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Far-right is twisting language on ballots to confuse and ‘undermine the will of the voters’: report
After the Supreme Court eliminated the rights outlined in Roe v. Wade and "left it up to the states" to decide regulations, citizens have gathered signatures to bring ballot measures allowing voters to decide what their state laws should be.
But the right-wing has responded by trying to twist the language on the ballot to intentionally "undermine" and confuse voters, reported "News From the States."
Ohio, where a recent ballot measure that tried to raise the threshold for future ballot initiatives to succeed was defeated, came under fire for using "deceptive" language. But is isn't the only state where ballot language is confusing, leading to lawsuits.
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"In recent weeks, officials in Missouri — where another abortion-rights measure is at issue — and Idaho also have been accused in lawsuits of seeking to thwart citizen initiatives they oppose by using biased and negative ballot language to describe the issue to voters," said the report.
"Arkansas last year saw a similar court fight after a state board rejected a proposed ballot measure that had gained the required number of signatures, claiming the ballot language didn’t explain the issue in enough detail."
Interest groups that support direct democracy think this is part of the larger war to remove ballot initiatives as an option for the citizenry.
States Newsroom has revealed that over the past several years, states have tried to crack down on laws that regulate ballot initiatives, adding extra requirements before it makes it to the ballot.
In recent years, a slew of states have imposed more onerous signature requirements or raised the threshold for voter approval above a simple majority, among other steps. It’s no coincidence that in all four of the states where controversies over ballot language have flared most prominently, Republican lawmakers have tried other tacks — so far unsuccessfully — to restrict ballot measures more broadly, the report said.
Even if the new language is thrown out by the court, the process has already added expense to those supporting the ballot measure, the report said. Some states can't issue ballots at all if there is pending litigation.
“This has been an escalating effort to attack ballot titles,” said Sarah Walker, director of legal and policy advocacy at the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center. “It’s just more of a long trajectory of efforts to undermine the will of the voters. And it shows how far politicians who are out of step with voters are willing to go to consolidate their power.”
Kevin Johnson, executive director of Election Reformers Network, explained to News From The States that a partisan secretary of state has the power to "completely distort public understanding of a ballot question."
In Missouri, for example, the Republican secretary of state, Jay Ashcroft, wrote the ballot measure asking voters if they want to protect “dangerous, unregulated, and unrestricted abortions, from contraception to live birth.” The title goes so far as to ask voters if they want to “nullify longstanding Missouri law protecting the right to life.”
The Missouri state legislature went further, trying to pass a Republican bill that requires 57 percent approval for a ballot initiative, instead of a simple majority. It hasn't passed, but they plan to try again next year.
Republicans tried the same thing in Ohio where the secretary of state described Issue 1 as a measure that would “elevate the standards” for constitutional amendments, News From The States reported.
Read more about the states and their tactics from News From The States.
Hunter Biden’s longtime lawyer asks to be removed from his tax and gun case
Hunter Biden’s lead criminal defense attorney, Christopher Clark, has asked to be taken off his criminal case because he could be called as a witness in the future, CNN reported.
“Based on recent developments, it appears that the negotiation and drafting of the plea agreement and diversion agreement will be contested, and Mr. Clark is a percipient witness to those issues,” Biden’s lawyers said in a motion filed with the Delaware judge overseeing the case.
Last week, a plea deal put forward in President Joe Biden's son's case involving tax misdemeanors and a gun charge fell apart. The deal had been attacked by many Republicans as smacking of preferential treatment.
"Federal prosecutors said last week they reached an impasse on a plea deal related to tax offenses and a related “diversion agreement” to resolve a gun possession charge," CNN reported. "They asked the judge to withdraw a late August deadline she previously gave both sides to re-negotiate the agreements after she refused to approve them at a hearing last month," CNN's report stated.
Trump’s gambit to get Judge Chutkan booted from DC case is ‘virtually impossible’: analysis
Former President Donald Trump has been trying to get Judge Tanya Chutkan booted from overseeing his Jan. 6 case in Washington D.C. based on comments she made while sentencing a rioter who stormed the United States Capitol.
However, an analysis written by Slate's Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern argues that Trump has "no chance" at succeeding with this strategy.
In their analysis, the two authors break down the remarks that Chutkan made that Trump claimed prove that she is biased against him.
"The people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty to one man — not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant; not to the ideals of this county and not to the principles of democracy," Chutkan said in remarks recently seized upon by Trump. "It’s blind loyalty to one person, who, by the way, remains free to this day."
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Lithwick and Stern argue that this comment, variations of which have been made by multiple judges overseeing Jan. 6-related trials, falls laughably short of what would be needed to compel a higher court to remove Chutkan from the case.
"Chutkan’s comment shows not actual proof of bias, but rather a perfectly defensible viewpoint that’s shared widely among her colleagues on the bench," they argue. "Second, even if it did evince bias, it does not begin to rise to the level necessary to trigger recusal under federal law. The same standards that make it immensely difficult to force Judge Aileen Cannon off the Mar-a-Lago case (despite her actual showing of obvious bias in Trump litigation) make it virtually impossible to force Chutkan off the Jan. 6 case."
DON'T MISS: Trump ally mocked reporter's purported ignorance of Georgia law — now she's been indicted
Threat of financial ‘ruin’ could see co-defendants throw Trump under the bus: legal experts
Now that he has been indicted in a sweeping racketeering probe by Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis into efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 election, former President Donald Trump faces a unique threat.
He has many co-defendants – many of whom are not wealthy and face financial destruction from their indictments. That gives them huge incentive to flip on him to save themselves, Salon reported.
Legal experts say that the risk to Trump is very real, according to the website's analysis Tuesday.
New York University law professor Melissa Murray wrote on X, "Given the 5-year min for RICO, lots of opportunities for folks to flip and cooperate," referring to the prison sentence that could accompany a guilty verdict.
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Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti agreed, posting, "Unlike Trump, the other defendants aren’t wealthy. They aren’t raising money from donors to pay their legal bills. Most people have their lives turned upside down by an indictment, and plead guilty to avoid ruin.
"Indictments like this will deter future election shenanigans."
This comes as many other unindicted co-conspirators in Trump's four criminal cases are rumored to be cooperating, with some 30 mentioned in the indictments. Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who was indicted in Willis' case, has been suspected by legal experts to be cooperating in the other election case against Trump that was brought by Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith.
Trump is not only extremely wealthy, but has leveraged his position as a presidential candidate to raise millions for his own legal defense.
The former president and his allies appear to be aware of the risk that his allies could be financially pressured into cooperating against him; earlier this month, The New York Times reported that Trump is building a new entity, Patriot Legal Defense Fund Inc., that is dedicated to covering the legal bills of witnesses and co-defendants — a move that would potentially not just remove the threat of financial ruination from accused co-conspirators, but allow them to coordinate their defenses.
