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Across the country, states are beginning to see the value of electoral reform. Closed-primary states are considering switching to some form of open primaries, and once-obscure ideas like ranked-choice voting are gaining traction in the halls of statehouses. But it’s not all rosy. Lawmakers in some states—like Texas and, of all places, Alaska, which has been a vanguard of electoral reform—are doing the exact opposite, introducing legislation that would nip these reforms in the bud. It’s not hard to figure out why. Recent polls show that Americans are increasingly identifying politically as independents. As fewer voters strongly identify with the two major parties, the parties face the possibility of losing viability and power. In a final five primary, for example, there is theoretically no guarantee that the five candidates who proceed to the general election will include a member of any particular party. That’s a real threat to the parties, but it’s a boon to democracy and independent voters. In the proudly independent state of New Hampshire, an attempt this week to upend its long history of open primaries failed. Let’s hope other states follow suit and reject proposals that aim to take their electoral systems backwards. —Melissa Amour, Managing Editor
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Biden says he has ‘no regrets’ on handling of classified documents since discovery —CBS News
Supreme Court says it hasn’t found who leaked opinion overturning Roe —The New York Times
CIA director held covert meeting with Zelensky on Russia’s next steps —The Washington Post
As U.S. and allies arm Ukraine, Russia warns that losing a conventional war ‘can trigger a nuclear war’ —CBS News
FBI warns of neo-Nazi plots as attacks on Northwest power grid spike —Oregon Public Broadcasting
Debt limit: Sen. Manchin floats deal with Republicans on commission —Yahoo! News
Republicans under pressure as anti-abortion activists call for a national ban —The New York Times
Florida blocks high school African American studies class —Yahoo! News
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern resigns ahead of election —The Washington Post
Trump and lawyer sanctioned almost $1 million for ‘frivolous’ lawsuit against Hillary Clinton —CNBC
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‘Thanks, Kev!’
Marjorie Taylor Greene had a lot to smile about this week, as her cozying up to new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy paid off. After being stripped of congressional committee assignments two years ago over controversial social media posts, she has two plum assignments now—Homeland Security and Oversight and Accountability. And she’s not the only one. Rep. Paul Gosar—a staunch NeverMcCarthy-ist—is back as well, returning to the Natural Resources Committee he was dumped from in 2021. As for the rest of the McCarthy holdouts? Well, they’re sitting pretty too. —CBS News
Reaction to MTG. Reps. Jim McGovern and Seth Moulton blasted the decision to place Greene on the Homeland Security Committee. “Marjorie Taylor Greene—who said 9/11 was fake, spreads QAnon lies, and asked for a pardon after Jan. 6–will now sit on the Homeland Security Committee,” McGovern tweeted. “Kevin McCarthy continues his handouts to MAGA extremists to keep power by any means necessary.” Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, tweeted, “The woman who said ‘We would have won’ if she’d led the terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol … is now on the Committee charged with countering terrorism. MTG is a danger to national security. Really.” —The Boston Globe
Santos assignments. Meanwhile, the House GOP Steering Committee recommended that Rep. George Santos sit on the Small Business and Science, Space & Technology panels. Considering that multiple members of his own party—including the Republican delegation from his own state of New York—have called on Santos to resign over his admitted fabrications and fraud charges, the assignments don’t show much respect for either of the two committees. —The Hill
Next up for the GOP? Investigations and more investigations. Specifically, expect a wide-ranging oversight inquiry into alleged influence peddling and potential conflicts of interest by the Biden Family. The partisan probe is likely to delve deeply into the contents of a laptop computer that President Biden’s son Hunter purportedly discarded at a Delaware repair shop in April 2019. Also expect more attention around Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents. Stay tuned. —CNN
MORE: Lee Hamilton: House dysfunction is cause for alarm —Commercial-News
Kleinfeld: Are the Solomon Peñas of the world becoming the rule, rather than the exception?
“After November’s elections, many people hoped that claims of American democratic decay were overblown. The arrest of an election-denying candidate in New Mexico who allegedly spearheaded shootings at the homes of Democratic lawmakers shows that politics have not returned to normal. Instead, Americans have normalized a dangerous amount of violence in our politics—and our daily lives.” —Rachel Kleinfeld in The Hill
Rachel Kleinfeld is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she advises philanthropists, government leaders, and private actors internationally on how to stop political violence and how declining democracies can rebound.
MORE: Solomon Peña: What to know about Albuquerque, New Mexico, shootings —USA Today
Wolf: In defense of democracy
“We need to make our democracies stronger by reinforcing civic patriotism, improving and decentralizing governance, and diminishing the role of money in politics. We must make government more accountable. We must also have a media that supports democracy rather than undermines it. Only with such reforms is there hope of restoring vigorous health to democratic capitalism.” —Martin Wolf in Financial Times
Martin Wolf is the Financial Times’ chief economics commentator and the author of “The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism.”
MORE GLOBAL DEMOCRACY NEWS:
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Guggenberger: Managing the AI impact to democracy
“Misinformation and so-called alternative facts have pushed public discourse and democracy to the brink. If untamed, pundit bots might go a step further. Regulators and social media companies should thus think carefully about how highly sophisticated bot-generated content will alter online discourse. Careful, well-balanced responses will allow society to reap the benefits of powerful new AI systems while blunting the harms.” —Nikolas Guggenberger in Lawfare
Nikolas Guggenberger is an assistant professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center. He also holds an appointment at the Cullen College of Engineering’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, has frequently advised government entities, and has served as an expert witness on technology policy and media law.
MORE: AI at the tipping point: danger to information, promise for creativity —GZERO Media
Crawford: Bipartisanship vs. factionalism
“Nobody seems to pay attention to our nation’s Founders any more. But I’ll put this out there anyhow. President George Washington warned about political parties in his Farewell Address: ‘However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.’” —Bill Crawford in The Northside Sun
Bill Crawford is a syndicated columnist.
MORE: Aaron Ross Powell: It's not policy disagreements but wrong-headed means that are polarizing America —The UnPopulist
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“Now is the time to join together behind the unifying strength of three simple truths that have sustained our nation over the past two-and-a-half centuries—that above all else, beyond any momentary political differences—we value our freedom, we cherish our democracy, and we love this country.” —Newly inaugurated Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania
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With the announcement by Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen that the debt ceiling would be reached on or about Jan. 19, the economic threat from the dysfunction of American politics so obviously laid bare by the House Speakership debacle became imminent. What had been reported as something to be expected sometime later in the year is now here. If the Treasury defaults on its debt, the Taliban wing of the Republican Party, like the Brexiteers and Truss-enthusiasts in Britain, who were equally seduced by their own propaganda, may very soon be forced to realize that global financial flows and trade markets are bigger than they are.
Anarcho-Republican forces may aim merely to blow everything up to bring down “the system” to start over on some imagined utopian basis, or the budget strategists among them may talk a good game about forcing the Treasury to decide which discretionary expenditures it will fund—a function that Treasury is constitutionally ill-equipped to perform. Regardless of the faction or motivation, the damage will have been done in the short run to the credit rating of the United States, thus counterproductively raising the cost of servicing the national debt. In the medium to long term, it will pose a severe risk to the status of the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency, as well as to the U.S. financial position as the pre-eminent financial power in the world and frequent safe-haven in down times.
Once this damage is realized, Republicans will likely attempt to divert attention from the economic and financial consequences of their ill-conceived populist rantings to change the subject to Hunter Biden’s laptop or the more recent discovery of classified documents in Joe Biden’s possession while out of office, for many of them do not seem to know anything else to do. Nevertheless, the financial damage will still be done.
In contrast to the Democrat House members’ willingness to sit back and enjoy the show during the House Speakership votes, there is too much at stake when it comes to the financial well being of the country. Fiscal discipline is important, but one does not solve brain cancer with amputation. Democrats must be willing to reach out to non-Taliban Republicans to achieve a voting majority in the House immediately to stave off a serious self-inflicted financial wound. —Steve J., Pennsylvania
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The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff or the Renew America Foundation.
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