On Politics: Arizona’s right wing sought power to overturn votes. Rusty Bowers said no.

The Arizona speaker spiked a bill that would have let lawmakers reject election results.

View in browser|nytimes.com February 4, 2022 NEWSLETTER NOTICE Beginning in mid-February, the On Politics newsletter will be available only to Times subscribers. Subscribe to The Times now for $1/week for access to Times journalism and all of our newsletters — to follow your interests and discover others. By Blake Hounshell and Leah Askarinam Rusty Bowers, speaker of the Arizona House, killed a bill that would have given the Republican-controlled Legislature the power to unilaterally overturn the results of an election.Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press The Goldwater Republican who defied Trump It is a dark time in the life of the American experiment. The world's oldest democracy, once assumed to be unbreakable, often appears to be coming apart at the rivets. From his Florida exile, a defeated leader, whose efforts to overturn the last election are still coming into view, is working to place loyalists in key offices across the country, and his followers are racing to install themselves at the controls of future elections. Yet in Arizona this week, the unlikeliest of characters just stepped forward with a palm raised to the forces of Donald J. Trump. When right-wing lawmakers there pushed a bill that would have given the Republican-controlled Legislature the power to unilaterally reject the results of an election and force a new one, Rusty Bowers said no. For decades, Bowers, the unassuming speaker of the Arizona House, has represented die-hard Republican beliefs, supporting the kinds of low-tax, limited-government policies that made the state's Barry Goldwater a conservative icon. Bowers could have sat on the bill, letting it die a quiet death. Instead, he killed it through an aggressive legislative maneuver that left even veteran statehouse watchers in Arizona awe-struck at its audacity. "The speaker wanted to put the wooden cross right through the heart of this thing for all to see," said Stan Barnes, a Republican consultant who has known Bowers for some 30 years. A line drawn The bill's sponsor, John Fillmore — who boasts of being the most conservative member of the Arizona State Legislature — told us in an interview that Bowers's tactics amounted to saying: "I am God. I control the rules. You will do what I say." But to the 69-year-old Bowers, a Mormon and father of seven who first entered politics in 1992, it was clearly a matter of something bigger than parliamentary procedure. By sending Fillmore's legislation to not one but 12 committees, effectively dooming it, he was also sending an unmistakable message about the direction of his party — a G.O.P. that is unrecognizably different from what it was back when Goldwater-style conservatism itself represented an insurgency. Fillmore's bill would have eliminated early voting altogether and mandated that all ballots be counted by hand. Voting Rights Lab, a nonprofit group that tracks election laws, called it "one of the most comprehensive attacks on nonpartisan election administration and voter access that we have seen." Most troubling, to voting rights advocates and independent experts, was a provision that would have empowered the Arizona Legislature to "accept or reject the election results" and given a single elector the power to demand that a fresh election be held. And while the bill was never likely to become law, it was an expression of what Barnes called a "cathartic moment" for the Republican Party. "And I think Rusty is not excited about that," he said. 'We gave the authority to the people' The Arizona dispute comes amid a national convulsion within the Republican Party, which has split into two unequal factions — the pro-Trump forces, who have rallied behind the former president's calls to overturn the 2020 election, and a dwindling establishment, which has either avoided the subject or faced the wrath of Trump's allies. On Friday, the Republican National Committee moved to censure Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for serving on the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. In so doing, the R.N.C. officially declared that the attack was "legitimate political discourse." Bowers did not respond to multiple requests for an interview, but his public comments indicate a deep unease with how Trump and his base of supporters have promoted wild theories about election fraud and have pushed legislation that voting rights groups say amounts to an undemocratic, nationwide power grab. "We gave the authority to the people,'' Bowers told Capitol Media Services, an Arizona outlet, earlier this week. "And I'm not going to go back and kick them in the teeth.'' Among Arizona political insiders, Bowers is known as a Renaissance man — an artist who's equally comfortable rolling up his sleeves to fix a broken vehicle in the middle of the desert as he is painting landscapes in watercolor. A 2015 profile describes him as "a beekeeper and an orchardist" who once trekked to Mexico to live with a remote native tribe. "He has always struck me as independent, his own man," Robert Robb, a columnist for The Arizona Republic, told us. "He's a doctrinaire conservative on some things, but a pragmatic, conservative problem-solver on others. Very principled, straight-shooter, full of integrity." Bowers, a libertarian-style conservative who came of age in Goldwater's Republican Party, backed Trump in 2020. But he resisted calls after the election to overturn the results — dismissing his colleagues' claims, which courts and independent experts have said are unfounded, that President Biden did not win Arizona fair and square. "As a conservative Republican, I don't like the results of the presidential election," he said in December 2020. "I voted for President Trump and worked hard to re-elect him. But I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election." The Arizona G.O.P.'s civil war Bowers's resistance to the shifting currents of Republican politics has made him a frequent target of the pro-Trump right. Last year, when he survived an attempt to recall him from the Legislature, he complained about the aggressive tactics of the Trump supporters behind it. ​​"They've been coming to my house and intimidating our family and our neighborhood," Bowers said, describing how mobile trucks drove by his home and called him a pedophile over a loudspeaker. He is term-limited, but his stance could revive efforts to oust him from the speakership — a move that would have national reverberations. Fillmore, who insisted he was willing to bargain over any aspects of his bill, said he was "disappointed that members of my caucus do not have the testicular fortitude" to stand up to Bowers. But he hinted at moves afoot to remove the speaker, whom he accused of sabotaging what he said was a good-faith effort to rein in voting practices that, in his view, have gone too far. "I'm an old-school person. I do not go calmly. I do not go quietly," Fillmore warned. "I believe Republican voters are solidly in line with me." Arizona political observers told us it was unlikely that the right wing of the Republican caucus could find a suitable replacement for Bowers, who has survived thus far through a combination of inertia and disorganization among his critics. Fillmore, who said he did not support Trump in 2016 and hadn't spoken with him, said he had received death threats over the bill from people who accused him of racism for wanting, as he put it, to restore Arizona's voting laws as they were when he grew up in the 1950s. He expressed his own fortitude pithily. "You know what, people?" he said. "Kiss my grits." What to read tonight The Republican Party censured Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, and called the events of Jan. 6 "legitimate political discourse." Party leaders later said that the language didn't apply to the attack on the Capitol, report Jonathan Weisman and Reid J. Epstein. Read the censure resolution here. Former Vice President Mike Pence told the Federalist Society today in Florida that "President Trump is wrong," and that Pence "had no right to overturn the election." Lisa Lerer reports that his remarks "offered his most forceful rebuke of Donald Trump." Biden celebrated the Labor Department's January jobs report today. Ben Casselman and Talmon Joseph Smith explain that the "overreaching message of the report was one of resilience in the face of a resurgent pandemic." Reminder: This newsletter will soon be just for Times subscribers. Your access to the On Politics newsletter ends in mid-February. Subscribe now to keep receiving it and to enjoy all the benefits of being a Times subscriber. VIEWFINDER In Upper Marlboro, Md., President Biden signed an executive order on Friday requiring project labor agreements on many federal construction projects.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times Eye contact, with echoes On Politics regularly features work by Times photographers. On Friday, Sarahbeth Maney caught President Biden looking up at three ironworkers, their legs hanging in the air, just before he signed an executive order benefiting construction trade unions. Here's what she told us about capturing it: I like how all three of them are looking at Biden, and he's looking at them. I was hoping there would be some sort of interaction. He thought it was fun. "You're nuts," he joked, comparing them to workers who were similarly situated at a job site when he got his first-ever union endorsement. It was a little offbeat moment that makes a speech a little more personal and interesting. They seemed like they were in their natural element. They looked really relaxed. Everyone in the crowd was sitting up very straight — very attentive, just like the men above — but down below, people had their phones out and were recording. When Biden signed the executive order, a lot of people stood up, which actually made it hard for me to take a picture — because their heads and phones were in the way. Thanks for reading. We'll see you on Monday. — Blake & Leah Were you forwarded this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox. Is there anything you think we're missing? Anything you want to see more of? We'd love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. NEWSLETTER NOTICE Enjoying this newsletter? Subscribe to keep receiving it. We've reserved a selection of newsletters, including this one, for Times subscribers. Subscriber support ensures that we have the resources to deliver this must-read, five-day-a-week newsletter that unpacks and illuminates American politics from every angle. Your access to this newsletter ends in mid-February. Become a Times subscriber for $1/week to enjoy our journalism and to continue to read this newsletter and any others you find interesting. Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for On Politics from The New York Times. To stop receiving these emails, unsubscribe or manage your email preferences. Subscribe to The TimesGet The New York Times app Connect with us on: Change Your EmailPrivacy PolicyContact UsCalifornia Notices The New York Times Company. 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018

On Politics: The politics of gloom

Some voters aren't sold on the idea that an election will save them from their anguish.

View in browser|nytimes.com February 3, 2022 NEWSLETTER NOTICE Beginning in mid-February, the On Politics newsletter will be available only to Times subscribers. Subscribe to The Times now for $1/week for access to Times journalism and all of our newsletters — to follow your interests and discover others. By Leah Askarinam and Blake Hounshell Members of a focus group of suburban women used words like "nervous," "concerned" and "frustrated" to describe their views on American politics.Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times 'It's been the worst time' Earlier this week, 10 women from across the country met on Zoom and talked for two hours as part of a focus group on politics. All of the women were white, lived in the suburbs and had been identified as swing voters. One was a mother from Iowa who owns a small business. Another teaches special education in Florida. And there was a school bus driver from Pennsylvania. The session was sponsored by several liberal groups who invited us to tune in but asked us not to identify the participants or the organizations. They cited a need to protect the participants' privacy and to separate the views of the focus group from the views of the sponsoring organizations. The women first responded to a question about how things were going in the country. The most optimistic answer might have been "uncertain." The others shared that they were "nervous," "concerned," "frustrated" and "irritated." The teacher from Florida spoke about struggling to keep up with medical bills for her cancer treatment. "I thought I was ahead but I keep falling behind," she said. One recently split up with her spouse over how seriously to take Covid. One devotes an entire day every weekend to running her errands, so she can save money on gas. "It's been the worst time," said an educational consultant in Pennsylvania. "I can't believe that we're living through this." This focus group of 10 women is a grain of sand on the beach that is the American electorate. But they open a window into a widespread gloom that helps explain why some voters doubt that the Biden administration can fulfill its promise to restore their lives to normal. These women are consumed by the problems that the federal government has said it's trying to solve, but they seem to believe that the government lacks the power to fix them. Focus groups are but one data point in the run-up to an election. A professional mediator guides the group's discussion, with the goal of revealing perspectives that don't usually get captured in polling, which is a far more scripted and fast-paced interaction. Focus groups can provide anecdotes to explain trends in polling, and the organizers tend to group voters by their demographics. The organizer of this focus group is conducting sessions with multiple demographic groups; the one we were invited to this week happened to center on the views of white women. The participants were identified as swing voters because they had expressed misgivings about their past votes — some of the women had voted for Donald Trump, while others had voted for President Biden. Democrats need support from suburban women if they want to keep their House and Senate majorities in November. The women in the focus group didn't necessarily dislike Biden. They supported the infrastructure law and opposed measures that restrict voting access. They applauded Biden for his hot-mic moment — the one when he muttered a disparaging remark about a Fox News reporter. They disliked Trump, and they were disgusted with those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. Despite all of that, they weren't eager to vote for Democrats in the midterm elections in November. "I can't really have any hope for 2022 coming up," said a woman from Tennessee who works for a professional wrestling company. "So they're not giving me any sort of ambition to feel like I have any sort of trust in the government to fix things or at least get the ball going in the right direction." Democrats know they need to campaign on their accomplishments to preserve their majorities. Biden himself has suggested that he needs to do a better job telling voters what his administration and Democrats in Congress have done. But, as these women made clear, just talking to voters isn't enough. Democrats need to make sure voters feel the effects of their efforts, too. "It's absolutely essential that by Election Day, these suburban women are looking at Washington and seeing it as a place that can get things done," said Meredith Kelly, a Democratic strategist. Learning 'how to play in the sandbox' The women in the focus group did not know that the moderator guiding the discussion was a Democrat or that the sponsors were liberal organizations. All they knew before logging on was that they would be observed, though they did not know by whom. Some of them refused to answer a few questions, saying they were not informed enough to form an opinion. And some of them said they usually avoided talking about politics. When they were asked how they saw their role in the midterm elections, they laughed. "The suckers," an Arizona mother answered. "We're that automated laugh reel," joked a woman in Utah. They saw Washington more as a playground than as a place where problems get solved. "At the end of the day you need to learn how to play in the sandbox together," an interior designer from Georgia said, lamenting about bickering politicians. When it came to the infrastructure law, some of the women agreed that Democrats had included nonessential items that had nothing to do with roads or bridges. But they also thought Republicans should have voted to pass it anyway. "We need it, so whatever's shoved in there at this point, just take it," the Georgia woman said. They generally agreed that Biden stood out from other politicians for being "empathetic." But even if they believed that Biden had wanted to make a difference, they didn't think he was an exception to the rule. They seemed to doubt that any politician could solve the country's biggest problems. The women expressed that corporations and the wealthiest Americans wielded the most power, not politicians. But they didn't think there was anything the government could do to make corporations pay their fair share — these companies always find loopholes, they argued. After two hours of venting their frustrations, they concluded the conversation with an excoriation of the rioters who stormed the Capitol. "How did we let it get that bad?" asked the woman in Utah. With that, the moderator told them their time was up. She asked them to type up final thoughts before they logged off. One immediately left the call, while the others took a moment to say their goodbyes. The teacher in Florida, who spoke of struggling with cancer, was the last to sign off. "Thank you," she told the moderator. "I got a lot out of it." What to read tonight In Washington State, Black voters' ballots were rejected four times as often as those of white voters in the 2020 election, Mike Baker reports. All of those ballots were thrown out because of problems with voters' signatures. Biden spoke alongside Mayor Eric Adams of New York to assert his support for law enforcement and other measures to increase public safety, Katie Glueck, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Michael Wilson report. Sarah Bloom Raskin, the nominee for vice chair of supervision at the Federal Reserve, has an even narrower path to being confirmed if Senator Ben Ray Luján is out while recovering from a stroke. Raskin, who is well-known in the banking industry, is married to Representative Jamie Raskin. Reminder: This newsletter will soon be just for Times subscribers. Your access to the On Politics newsletter ends in mid-February. Subscribe now to keep receiving it and to enjoy all the benefits of being a Times subscriber. THE FORMER GUY Donald Trump endorses David Perdue for governor of Georgia.Perdue for Governor The Kool-Aid Man Remember those old commercials in which a giant, smiling pitcher of Kool-Aid interrupts a baseball game or a wedding, bursting through a wall to share the joy of a sugary beverage? From the Republican establishment's perspective, the role of the Kool-Aid Man was played this week by the former president, who crashed the proverbial party in two states: Georgia and New Hampshire. In Georgia, Trump cut his first face-to-camera ad for a candidate, David Perdue. At Trump's urging, the former senator is challenging Brian Kemp, the sitting governor, in the upcoming Republican primary. "The Democrats walked all over Brian Kemp," Trump says in the ad. "Brian Kemp let us down. We can't let it happen again." It's an allusion to Trump's false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him in Georgia, and another way to air his anger that Kemp refused to go along with his efforts to overturn the vote. The district attorney in Georgia's Fulton County is investigating Trump for seeking to improperly influence the outcome of that election. "While President Trump brought jobs back from overseas, David Perdue made a career outsourcing them to China, Mexico and other countries," Cody Hall, a spokesman for the Kemp campaign, said of the ad. "That's not America First — that's David Perdue padding his own wallet on the backs of hardworking Americans." As for New Hampshire, Trump's on-and-off political lieutenant, Corey Lewandowski, told a conservative radio host that the former president had empowered him to find a primary challenger for the state's moderate Republican governor. ​​"The president is very unhappy with the chief executive officer of the State of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu," Lewandowski told Howie Carr, a Boston-area radio personality. "And Sununu, in the president's estimation, is someone who's never been loyal to him. And the president said it would be really great if somebody would run against Chris Sununu." A spokesperson for Sununu did not respond to a request for comment. But Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of Maryland, had plenty to say about Trump's intervention. "This is another outrageous example of the Trump cancel culture that will do nothing except help elect more Democrats," Hogan said. He added, "If we double down on failure and focus on the former president's strange personal grievances, then we will deserve the result." Thanks for reading. We'll see you tomorrow. — Blake & Leah Were you forwarded this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox. Is there anything you think we're missing? Anything you want to see more of? We'd love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. NEWSLETTER NOTICE Enjoying this newsletter? Subscribe to keep receiving it. We've reserved a selection of newsletters, including this one, for Times subscribers. Subscriber support ensures that we have the resources to deliver this must-read, five-day-a-week newsletter that unpacks and illuminates American politics from every angle. Your access to this newsletter ends in mid-February. Become a Times subscriber for $1/week to enjoy our journalism and to continue to read this newsletter and any others you find interesting. Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for On Politics from The New York Times. To stop receiving these emails, unsubscribe or manage your email preferences. Subscribe to The TimesGet The New York Times app Connect with us on: Change Your EmailPrivacy PolicyContact UsCalifornia Notices The New York Times Company. 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018