News Roundup: Exploiting the Big Lie

The stolen-election lie has not only fed efforts to make voting harder, especially for marginalized groups and voters of color; it has also laid the groundwork for partisan measures designed to hijack democracy. And more than a year later, it’s still being used in futile and unconstitutional attempts to reverse the 2020 election’s results.

Voting Rights and Threats to Democracy

In Arizona: We’ve seen for months — years, in fact — how lies about widespread voter fraud have fueled calls for new voting restrictions. Arizona has been a hotbed of those proposals:

• The Arizona Republic compiled a list of the roughly 100 bills submitted in the state Legislature relating to election security and voting rights. 
• The Arizona Senate Government Committee approved bills that would increase the monitoring of voter-registration rolls; direct county clerks to submit to the secretary of state records of felony convictions for the purpose of canceling registrations; and prohibit electronic voting and require that ballots be hand counted.
• State Sen. Wendy Rogers proposed the hand-count bill, saying it had been prompted by comments made by Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan following his firm’s discredited “audit” in Maricopa County. 
• The committee also advanced a bill that Courthouse News reported “would create a permanent election audit team under the umbrella of the Arizona state Legislature” and could be made up of former Cyber Ninjas “auditors.” 
• Also this week, an Arizona House committee advanced a proposal from Hoffman to split Maricopa County into four separate counties, an idea opponents criticized as costly and politically motivated.
• The Republic reported that on Jan. 5, 2021, state Rep. Jake Hoffman — one of the fake electors who signed the bogus electoral certificate from Arizona after the 2020 election — sent a letter to then-Vice President Pence asking him to not accept the state’s valid electoral votes.

Our fight for records from that bogus election “audit” continues, with the Arizona Supreme Court saying that it will hear an appeal of lower court rulings in our lawsuit which held that the state Senate must release hundreds of records it had broadly claimed were exempt from disclosure because of executive privilege.

In Wisconsin: But even as Big Lie proponents look ahead to future elections, some have not given up falsely insisting that they can “decertify” the 2020 election.

• That was the theme of a rally held last weekend by Wisconsin Rep. Timothy Ramthun, who has put forward legally impossible resolutions to overturn 2020’s results in the state. The event, at which Ramthun announced a run for governor, involved prominent election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell. 
• On Tuesday, Ramthun and Rep. Janel Brandtjen spoke at a rally at the state Capitol calling for overturning the 2020 election. In a demonstration of the widening split from other members of their party who haven’t been on board with such drastic (and again, impossible) measures, they took aim at Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. Ramthun also said he wants to dissolve the state’s bipartisan elections commission.
• According to text messages obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, dismantling the commission was on the agenda for a meeting U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson had in November at the state Capitol. The meeting occurred after the senator suggested that Republican lawmakers take over federal elections in the state.
• Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling said on Tuesday that he had contacted district attorneys in the home counties of five of the six election commissioners regarding his recommendations that they be charged with felonies. 

Meanwhile, the partisan and problematic (and pricy) election review initiated by Vos — which Ramthun and Brandtjen have both criticized for not going far enough — is still going on.

• The Journal Sentinel reported that Michael Gableman, who’s leading the Assembly’s investigation, had suggested hiring election conspiracy theorist Shiva Ayyadurai to assist with the probe. Gableman floated the idea in August, saying that Ayyadurai had a “faster and cheaper” way to analyze the election than the process in the Maricopa County “audit.”
• Records obtained by American Oversight revealed that Ayyadurai was involved in the Arizona review, and a company he founded is conducting yet another review in New Mexico’s Otero County.
• Also this week, Gableman withdrew subpoenas he had issued to immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera. The group blasted the subpoenas as “a baseless partisan effort … to spread lies about the 2020 election to undermine the will of Wisconsin voters and attack the freedom to vote for people of color in future elections.”

Jan. 6 Investigation Update

• On Tuesday, the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack issued more subpoenas to individuals involved in the fake-elector scheme, including Pennsylvania Sen. Doug Mastriano and Arizona Rep. Mark Finchem.
• The Biden administration ordered visitor logs from the Trump White House to be presented within 15 days to the select committee, rejecting the former president’s claim that those records were subject to executive privilege. 
• The Washington Post took a look at how texts sent on the day of the Capitol attack have become “among the most important tools the panel has to bring home the gravity of what happened that day, the planning that preceded it and the concern for democracy that lingered in the aftermath — even among some of Trump’s most loyal allies, who have since sought to play down the events of the day.”
• Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani is reportedly in talks to testify before the committee. His deposition, which had been set for last Tuesday, was postponed but has not yet been rescheduled.

The Coronavirus Pandemic

As more states end mask mandates and loosen pandemic restrictions, the CDC is expected to follow suit and adjust its masking guidance as early as next week, based on different regions’ virus severity and hospitalization numbers. The CDC lowered its risk warning for cruise travel from “very high” to “high.”

• During the early months of the pandemic, the Trump administration frequently relied on the private sector to address pandemic response needs, with industries like aviation and meatpacking enjoying privileged access to government officials. American Oversight has created a pair of timelines detailing communications between Trump administration officials and private-sector representatives as well as correspondence between USDA officials and meat industry representatives.
• Pfizer-BioNTech postponed its application to the FDA for approval of its vaccine for children under 5, deciding instead to wait on data about a three-dose series that may be more effective. Data is expected in early April, meaning young children may not receive vaccinations until the late spring.
• Government watchdogs have received more than 845,000 aid applications that are now suspected to involve identity theft, and reports to the Small Business Administration’s tip line spiked by more than 37,000 percent during an 18-month period.
• An estimated $30 billion is needed to continue pandemic response work, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra told congressional appropriators.
• A new study found that infants whose mothers were vaccinated during pregnancy were less likely to be hospitalized for Covid-19 during their first six months.

Case counts have dipped below the delta peak and continue to decline, although they remain above a daily average of 100,000. Hospitalization numbers are also dropping, and while deaths are still as high as approximately 2,300 per day, those numbers are beginning to decline.

• Republican lawmakers in at least 14 states, including most prominently in Tennessee, are proposing legislation targeting the ability of state medical boards to investigate and reprimand doctors who spread Covid misinformation. 
• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the federal government on Wednesday over the CDC order requiring passengers to wear masks on airplanes and at the airport.
• Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed a bill to make masks optional in schools beginning March 1.
• Florida’s Covid-19 monitoring infrastructure makes the state unable to track the spread of new variants, as only 1 percent of tests are sent to labs for sequencing to determine the strain of the virus.

Other Stories We’re Following

Voting Rights and the Big Lie

• Colorado county clerk who embraced vote-fraud conspiracy theories says she will run for state’s top elections job (Washington Post)
• Michigan secretary of state seeks investigation into alleged tampering of voting machines (MLive.com)
• Vote by mail changes would add envelopes, ID numbers (CBS Miami)
• State elections chief calls for state troopers to secure more than 2,000 polling places (Georgia Recorder)
• DeSantis holds on to his hopes of creating a new congressional district map in Florida (CNN)
• Former President Trump makes commercial promoting voter ID in Alabama (AL.com)
• Partisan tactic by Texas Lt. Gov Dan Patrick’s campaign delays thousands of requests for mail-in ballots from Texas voters (Texas Tribune)

In the States

• Texas patients are rushing to get abortions before the state’s six-week limit. Clinics are struggling to keep up. (Washington Post)
• How Miami Beach traffic stops led drivers to online pitches for Trump 2024 merchandise (Miami Herald)
• Is Georgia about to hand its universities to a climate-denying MAGA stalwart? (Mother Jones)
• San Francisco police linked a woman to a crime using DNA from her rape exam (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Florida House passes ban on abortion after 15 weeks, sends bill to Senate (Reuters)
• 19 Austin police officers indicted in protest probe (Associated Press)

National News

• How bad is the Western drought? Worst in 12 centuries, study finds (New York Times)
• Senate confirms Califf as FDA chief in tight vote (New York Times)
• Norton ‘extremely concerned’ about possible Republican bill to repeal D.C.’s home rule (Washington Post)
• Sarah Palin loses jury trial in closely watched New York Times libel case (Washington Post)
• The right’s would-be kingmaker (New York Times)
• How American cash for Canada protests could sway U.S. politics (Associated Press)

Trump Administration Accountability

• Ryan Zinke broke ethics rules while leading Trump’s Interior Dept., watchdog finds (Washington Post)
• Why Trump is once again claiming that he was spied upon in 2016 (Washington Post)
• Accounting firm cuts ties with Trump and retracts financial statements (New York Times)
• Selling Trump: A profitable post-presidency like no other (New York Times)