Shoot a puppy?

Which European politicos would shoot a puppy?

 

Trump VP contender Kristi Noem shot to infamy for killing her dog. But maybe she’s not alone …

BY ALI WALKER

Call it the War on Dogs.

Kristi Noem, a potential contender for Donald Trump’s vice-presidential pick, has had better weeks. 

In a stunning self-inflicted wound, the South Dakota governor revealed in a new memoir that she had taken her misbehaving 14-month-old wirehaired pointer named Cricket out to a gravel pit — and shot her.

“It was not a pleasant job,” Noem trumpeted in the bonkers anecdote, told over multiple pages, “but it had to be done.” 

“Whether running the ranch or in politics, I have never passed on my responsibilities to anyone else to handle. Even if it’s hard and painful,” Noem said Sunday in an attempt at damage control.

The shocking tale — the point of which has utterly baffled political observers — did spark some debate at POLITICO Towers: Are there any European politicians who would kill a dog in cold blood? And if so — why?

Probably would Angela Merkel 

During a 2007 meeting in Sochi, Russia, a smirking Vladimir Putin brought his large black Labrador Koni to a sit-down with then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel — who is afraid of canines and was visibly uncomfortable in the dog’s presence. Years later, the Russian ruler told the German tabloid Bild that he hadn’t meant to scare Merkel. Honest. “I wanted to make her happy. When I found out she didn’t like dogs, of course I apologized,” Putin said (likely with his fingers crossed behind his back). 

Ursula von der Leyen

Shoot a dog? The European Commission president might machine-gun anything furry that came within a mile of her beloved pony. After Dolly von der Leyen was savaged by a menacing wolf, the EU chief ordered an inquiry into wolves in Europe. GW950m, the snappily named killer wolf, ended up with a bounty on his head — but managed to evade capture before the death warrant expired on Jan. 31, 2023. 

Boris Johnson

The former British prime minister fumed that someone should “please shoot that f*****g dog” after his terrier Dilyn chomped on antique furniture and threatened to rack up another expensive damage bill at country retreat Chequers. “I don’t think he meant it literally,” one insider source clarified to the Daily Mail. Poor Dilyn was back in the news this month, with another former British prime minister, Liz Truss, saying that he might have been the cause of 10 Downing Street being infested with fleas when she took over from Johnson. 

Jolyon Maugham

The Brexit-hating barrister shocked Britain with a deranged post-Christmas story in 2019. While the nation was tucking into turkey leftovers and chocolates, Maugham announced on Twitter that he had clubbed a fox to death with a baseball bat while nursing a hangover and wearing his wife’s green kimono. Yep, for real. In a warning of what lies ahead for Kristi Noem, the social media loudmouth can now barely pop off a post without being reminded of the brutal fox slaying. 

Definitely wouldn’t Andrzej Halicki

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s right-hand man in Brussels, Andrzej Halicki, really likes big dogs. So much so that the 62-year-old head of the Polish delegation to the European Parliament has a TikTok channel dedicated to his seven Great Danes. When he’s not busy championing the rule of law or fighting to curb Ukrainian farm imports, Halicki is online advising his 107,000 followers on how to wash their furry pals’ paws or how to avoid getting hit in the crotch by their tails.

Silvio Berlusconi

Under pressure in 2014 ahead of the European election, Italy’s bunga-bunga former prime minister went chasing the pet-lover vote.  “We need to find a ‘papa’ or ‘mamma’ for thousands of abandoned dogs and cats,” Berlusconi told supporters. “The over 10 million Italians who have a dog or cat will only be able to look on us with renewed fondness, which will help the moderates become a strong political force, a majority.” Citing Mother Teresa, he added: “If we love animals, as we should, we will be very close to God.” It wasn’t a very successful electoral gambit, however, with his Forza Italia party ultimately plummeting in the final results. 

Definitely have Adolf Hitler

You know who else killed his dog? That’s right, the Nazi führer’s love of animals may have inspired him to become a vegetarian, but it didn’t stop him from testing the cyanide capsules he planned to use to kill himself on his beloved German shepherd Blondi. The next day, with the Soviet army closing in, Hitler gave another capsule to his wife Eva Braun and then shot himself in the head. 

Traian Băsescu

Băsescu, a former sea captain and legendary dog-slayer, triggered an international outcry — including from film legend Brigitte Bardot — in 2001 when as Bucharest mayor he ordered hundreds of stray dogs to be rounded up and killed. At the time Bucharest had as many as 200,000 roaming stray dogs, according to media reports. Despite protesters comparing him to Hitler, Băsescu didn’t back down — continuing his anti-dog crusade even as he became Romanian president some years later. “No protest by animal foundations and politicians will make me stop the plan to kill stray dogs,” Băsescu roared. Frankly, he makes Noem look like the poster child for a good dog mom.

Jeremy Thorpe

U.K. political scandals in the 1970s hit differently. Thorpe, then a rising star as leader of the Liberals, allegedly hatched a plan in 1975 to dispatch of Norman Scott — his former lover, who had threatened to reveal their relationship to the media. Thorpe always denied any physical element in their relationship. In October of that year Scott met Andrew Newton, a pilot posing as a minder hired to protect him. Newton — who was allegedly hired by close friends of Thorpe — shot Scott’s pet Great Dane Rinka, and then allegedly turned the gun on Scott, but the gun jammed and Scott was able to get away. In the trial that followed, Newton was jailed for the canine killing. The judge, however, didn’t believe Newton’s claim that he had agreed to murder Scott for between £10,000 and £20,000, and Thorpe was acquitted. The saga was portrayed in a BBC drama, with Hugh Grant as Thorpe. 

Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal lawyer

Stormy Daniels’ lawyer didn’t give prosecutors fireworks. That will help them.

In Donald Trump’s hush money trial, one witness for the prosecution offered a welcome contrast.

By ERICA ORDEN

In a trial laced with tawdry tales fit for the tabloids, a witness who testified against Donald Trump on Tuesday offered something that prosecutors might find useful: a bit of blandness.

The witness, lawyer Keith Davidson, represented both porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal in 2016, when the two women received hush money to keep quiet about their claims of extramarital sexual encounters with Trump.

Davidson offered crucial details about the secret negotiations that led to the “catch and kill” deals, and his testimony helped prosecutors link the payments to Trump himself and to that year’s presidential election.

But despite the colorful claims at the core of these deals, Davidson’s presentation was cautious and calculated — in other words, lawyerly. For prosecutors, his staid recollection may be a welcome contrast to another key witness who is all but certain to testify against Trump: his former fixer Michael Cohen, who arranged the deals. Cohen has a more boisterous style and is a more problematic witness due to his well documented credibility problems, so prosecutors are no doubt trying to corroborate his expected testimony with other witnesses whom jurors may find more trustworthy or likable.

Davidson appeared to help satisfy that need on Tuesday afternoon, capping off what was, from the beginning, a bad day in court for Trump. Before the start of testimony, Justice Juan Merchan ruled that the former president had violated the gag order in the case nine times by criticizing potential witnesses and jurors. Merchan fined him the maximum penalty of $1,000 per violation and threatened Trump with jail time if the former president continues to violate the gag order.

On the witness stand, Davidson methodically laid out the origins of the hush money deals to Daniels and McDougal. He testified that, even though Cohen put up the $130,000 in hush money for Daniels, Davidson believed that Trump or “some corporate affiliation” of Trump — not Cohen — was actually paying the money.

And when, in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, Cohen dragged his feet on sending the money, Davidson thought he was offering excuses and “trying to kick the can down the road until after the election” — presumably because Trump and Cohen would no longer need to suppress Daniels’ story after the election. That inference may support prosecutors’ assertion that Trump orchestrated the deal, and tried to conceal it, as part of a scheme to unlawfully influence the election.

Davidson is not done testifying. After the trial takes its customary break on Wednesday, he will return to the stand on Thursday, when Trump’s lawyers may get a chance to cross-examine him.

On Tuesday, as Davidson was asked about salacious details of the deals he struck for his two clients, he at times appeared conservative, trying to discuss the backroom negotiations about tabloid fodder with professional restraint.

He repeatedly referred to McDougal’s alleged yearlong relationship with Trump as a “personal interaction,” without describing it further. Only under further questioning from prosecutors did he admit that McDougal’s allegation concerned a romantic and sexual affair.

Though prosecutors displayed text messages that used language such as “fucked up,” Davidson censored it in his testimony, reading it to the jury as “f’d up.”

He displayed no animus toward Trump. In fact, the only person involved in the events who appeared to anger him was Cohen.

He recounted a story involving a manager for Daniels describing a phone call from “some jerk” who was acting “very, very aggressive.”

“I hate to ask it this way, but who was that jerk?” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass inquired.

Davidson replied, “It was Michael Cohen.”

And he recalled another incident in which various people passed off the responsibility of calling Cohen, saying, “The moral of the story is no one wanted to talk to Cohen.”

That antipathy toward the person who is expected to be prosecutors’ star witness could also prove, in the long run, helpful to them. After all, prosecutors likely don’t need the jury to hold Cohen, with his felony convictions, in high regard. They just need jurors to believe what he — and Davidson — have to say.

Just more death...

Florida’s 6-week abortion ban is now in effect. Clinics in the state are scrambling.

The stricter ban has also ended Florida’s status as a bastion for abortion access in the Southeast.

By AREK SARKISSIAN

Florida’s strict ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy went into effect Wednesday, which clinic operators fear will impact at least 40,000 women a year unless voters agree to overturn the measure in November.

The new law replaces another ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy that Florida’s Republican-led Legislature approved more than two years ago. The tighter six-week restriction will make having an abortion nearly impossible for most patients. The measure includes exceptions for victims of rape, incest, human trafficking and for serious medical complications.

The stricter ban has also ended Florida’s status as a bastion for abortion access in the Southeast, with well over 6,000 women previously coming to the state every year from neighboring Alabama and Georgia, where laws restricting abortions are more strict.

Now with Florida’s “Heartbeat Law,” abortion clinics are expanding to offering other services, and working with abortion funds to help women travel outside the state to have an abortion. But that kind of assistance will only be available for some patients, said Kelly Flynn, founder of A Woman’s Choice clinic in Jacksonville, adding that many will be left without any options in Florida.

“Most patients don’t understand the severity of this, and [we are] talking to them and letting them know what’s happening,” Flynn said. “Some are just so desperate for care that she’s not hearing how dire this is — her main concern is that she needs to get in and have an abortion.”

Groups that oppose abortion hope the impact of Florida’s six-week ban will be felt across the region. Mat Staver, the founder and chair of the Liberty Counsel, wrote in a statement that the law will bring tougher punishments to people who perform illegal abortions.

“The Heartbeat Law will save countless lives, some of whom may become world leaders,” Staver wrote. “The Heartbeat Law protects the valuable lives of both the unborn child and the mother and provides a wide range of options and support for women.”

Florida’s Republican-led Legislature approved the 15-week ban in 2022 as the U.S. Supreme Court appeared primed to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that had limited abortion restrictions to about 24 weeks into a pregnancy. After the high court struck down Roe, Florida followed suit by passing the six-week ban, with Gov. Ron DeSantis signing it into law weeks before launching his presidential campaign.

Wednesday’s rollout of the six-week ban was triggered by a Florida Supreme Court decision handed down one month ago, which rejected a legal challenge brought by Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion rights groups to stop the 15-week ban. The Florida Supreme Court decision upholding the 15-week ban dealt an even tougher blow to pro-abortion-rights groups by undoing precedent that used a right to privacy in the state constitution to void abortion restrictions for more than three decades. That triggered the six-week ban to go into effect one month after the decision was handed down.

“It’s a terrible restriction on women’s reproductive rights,” Louis Silber, a lawyer who has represented the Presidential Women’s Center, an abortion clinic in West Palm Beach. “They’re just going to do the best they can at continuing to serve the community and its families.”

Without the privacy right, abortion-rights advocates and clinics are placing all hope in a November ballot initiative that seeks to loosen abortion restrictions, including allowing the procedure until viability, which is generally considered to be about 24 weeks of pregnancy. The initiative, which will appear on the ballot as Amendment 4, is led by Lauren Brenzel, who said while it’s unfortunate that thousands of women would temporarily lose access to abortion, the campaign is confident that Florida voters will approve Amendment 4 in November.

“The good news is that they have the opportunity to stop this ban in its tracks on Nov. 5,” Brenzel said. “But it’s a disservice to Florida’s women that they’re going to have to live for even a period of a few months with this ban in place and we’re going to see people suffer because of that.”

Abortion is regulated by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, which was tight-lipped about plans to enforce the six-week ban. AHCA recently slapped clinics with close to $500,000 in fines after inspectors paid surprise visits to enforce a new requirement from 2022 that patients must wait 24 hours after a doctor’s office visit before they can have an abortion.

“As always, the Agency expects providers to comply with Florida law and we’ll be adding the new abortion requirements to our survey process,” AHCA spokesperson Alecia Collins wrote in an email this week, when asked about how the agency will enforce the new, stricter ban.

Laura Goodhue, who is the the executive director of Planned Parenthood in Florida, which is the largest provider in the state, believes roughly 40,000 pregnant women who otherwise would have had an abortion in Florida at one of their clinics will end up carrying a pregnancy to term or traveling outside the state. And Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an anti-abortion group, predicted 50,000 “lives will be saved” by the ban.

“We think that that’s cause for celebration to have more lives,” SBA Southern regional director Caitlin Connors said. Unlike most state restrictions, more patients were aware of the new, stricter ban, Goodhue said, but that will not help the thousands of women who will learn they are out of options in Florida as of Wednesday.

“This was a big deal for them,” Goodhue said. “It was shock and dismay really, because the reality is the patients that we see now are between eight and 11 weeks.”

There are 51 licensed abortion clinics in Florida, and the new ban led Planned Parenthood and other operators to diversify the types of services they offer patients such as infertility care, behavioral health, menopause care and vasectomies.

The Women’s Choice clinic in Jacksonville has partnered with an Ohio adoption agency and will also begin sending patients to clinics owned by the same company in North Carolina and Virginia. But Flynn, the organization’s founder, said she knows that many women will not be able to make the trip, even if all expenses are paid.

“It’s going to be heartbreaking,” Flynn said. “I know there are patients who are working and they didn’t have the time to take the time off and they’re going to have the baby they didn’t want.”

Bull-shit... Was dragged kicking and screaming...

Veterans group hits airwaves to thank Johnson on Ukraine

A 30-second ad includes footage from the late President Ronald Reagan saying that America is the “leader of the free world, whether we want to be or not.”

DANIELLA DIAZ

Veterans On Duty, a nonprofit advocacy organization, is preparing a high six-figure television, radio and digital advertising campaign that will start Wednesday to thank Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans for supporting emergency spending on foreign aid.

The campaign follows a long-running conservative effort to bring down the package, which will send billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. A 30-second ad featured in the campaign includes footage from the late President Ronald Reagan saying that America is the “leader of the free world, whether we want to be or not … We are the only ones who can preserve the peace.”

Veterans On Duty Chair Jeremy Hunt, in a statement provided to POLITICO, said: “The leadership displayed by Speaker Johnson and so many national-security-minded Republicans in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, even in the face of opposition in their own party, is noble.”

Start the clock?

Greene plans to start the clock on vote to depose Johnson next week

The effort is all but certain to fail, given that Democrats said on Tuesday they would help block it.

By OLIVIA BEAVERS and JORDAIN CARNEY

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said Wednesday she will officially trigger the clock to hold a referendum on Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership next week — an effort that now seems doomed.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who is backing the Georgia firebrand's effort, said they will bring up the motion to vacate resolution as privileged, which could then force a House vote on Johnson remaining speaker within two legislative days. It would be the second attempt to depose a speaker within seven months.

"And so next week, I am going to be calling this motion to vacate. Absolutely. I’m calling it. I can't wait to see Democrats go out and support a Republican speaker and have to go home to their primaries and have to run for Congress again, having supported a Republican speaker, a Christian conservative. I think that'll play well," Greene said at a press conference Wednesday morning.

Greene didn’t immediately specify what day she will move to force a vote, with the House set to leave town on Wednesday and return on Monday. But Republican leadership is expected to try to move to quickly dispense with her proposal to fire the speaker as soon as she pushes it to the floor, three Republicans familiar with the plans told POLITICO.

Republicans had been bracing for Greene to trigger the speaker-deposing vote as soon as Wednesday. But Greene and Massie, who spoke alongside her at Wednesday's press conference, are hoping the extra time will build pressure not only on their fellow GOP colleagues, but also on Johnson, who they want to resign.

“Everybody needs the weekend to prepare. I am not irresponsible. I care about my conference,” Greene said.

Massie added that Johnson “deserves a weekend to think about it. He should resign.”

Johnson has given no indication that he is preparing to, or has considered, resigning. Unlike the effort against former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Greene's motion already seems certain to fail, as House Democratic leaders announced Tuesday that they would step in to save Johnson.

“I have no reaction. The statement that we issued yesterday speaks for itself," Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Wednesday.

The GOP leader, during an interview with NewsNation, downplayed Greene’s effort — saying "bless her heart" when the interviewer brought up the Georgia lawmaker. Asked if he believed Greene was a serious lawmaker, he replied: “I don't think she is proving to be.”

Greene, asked about his comments at Wednesday’s press conference, brushed off the criticism.

“I’m not into personal attacks. That’s not why I’m doing this,” she said. “This has nothing to do with Mike Johnson as a person. But this is about his job performance.”

Never faced a state like Florida

Abortion-rights groups have never faced a state like Florida

Voters in states across the political spectrum have backed abortion rights since the fall of Roe. But Florida’s November referendum will be tougher.

By KIMBERLY LEONARD and AREK SARKISSIAN

President Joe Biden and Florida Democrats have made a lot of noise about trying to reverse the state’s six-week abortion ban, which went into effect on Wednesday.

But Florida presents a significant — and unusual — hurdle for a ballot referendum that could deal the pro-abortion-rights movement their first electoral loss since the fall of Roe v. Wade.

Abortion rights have been on a winning streak with voters ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe. In both blue and red states, in every statewide referendum, the pro-abortion rights side has won. Florida, however, requires ballot measures to get 60 percent voter support to pass. Reproductive rights groups have hit that mark in liberal bastions of California and Vermont — and fallen short of that elsewhere, from swingy Michigan to red-leaning Ohio and Kansas.

“It won’t be easy,” state House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell said of the threshold during a Biden campaign stop at the end of April. “We will need Floridians from across the political spectrum to speak up and we will need allies bringing attention to our fight here in Florida.”

The race to clear 60 percent for Amendment 4 — or, in the case of anti-abortion activists, to keep support under that mark — could be the most defining characteristic of the battle in Florida. That threshold, combined with the state’s strict six-week abortion ban that went into effect on Wednesday, could supercharge what will already be the most closely watched referendum into a fight that has the potential to become the most expensive abortion-rights ballot measure to date.

And Democrats widely view this vote as not only an important policy win, but as potentially their winning ticket politically in a state that has slipped away. Florida’s changing abortion landscape is jolting interest at the very top of the ticket with Biden making a stop here last week and Vice President Kamala Harris heading in Wednesday.

Yet anti-abortion advocates have mounds of evidence for betting that Florida could buck the trend and tip in their favor, even though presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, a Florida resident, is staying out of the state’s fight so far and has shown he thinks his party is vulnerable when it comes to strict restrictions.

Early polling shows a chunk of voters who would be needed to get the referendum over the finish line haven’t decided what to do, meaning both sides have time to shape public opinion. Recent polling also shows Floridians don’t see abortion as being as salient to their vote as issues like the economy or immigration.

Florida Republicans, who have a huge fundraising advantage over Democrats, have promised to counter-message aggressively to get Floridians to vote “no” in November. They’ve called the referendum “extreme” and Republican Party of Florida Chair Evan Power said on April 1 the party will “fight to inform voters on the dangers of this amendment,” but this week declined to discuss specific strategy so far ahead of the election.

If the referendum passes, abortion would be legal in Florida until viability, which is generally considered to be around 24 weeks into a pregnancy. Abortion would also be legal later in a pregnancy under undefined “health” circumstances.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, who won reelection by almost 20 points in 2022, has pledged to get involved in the opposition push, a commitment he made again during a stop in Tampa on Tuesday. He and other Republicans predict that Floridians will balk when they learn that the referendum gives broad leeway to health care providers to determine the circumstances under which abortions late in a pregnancy would be allowed.

Abortion-rights groups will also have to contend with Florida’s increasingly red tilt: the GOP has out-registered Democrats by about 900,000 active voters — a gap that has only grown in recent years.

Most abortion-rights advocates readily acknowledge they’ll need to get Republican and independent voters to support the amendment if they want it to pass, and Florida Democrats said they plan to get messaging out across generations, beginning with college campuses.

But many also say everything will change for people on Wednesday, when the law making abortion illegal after six weeks of pregnancy takes effect. The law has exceptions for life-threatening pregnancy complications and, within 15 weeks of pregnancy, in cases of rape, incest and human trafficking.

By November’s election, voters will have lived six months under the new restrictions. Because over 90 percent of abortions happen during the first 13 weeks of pregnancy, per federal health data, Florida’s previous 15-week limit that’s been in effect since July 2022 may not have registered with many residents. In contrast, many women don’t realize they’re pregnant at six weeks.

“Unfortunately, the stories are going to tell themselves,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said in an interview. “You’re going to start hearing the heartbreaking stories coming out of Florida, of women that are going to have to make this ultimate decision.”

Leading the push to first get the referendum passed is Floridians Protecting Freedom, which began as a coalition of pro-abortion rights groups including Planned Parenthood and the ACLU of Florida.

It formed after DeSantis signed the six-week ban into law just over a year ago, and the group has since launched the “Yes on 4” campaign, which is led by Lauren Brenzel. In a phone interview, Brenzel said a “major media campaign” was in the works using print, TV and digital ads, though she didn’t specify what they’d say or how much the group would spend in a state that’s notoriously expensive to advertise in.

Fundraising for the amendment has picked up significantly since the high court ruling, with plenty of contributions coming from outside the state, Brenzel said. The group had raised $17.9 million by the end of March, according to state elections data, and it spent far less money than a cannabis legalization effort to get on the November ballot. And on Tuesday, an organization tied to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, said it was kicking in $500,000 to the campaign.

“The reality is that we are the third-largest state in the nation, and [donors] know that we can’t deny that many people access to care,” Brenzel said. “What we’ve seen since our qualification is a real shift towards the importance of funding Florida’s ballot initiative effort for abortion access.”

As evidence of support, the campaign also points to thousands of volunteers that have come out to help — and how 150,000 Republican voters lent their signatures to get an abortion referendum on the ballot. Brenzel adds that the 60 percent voter threshold is not new for Florida, with the requirement approved by voters statewide in 2006.

“We always knew that we’re going to face the 60 percent hurdle, and for us we also knew that we had the electorate to do that,” Brenzel said. “The reality is that abortion bans are incredibly unpopular, and that Floridians don’t want their politicians involved in these medical decisions.”

On the other side of the debate, anti-abortion groups plan to hammer the language on Florida’s ballot, which stipulates that health care providers can use their judgment to evaluate when abortion is “necessary to protect the patient’s health” and when a fetus is viable. Some health care providers working in states without gestational limits have taken a broader view than others, though abortion-rights advocates point out many of the cases involve devastating, life-threatening medical diagnoses.

One group leading the anti-abortion messaging is the political action committee Florida Voters Against Extremism, which includes organizations such as the Liberty Counsel, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops. The group posted a website breaking down its interpretation of the ballot’s language and statewide grassroots director Sara Johnson told POLITICO that Florida Voters Against Extremism would raise the money required.

“Florida voters do not agree with extreme abortion laws in states like California and New York, yet if Amendment 4 passes, Florida’s abortion laws would be among the most liberal in America,” Johnson said.

The anti-abortion organization Students for Life, which was key to getting the Legislature to sign the six-week law, formally known as the Heartbeat Protection Act, will be protesting the vice president’s visit in Jacksonville on Wednesday. The national group, which has staff working and living in Florida, says the state is its No. 1 target and launched a billboard tour last week, said Kristan Hawkins, the group’s president.

There will be an “Almost Aborted” marketing campaign in key Florida neighborhoods featuring parents who’d considered abortion before changing course, she said. The organization has been recruiting students and going door to door to share referendum materials, and helping Florida Voters Against Extremism with materials, including in Spanish.

“We have a decent chance of defeating this thing despite being outspent — which will likely happen — because in Florida we have a GOP leadership in Gov. DeSantis who’s speaking boldly out against this nonsense,” she said.

The campaign to get the abortion referendum on the ballot already overcame several obstacles to win over critics who supported the initiative, but were worried it was too difficult to pass in Florida. One was high-profile Orlando lawyer and Democratic rainmaker John Morgan, who was also the architect of the state’s 2020 initiative to gradually increase Florida’s minimum wage to $15 and bankrolled millions toward the successful 2016 initiative in which voters legalized medical marijuana.

Morgan said in November that Floridians Protecting Freedom would struggle to raise campaign dollars, meet new regulatory controls and also win the favor of the conservative-leaning state Supreme Court. With those obstacles overcome, Morgan still predicts that November’s outcome would be “very close” and that a 60 percent passage would be considered a landslide result. But the six-week ban may also have struck a nerve with voters, he added.

“The draconian law seems ripe to be reversed,” Morgan wrote in an email. “People don’t like to be told what to do … especially about their bodies … and especially by men.”

Wins special election

Democrat Tim Kennedy wins special election to replace Higgins

His victory brings the number of Democrats in the House to 213.

By BILL MAHONEY

Democrat Tim Kennedy won a special election Tuesday to finish off the term started by fellow Democrat Brian Higgins in a Buffalo-area congressional seat.

The Associated Press called the race soon after Kennedy had a 75 percent to 25 percent lead over Republican West Seneca Supervisor Gary Dickson in early results.

His victory brings the number of Democrats in the House to 213. There are 217 Republicans and five vacancies.

The district has been safe for Democrats since Higgins narrowly won his first term in 2004. Kennedy will need to run for a full, two-year term in November.

Kennedy, a seven-term state senator, said in a recent interview that his front-running campaign is a good indicator of what happens when a Democrat with “a record of delivering results for the community” runs against a Republican “who is supporting a failed former president who’s not only indicted but is on trial.”

“This race is about the future of our country, and I believe every race at the congressional level across America this November is going to be the same,” he said in a recent interview. “This is a prelude to what we should expect to see in November.”

Kennedy’s path to victory was smooth. He was ready to launch a full-fledged campaign from the moment longtime ally Higgins announced his retirement in November, and other high-profile Democrats from Western New York declined to enter the race.

Republicans didn’t pick Dickson to be their nominee until February.

Kennedy, 47, an occupational therapist by trade, entered politics when he joined the Erie County Legislature in 2004. He has been a state senator since 2011, and his name has repeatedly surfaced over the years among the contenders for offices ranging from lieutenant governor to Buffalo mayor.

“As soon as you met him, you knew the guy had a plan and that he was going somewhere,” said Democrat Sean Ryan, who was a lawyer for the county legislature early in Kennedy’s career and now represents a neighboring Senate seat.

The incumbent that Kennedy ousted to win his first term in the Senate was one of the last Democrats in Albany opposed to same-sex marriage. His victory helped create momentum for the state’s vote on it the following year.

He has been squarely in the mainstream of Democratic politics since then, and he has been a particularly vocal supporter of blue collar labor unions. He has spent recent years chairing the Senate’s Transportation Committee, where he has focused on issues like securing infrastructure funding and reforming limousine safety regulations in the wake of a 2018 crash outside Albany.

Like Higgins, Kennedy hails from a heavily Irish pocket of South Buffalo where people identify where they live based on their Catholic parish. Few people who know him expect that his style in Washington will be drastically different than that of his predecessor.

“He’s going to let people from Congress know that someone from Buffalo is in the House,” Ryan said.

Former Grand Island supervisor Nate McMurray had filed to run against Kennedy in the June primary for a full term, but Democrats believe petition problems will soon get him tossed from the ballot. Republicans have submitted petitions under a placeholder name.

The state Legislature redrew New York’s congressional maps earlier this year, and the lines that will be used in November are slightly more favorable to Democrats than the lines won by Kennedy on Tuesday.

Denies he will step down

Japan’s leader denies he will step down over election defeat

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida intends to “regain the people’s trust.”

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Tuesday his governing party’s major defeat in last weekend’s by-elections was largely due to a political fundraising scandal and that he would not step down or replace party executives to take responsibility.

Instead, Kishida said he will push anti-corruption measures and political reforms.

“As I take the results seriously, I believe as president of the governing party we must tackle the challenges we face one by one and achieve results, and this is the way I will take responsibility,” Kishida said. “By doing so, I will regain the people’s trust.”

Kishida said the scandal dealt “a big and heavy hinderance” to the party. The scandal centers on dozens of lawmakers in Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party who allegedly pocketed profits from ticket sales to political events by falsifying accounting reports.

Asked if he would take responsibility for the election loss, Kishida denied he would step down or replace top LDP posts, and pledged to pursue party and political reforms, including a revision to the political funds laws. He also vowed to tackle economic issues.

The conservative Liberal Democratic Party lost all three seats in Sunday’s parliamentary by-elections in Nagasaki, Shimane and Tokyo. Kishida’s party only fielded its own candidate in Shimane, a conservative stronghold, while the liberal-leaning main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan clinched all three seats previously held by LDP.

The loss is seen as a punishment by voters for the governing party’s scandal, which erupted last year and has undermined Kishida’s leadership.

The party is unlikely to lose power because the opposition is fractured. But Sunday’s defeat marks a further setback for Kishida, who will seek reelection as his party’s leader in the fall.

Political analysts say Kishida was hoping to call a snap election possibly after the current parliamentary session ends in late June, seeking to receive a public mandate, and then win another term in the party presidential vote in September.

Kishida’s state visit to the U.S. earlier this month was perceived as a success, but Sunday’s losses could erode his clout and LDP lawmakers may try to bring him down in favor of a fresh face ahead of the next general election.

Such a move would make it difficult for Kishida to run for another three-year term in the party’s presidential race in September. As prime minister, he can call a snap election anytime before the current term for the lower house expires in October 2025.

Kishida on Tuesday denied he has plans to call for a snap election.

He has fought plummeting approval ratings since the corruption scandal broke. He has removed a number of Cabinet ministers and others from party executive posts, conducted internal hearings and drafted reform measures, but support for his government has dwindled to around 20 percent.

The scandal centers on unreported political funds raised through tickets sold for party events and involved more than 80 LDP lawmakers, mostly belonging to a major party faction previously led by assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Ten people — lawmakers and their aides — were indicted in January.

Harassment of election workers

Threats, harassment of election workers has risen, poll shows

In response to safety concerns, local election officials are increasingly leaving their jobs.

By CHRISTINE ZHU

More than a third of surveyed local election officials have experienced threats, harassment or abuse due to their jobs, according to a new poll released Wednesday.

The 38 percent of local election officials who reported mistreatment in the poll from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law marks an 8 percentage point uptick from the survey’s 2023 edition. The most common manner of receiving these threats occurred in person or over the phone.

Poll workers and their colleagues aren’t only worried about themselves — about a quarter of those surveyed said they’re concerned about their family or loved ones receiving threats or harassment in future elections.

In response to safety concerns, local election officials are leaving their jobs. Twenty-seven percent of respondents said they know one or two local election officials who have resigned over concerns about their well-being, almost a 10 percentage point increase from the 18 percent who said the same in 2023.

The high turnover seems likely to continue. Almost a quarter of local election officials will work their first presidential election in 2024, and 20 percent said they’re unlikely to continue serving in the 2026 midterms.

Sixty-two percent of respondents also voiced concerns about political leaders engaging in efforts to interfere in how election officials do their jobs.

It’s a charged issue this election season, as prosecutors in former President Donald Trump’s ongoing criminal trial aim to convince jurors that hush money was “election interference.” Trump has also been indicted in two election interference cases, one at the federal level and one in Georgia, for his actions following the 2020 general election.

The Brennan Center for Justice conducted the poll from Feb. 23 to March 28 with 928 respondents. There is a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Just go away......

RNC chief implores Greene to stand down

Inside the crash GOP effort to head off a motion to vacate.

By RACHAEL BADE

A top Republican National Committee official asked Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene not to move against Speaker Mike Johnson in a face-to-face meeting Tuesday, as top allies of former President Donald Trump seek to head off what they see as a pointless and distracting internal battle.

The meeting between Greene (R-Ga.) and RNC chair Michael Whatley came just hours after she accused Johnson of cutting a “slimy back room deal” with Democrats and promised to force a vote ousting him.

Whatley, who is less than two months in the job, met with Greene in his office after she had skipped his briefing of House Republicans that morning, where he had emphasized the importance of party unity. He said much the same to Greene.

“He said, one, this is not helpful, and two, we want to expand and grow the majority in the House,” said a person familiar with Whatley’s message to Greene. “He was clear that any disruption to the conference on these efforts — including filing this [motion to vacate], does not help the case for party unity.”

In another era, a directive from the top Republican party official certainly would not go unheeded by a House back-bencher. Even in this era, Whatley’s choice as Trump’s handpicked RNC steward has lent him heft inside the MAGA orbit.

But Greene pushed back on Whatley, arguing that the party had time to rebound from a leadership switch before the election. And she told him she’d spoken to Trump himself earlier in the day — leaving the impression that the former president had told her much the same as Whatley had.

Truth was, Greene had backed herself into a corner, and this morning, she’s facing a potential lose-lose situation: back down and look squishy or stand firm and risk a break with Trump.

At a Wednesday morning news conference with fellow Johnson critic Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Greene announced she would call the vote on Johnson next week, saying he had “become a man that none of us recognize.”

Johnson fired back, saying the move “is wrong for the Republican Conference, wrong for the institution, and wrong for the country.” The effort is expected to fall on a motion to table, with Democrats voting with most Republicans to keep Johnson in place.

Greene’s threats have taken a toll on her standing within the House Republican conference, where more and more lawmakers are growing tired of her self-aggrandizing antics, as Jordain Carney and Olivia Beavers write.

Her latest push, for instance, comes as the GOP tries to take advantage of the campus unrest to make a messaging push on antisemitism. But, they write, instead of “going on the offense by attacking Democrats for insufficiently condemning pro-Palestinian protests on campuses, Republicans are now bracing for Greene to drag them into another internal fight that most of them would rather delay until after Election Day.”

The bigger issue is that Greene is defying not just her House colleagues, but also Trump and his hand-picked deputy, who made yesterday’s unusual personal appeal.

Whatley said in a statement that “nothing is more important than party unity and ensuring that we are focused on beating Joe Biden and Democrats in November.”

Others in the Trump-aligned orbit are annoyed, to put it mildly, at Greene’s lack of political discipline. Some noted that she’d kept quiet in recent days until House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other top Democrats made their backing of Johnson public yesterday morning — suggesting Greene got rope-a-doped into sparking another internecine fight.

“Fresh bait always finds a fish,” one senior GOP official said. “Jeffries throwing that out there, it’s chum in the water. Everyone knows what he did.”

A person close with Greene responded to the calls for unity from Whatley and others: “The only person destroying Republican unity is Mike Johnson,” the person said. “Republicans need a speaker who will deliver President Trump’s America First agenda when he’s back in the White House. Democrat-endorsed Mike Johnson isn’t it.”

But another senior GOP official suggested there could be consequences for Greene if she doesn’t start playing team ball, and fast. She could find herself iced out of some parts of MAGA world, where she’s long been adored.

“If she blows everything up … we’re not going to bring her in the fold on anything,” that person said. “She’s on her own.”

The Greene ally rejected the suggestion she might be sidelined, noting her strong support among the GOP’s grassroots — and the fundraising abilities to match.