginning, everybody thought Kyiv was going to collapse within just a couple of days. Here we are in month two.” Upton says the U.S. needs to continue aid to Ukraine in every way it can. —94.9 WSJM

• Defense. Some moderate Democrats are breaking ranks and joining Republicans in criticizing President Biden’s budget plan, released earlier this week, for not proposing a larger Pentagon budget amid fresh threats from Russia and China. Renewer Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Tom O’Halleran were among them. Renewer Rep. Elaine Luria, a retired Navy commander, was particularly incensed. “If you want to grow the Navy, stop decommissioning more ships than you build," she said. —NBC News

• Cybersecurity. The House passed bipartisan cybersecurity legislation on Tuesday that would improve the way the federal government identifies, tracks, measures, analyzes, prevents, and prosecutes cyber crime. “Our nation is under constant attack from cyber criminals. And with a range of new threats emanating from adversaries around the world—including the Russian Federation—Congress has an obligation to move legislation forward that can better protect the American people, their data, their finances, and their personal information,” said Renewer Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who sponsored the bill. She added that the legislation was partially inspired by the attack on the Colonial Pipeline last year. —The Hill

MORE: Myra Adams: America needs Liz Cheney —The Hill

Eisen & Wertheimer: A road map to accountability

“Thankfully, Judge David Carter's decision on Monday, finding Trump ‘more likely than not’ committed crimes, sets out a road map for finally imposing consequences for the Big Lie. It does so by tackling the thorniest legal issues regarding Trump, his enablers, and the events in and around Jan. 6, 2021—and showing how they can be addressed by prosecutors.” —Norman Eisen & Fred Wertheimer on CNN

Norman Eisen is an attorney, former ambassador, ethics czar during the Obama Administration, and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Fred Wertheimer is the founder and president of Democracy 21.

MORE: George Conway: A federal judge said Trump probably committed a crime. The DOJ can’t ignore that —The Washington Post

Lewis: Why immigration still matters

“Real wages are declining, a dictator is terrorizing Europe, and the pandemic drags into its third year—but don’t forget about immigration. … A left-leaning American might believe that our immigration policies are too stringent while a right-leaning American might believe that they’re too lax, but both will recognize that our inability to speedily adjudicate asylum claims is a serious problem. As the number of migrant encounters is set to rise, an already sluggish five-year process will slow even more.” —James Lewis on Democracy Brief

James Lewis is the Content & Strategy Manager for the Renew Democracy Initiative. 

MORE: CDC to lift order restricting immigration during the pandemic —The New York Times

Whitman & Duke: The green transformation is a golden opportunity

“Policymakers can provide clarity and direction on policies and legislation that advance green skills training and education. They can ensure that new policies create opportunities for the equitable development of green skills, supported by significant investment to make green skilling opportunities more accessible to diverse groups. The private sector has a role, too. Business leaders can adopt a targeted approach to progressively focus on green upskilling and reskilling capabilities. … Workers everywhere can share in it. We need to share in the responsibility of making it happen.” —Christine Todd Whitman & Sue Duke in The Hill

Christine Todd Whitman is the former governor of New Jersey, a co-chair of States United, and an advisor to the Renew America Movement. Sue Duke is LinkedIn’s global vice president of Public Policy and a former Irish government climate official.

MORE: Biden's proposed budget includes billions to fight climate change —USA Today

Focus on voting and elections 

Big judgments handed down in two key states this week. In New York, a judge struck down the state's new congressional and legislative maps as an illegal gerrymander, dealing a major setback to Democrats, who were expected to benefit heavily from the new political lines. And in Florida, a federal district judge struck down most of the election law passed in the state last year. Saying that “Florida has a grotesque history of racial discrimination,” U.S. District Judge Mark Walker said the state can’t make any major changes to election regulations for the next 10 years unless a judge clears them first. Wow. —The Washington Post

• Maryland. Racing to meet a deadline, Democrats in the Maryland General Assembly passed an alternate congressional map on Wednesday. At the same time, Maryland’s attorney general is appealing a court ruling in which a judge invalidated the first map Democrats passed in December, finding that it violated the state constitution’s rules for drawing legislative districts. This means that until the courts resolve the case, it’s still unclear what map will be used in the midterm elections. —The Washington Post

• Georgia. The Georgia State Senate Ethics Committee gutted a massive elections overhaul this week that sped through the GOP-led State House earlier this month. In a vote Tuesday, the committee stripped out most of the House-approved provisions, including a controversial one that would hand new election policing powers to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. If the stripped-down bill quickly passes the full Senate, lawmakers from both chambers could convene a conference committee to hash out the differences between the two versions. —CNN

• Arizona. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed a bill this week requiring voters to prove their citizenship to vote in a presidential election. Arizona is currently the only state that requires voters to prove their citizenship when they register. The state legislature’s lawyers say much of the latest measure is unconstitutional and directly contradicts a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, but opponents say it is an attempt to get the issue back in front of the now more conservative court. —The Guardian

MORE: How Alabama’s gerrymander could hurt Black political power across the country —FiveThirtyEight

Rubin: Ginni Thomas scandal reveals a deeper rot

“No wonder we have witnessed the slow deterioration of our democracy. When all three branches of government and the media fall down on the job, our sensitivity to political misconduct dulls. Bad actors run amok—and are re-elected.” —Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post

Jennifer Rubin is an attorney and political opinion columnist at The Washington Post.

MORE: FLASHBACK: Inside Groundswell, the new right-wing strategy group planning a “30-Front War” (2013) —Mother Jones

I love Chuck C.'s suggestion that those of us who no longer fit in the Republican Party call ourselves radical centrists. I have been telling my family and friends that I am a "flaming moderate." Whatever the right label is, I can no longer think of myself as conservative. That term has morphed into meaning intolerance, rejection of science, inability to learn from the past, and complete fealty to party and powerful leaders... all opposites of what I once thought were Republican Party values. —Kerry J., Utah

Re: The three-week trucker convoy protest around Washington, D.C. It is obvious that increased press coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine sucked the political oxygen out of the trucker protest. Compared to artillery and missile strikes against Ukrainian civilian-populated areas, the trucker protest against mask mandates that are no longer in effect is childish. Who paid for this protest? Diesel fuel is not cheap, and driving laps around a 64-mile beltway, supplemented by probing forays into town, without any revenue-generating cargo, is likely to be beyond a trucker’s normal expenses. Public exposure of the financing of this protest would be worthwhile to determine who is using the truckers. —Steve J., Maryland

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff, the Renew America Movement, or the Renew America Foundation.