What We’re Following Today
It’s Wednesday, February 20. Government offices in D.C. shut down today, this time because of a snowstorm. In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court limited state and local governments’ ability to seize the private property of people suspected of involvement in a crime. Here’s what else we’re watching:
Fraud in the Old North State?: The North Carolina Board of Elections is on its third day of hearings on allegations of election fraud against the campaign of GOP House candidate Mark Harris in the November midterm elections. Bipartisan support has been growing among North Carolinians for a redo of the election, David Graham reported back in December.
New Red Scare: President Donald Trump has a new favorite talking point: socialism. He has started to use the term as a descriptor for the people and policies he doesn’t like, from Senator Bernie Sanders to the Green New Deal. “Socialism promises prosperity, but it delivers poverty,” he said in a speech in Miami this weekend. But will this argument be politically useful, or will it fizzle out?
Virginia’s Warring Factions: Though they’ve largely disappeared from the headlines, the controversies surrounding Virginia’s governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general are still dividing the state’s Democratic Party. Several of Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax’s staffers have resigned, but Fairfax himself still seems to believe he’s on the receiving end of a smear campaign waged by fellow Democrats who also have designs on the governor’s office, reports Vann R. Newkirk II. “Regardless of whether Fairfax, Northam, and Herring all resign or none of them do, the traditional pipeline of leadership in Virginia is now disrupted.”
