30 July 23
Live on the homepage now!
Reader Supported News
An extremist government’s assault on the courts has inflamed the country and invigorated its liberal camp.
The new law can hardly be seen in isolation. It is just the first fissure in an already fragile edifice. The measure is part of a planned legislative package aimed at transforming Israel from a liberal democracy—for its citizens, but not, crucially, for the roughly 2.5 million Palestinians under military occupation in the West Bank—into a hollow democracy, with only the veneer of competitive elections, a free press, and independent courts. Right-wing legislators seek to change the makeup of the committee that selects judges, diminish the role of Israel’s Attorney General, and allow government ministers to act against the advice of legal counsels. They also intend to enshrine the exemption of the ultra-Orthodox from serving in the military.
The divisions in Israeli society have never been more distinct or alarming. The ultra-Orthodox, settlers in the West Bank, and other hard-right factions represent between fifteen and thirty per cent of the public, but in the current political battle their interests have so far taken precedence over those of every other sector of society. Leaders of industry and of the security establishment are among the protesters in the streets. So are many religious citizens and people who hardly consider themselves left-wing. Last week, a hundred and fifty of the country’s biggest firms, along with almost all the country’s doctors, went on strike. For the first time in Israel’s history, there is even a risk to its military preparedness: thousands of reservists, including hundreds of pilots, have signed letters saying that they may suspend their volunteer duty.
In the days leading up to the Knesset’s vote, the few relatively moderate voices remaining in Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition tried to assure the public—and the troubled markets—that the legislative effort would end after the elimination of the “unreasonableness” standard. Their assurances were belied by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the extremist minister of national security, who tweeted, “The salad bar is open.” In other words, his faction is just beginning to reveal its appetites. Netanyahu himself attempted to frame the passage of the law as a technical matter, describing it, in an interview with ABC News, as a “minor correction.” But, if it is indeed trivial, why bring Israel to the brink of civil war? The fact is that the Prime Minister is on trial for corruption, facing charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, all of which he denies. Critics argue that there is a direct line between his legal woes and the package of bills, particularly those which would curb the powers of Israel’s already beleaguered Attorney General.
Seven months of unrelenting protests failed to quash the judicial overhaul. But they have awakened Israel’s liberal camp, giving it a sense of purpose. Tens of thousands of Israelis marched on Jerusalem last week, and slept in tents outside parliament. In Tel Aviv, protesters faced off against an increasingly violent police force that charged at them on horseback. The leaders of the protest movement have announced that they are expanding their fight to include “financial strikes” and the provision of security for the gatekeepers of civil society.
The protesters have exhibited remarkable perseverance and creativity. A key question now is whether their energy can translate into political action. The centrist opposition parties of Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz appear to have benefitted electorally from the events of the past few months. The Knesset has a total of a hundred and twenty seats; Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc holds sixty-four of them. If elections were held today, a poll released by Channel 12 found, the right would lose at least ten seats, and thus its majority.
The center-left in Israel has spent the past two decades on the defensive. That is no longer an option. Faced with a coalition of cynical populists and conservative extremists bent on turning Israel into a Jewish theocracy, the liberal camp will have to present its own vision of the country. Part of the liberals’ battle will be to reclaim the public sphere: to insure gender and minority rights, an education system that promotes secular and humanist values, and a more equitable distribution of employment, taxes, and conscription.
The day after parliament removed the standard of unreasonableness, lawmakers from the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism Party put forth a bill concerning the Haredi military exemption. It says that “the State of Israel, as a Jewish state, sees the utmost importance in encouraging the study of the Torah and Torah students.” Israel is one of just a few countries in the world with mandatory military duty for men and women (by law, if not by practice). Yet this bill seeks to place yeshiva study on equal terms with military service. Politicians from Netanyahu’s Likud Party admitted that the timing of the bill was, as one put it, “miserable.” But it couldn’t have come as a surprise. The bill, and others like it, are spelled out in agreements between Netanyahu and his coalition partners. These politicians are simply cashing in.
The “Basic Law: Torah Study” bill may soon land on the desks of Knesset members. Given the power that the hard right wields in Netanyahu’s coalition, it could pass. If civil groups then petition to challenge the bill, as they are likely to do, it will wind its way to the Supreme Court. Israel’s justices will be helpless to strike it down for what it is: extremely unreasonable.
This week, Israel’s parliament begins its summer recess, and the flames will lower, but only for a while. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge to the unreasonableness law and could overturn it, throwing the country into deeper chaos. The judicial overhaul is expected to continue in October. Up next, the coalition has announced, will be the proposal to change the committee that selects judges.
READ MORE 
Former President Donald J. Trump spoke at a rally for Save America, the political action committee helping to pay Mr. Trump's legal fees, in Minden, Nevada, last year. (photo: Bridget Bennett/NYT)
The situation signals a potential money crisis as the former president runs a campaign while under indictment in two jurisdictions and, soon, potentially a third.
The decision signals a potential money crisis for Mr. Trump, who has so far refused to pay his own voluminous bills directly and has also avoided creating a legal-defense fund for himself and people who have become entangled in the various investigations related to him.
It comes as Mr. Trump runs a campaign while under indictment in two jurisdictions and, soon, potentially a third, while also paying the legal fees of a number of witnesses who are close to him or who work for him.
It is unclear how much money was refunded.
But the refund was sought as the political action committee, Save America, spent more than $40 million in legal fees incurred by Mr. Trump and witnesses in various legal cases related to him this year alone, according to another person familiar with the matter.
The numbers will be part of the Save America Federal Election Commission filing that is expected to be made public late on Monday.
That $40 million was in addition to $16 million that Save America spent in the previous two years on legal fees. Since then, Mr. Trump has been indicted twice and has expanded the size of his legal team, and his two co-defendants in the case related to his retention of classified material work for him. The total legal spending is roughly $56 million.
The $40 million figure was reported earlier by The Washington Post.
The PAC was the entity in which Mr. Trump had parked the more than $100 million raised when he sought small-dollar donations after losing the 2020 election. Mr. Trump claimed he needed the support to fight widespread fraud in the race. Officials, including some with his campaign, turned up no evidence of widespread fraud.
Mr. Trump used some of that $100 million for other politicians and political activities in 2022, but he also used it to pay more than $16 million in legal fees, most of them related to investigations into him, and at least $10 million of which was for his own personal fees.
Save America began 2023 with just $18 million in cash on hand, which is less than half of what was spent on legal bills this year.
Campaign finance experts are divided on whether Mr. Trump is even able to continue to use the PAC to pay for his personal legal bills, as he became a candidate last November.
Mr. Trump has long told associates that lawyers and other people contracted to work for him should do so for free, because they get free publicity. And he has told several associates that legal-defense funds are organized only by people who are guilty of crimes, according to people who have heard the remarks.
Earlier this year, Mr. Trump began diverting a larger percentage of every dollar he raised online away from his campaign and into his PAC, which he has used to pay for his lawyers. At the start of the 2024 campaign, Mr. Trump had devoted 99 cents of every dollar raised online to his campaign. But he shifted that formula to now give only 90 cents to the campaign and 10 cents to the PAC, which has served as a sort of de facto legal fund.
The move drew sharp criticism from some of his rivals. Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, called it “disgraceful” on CNN during an interview in June.
“He’s going to middle class men and women in this country and they’re donating $15, $25, $50, $100 because they believe in Donald Trump and they want him to be president again,” Mr. Christie said. “They’re not giving that money so he can pay his personal legal fees.”
Yet that increased amount diverted from Mr. Trump’s campaign couldn’t possibly begin to cover the high costs of legal fees that the candidate and his associates have incurred. And whatever money the super PAC returned to the political action committee to cover legal bills in theory means less money being spent in support of Mr. Trump’s candidacy.
A spokesman for Mr. Trump’s campaign, Steven Cheung, would not comment on the refund request. But regarding the overall spending on lawyers, he said, “The weaponized Department of Justice has continued to go after innocent Americans because they worked for President Trump and they know they have no legitimate case.”
He characterized the legal actions against Mr. Trump and his allies as “heinous actions by Joe Biden’s cronies” and said the PAC had contributed to covering legal costs to “protect these innocent people from financial ruin and prevent their lives from being completely destroyed.”
A spokesman for the super PAC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Despite having his political action committee pay his legal fees, Mr. Trump, a wealthy businessman and celebrity, insisted on Saturday at a rally in Erie, Pa., that he would spend his own money on his campaign if he had to.
READ MORE 
The hope is also that the abortion and marijuana initiatives will provide an incentive for infrequent voters to turn at the polls. | (photo: Lynne Sladky/AP)
Democrats hope two initiatives will “have a transformative impact” in the state.
National Democrats had all but written off Florida as a lost cause — a former purple state turned solid red by the MAGA movement and Gov. Ron DeSantis. But key party leaders in the state, desperate to turn things around in 2024, are confident that citizen initiatives dealing with abortion rights and recreational marijuana legalization could fuel turnout and boost the party’s chances.
“It will have a transformative impact on the election,” said former state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, an Orlando Democrat who was swept out of office last year amid Florida’s red wave and is now running for the state Senate.
When Democrats gathered in Miami Beach this month to raise money and strategize about 2024, they were buzzing about the prospect of what such high-profile citizens initiatives could mean. Republicans, they said, could suddenly find themselves at a disadvantage.
“I think it’s a perfect storm,” said Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried, who included in that storm the backlash against DeSantis as well as 2024 being a presidential election year where turnout is routinely higher than in midterms.
Some are skeptical that the initiatives will change the fortunes of the party. But as Democratic Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber put it, “Once you reach the bottom, the only way is up.”
Fried said that Democratic volunteers and paid canvassers will help gather signatures for the pot and abortion amendments when they go out into the field. The party does not plan to help fund either initiative, but Florida Democrats are promoting the abortion rights initiative — as well one dealing with clean water — on the party’s website.
There’s no guarantee right now that either the abortion rights or recreational marijuana initiative will make the 2024 ballot. The pot amendment, funded almost entirely by the marijuana giant Trulieve, has already gotten over 1 million signatures, more than enough to qualify. But Florida’s conservative-leaning Supreme Court still needs to approve the initiative and state Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody has asked the high court to reject the measure.
Organizers for the abortion rights initiative, which would create a constitutional amendment banning restrictions on abortion before about 24 weeks, say they have gathered more than 400,000 signatures and are on pace to reach one million in the next couple of months. If approved, it would block Florida’s current ban on abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy and this year’s six-week ban, which remains in limbo until the state Supreme Court decides on a legal challenge to the bans.
The coalition backing the abortion amendment, which includes Planned Parenthood and American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, have made substantial donations to the effort and plans to spend millions of dollars to gather enough signatures by the Feb. 1 deadline. Trulieve has already contributed more than $25 million toward the marijuana initiative.
No one doubts that Democrats face major hurdles ahead of 2024. Democrats were hammered in the last election and lost races up and down the ballot, including DeSantis’ nearly 20-point blowout victory over Charlie Crist, who campaigned on abortion rights.
A recent win by Democrat Donna Deegan in the Jacksonville’s mayor race has buoyed the party faithful, but Democrats consistently trail Republicans in fundraising — and more importantly, there are now nearly 542,000 more active registered Republicans than Democrats in the state.
The big victories by Republicans also highlighted another major problem: an enthusiasm gap that could continue to haunt Democrats as they enter the crucial presidential election. Democratic turnout in key strongholds dropped in 2022 and opened the door to Republicans flipping populous counties, such as Miami-Dade and Palm Beach, that routinely went for Democrats in past elections.
“Ron DeSantis did not win by 19 points,” Fried said. “The Florida Democrats lost by 19 points. That is on us.”
As part of the effort to turn around Democrats fortunes, Fried is aiming to use the party for voter registration efforts instead of relying on outside groups. Florida Democrats, for example, put together a youth council to target and mobilize young voters. The hope is also that the abortion and marijuana initiatives will provide an incentive for infrequent voters to turn at the polls. And even if it’s not enough to help Biden win Florida — which Trump won in 2020 — it may make a difference in down-ballot contests.
This isn’t the first time that a party used citizen initiatives to drive voter turnout. The Republican Party of Florida was one of the major donors behind a constitutional amendment that banned gay marriage in the state about 15 years ago. Groups pushed the amendment even though it was already illegal under Florida law at the time. The anti-gay marriage initiative passed, with 61 percent of Florida voters approving it. But Democrat former President Barack Obama still carried the state that year over Republican John McCain.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat who once worked for Planned Parenthood, is convinced the abortion rights amendment will energize young voters who are disappointed with President Joe Biden and frustrated over gun violence and the inability to cancel student loans. In other words, it will turn out Democratic voters who would otherwise stay home in protest.
The 33-year-old Eskamani said she’s seen a surge of interest from people who want to help get the abortion rights measure on the ballot, recounting how organizers gathered 1,600 petitions at a recent Paramore concert in Orlando. She said the measure will remind voters that Republicans pushed to restrict abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade last year.
“It reminds people what is at stake, it gives us a platform,” Eskamani said.
But Dan Smith, chair of the University of Florida political science department who has a lengthy record of researching ballot initiatives, is doubtful that the pot legalization amendment and the abortion rights measure will make a substantial difference in the 2024 race. He said measures like these affect races on the “margins.”
Smith said his studies have shown that initiatives are more likely to spur turnout in midterm races, not presidential elections. He noted that last year’s referendum in Kansas — where voters rejected a measure that would have allowed additional restrictions on abortion — was held during an August primary race.
“If Democrats aren’t turning out in 2024 because of the race for president, having a measure on the ballot isn’t enough to make up for that lack of enthusiasm,” said Smith, suggesting that Florida Democrats would be doomed if their turnout mirrors last year’s elections, where Republicans dominated throughout the state and even won some traditionally Democratic strongholds.
Republicans also remain skeptical that Democrats will rebound next year since the voter registration gap keeps growing.
Christian Ziegler, chair of the Republican Party of Florida, contended that measures put in place by DeSantis and the GOP — such as a law banning the instruction of gender identity and sexual orientation in schools — will resonate with a majority of voters.
“No issue amendments, logo rebrands or other desperate attempts to put lipstick on a radical will cause Floridians to forget that Democrats are committed to an insane agenda featuring the indoctrination, sexualization and molestation of our children,” Ziegler said.
Yet Screven Watson, a former executive director of the Florida Democratic Party and a veteran consultant and lobbyist, said that, on paper, having the two initiatives on the 2024 ballot should be a boost to the party.
“But it doesn’t work if people don’t get off the couch,” said Watson who lamented past close elections where Democrats narrowly lost. “The question is, will it work this time?”
READ MORE 
Tricia Cotham, a state representative in North Carolina, announced that she was switching parties to become a Republican at a news conference in April. (photo: Hannah Schoenbaum/AP)
Tricia Cotham, a Democrat who supported abortion rights, was encouraged to run for a state House seat by powerful Republicans. After she was elected, she joined them and delivered a G.O.P. supermajority.
She won the primary in a redrawn district near Charlotte, and then triumphed in the November general election by 18 percentage points, a victory that helped Democrats lock in enough seats to prevent, by a single vote, a Republican supermajority in the state House.
Except what was unusual — and not publicly known at the time — was that the influential people who had privately encouraged Ms. Cotham to run were Republicans, not Democrats. One was Tim Moore, the redoubtable Republican speaker of the state House. Another was John Bell, the Republican majority leader.
“I encouraged her to run because she was a really good member when she served before,” Mr. Bell recalled in an interview.
Three months after Ms. Cotham took office in January, she delivered a mortal shock to Democrats and to abortion rights supporters: She switched parties, and then cast a decisive vote on May 3 to override a veto by the state’s Democratic governor and enact a 12-week limit on most abortions — North Carolina’s most restrictive abortion policy in 50 years.
Overnight, Ms. Cotham became a heroine to Republicans and anti-abortion advocates across the country, even as Democrats vilified her as a traitor whose unexpected party flip had changed health care policy in a politically purple state of more than 10 million people.
More perplexing to many Democrats was why she did it. Ms. Cotham came from a family with strong ties to the Democratic Party, campaigned as a progressive on social issues and had even co-sponsored a bill to codify a version of Roe v. Wade into North Carolina law.
Interviews with former and current political allies depict her as someone who had grown alienated from Democratic Party officials and ideals. Republican leaders cultivated her before she ran and, seeing her growing estrangement, seized a chance to coax her across party lines.
Before the switch, Ms. Cotham chafed at what she perceived as a lack of support from other Democrats. Once she was elected, Mr. Moore said, he made it clear that she would be welcomed by Republicans.
“Never in my life did I think that one person could have that kind of impact, that will affect the lives of thousands of people for years to come,” said Ann Newman, a Democratic activist in Ms. Cotham’s district. Ms. Newman recently asked for — and received — a refund of the $250 she had donated to Ms. Cotham’s 2022 campaign.
Her change of parties has left many of Ms. Cotham’s constituents feeling angry and betrayed, and has allowed Republicans to flex the power of their new supermajority well beyond the abortion issue, overturning a string of vetoes by the state’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, including six on June 27 alone.
Ms. Cotham, 44, has defended her switch and said she had delivered on many promises she made to voters.
“I campaigned on Medicaid expansion,” she said in a statement to The New York Times. “I campaigned on supporting children, housing, safer communities, a strong economy and increasing health care options. I’ve done all of this and more.”
Yet there is no question that Ms. Cotham has dealt a grievous blow to Democratic policy goals in North Carolina.
Late in March, just a few days before switching parties, she skipped a pivotal gun-control vote, helping Republicans loosen gun restrictions in the state. After she became a Republican, she sponsored a bill to expand student eligibility for private-school vouchers, voted to ban gender-affirming care for minors and voted to outlaw discussions of race or gender in state job interviews.
“This switch has been absolutely devastating,” said state Representative Pricey Harrison, a Democrat from Greensboro.
Ms. Cotham received a standing ovation at North Carolina’s state Republican convention in June. She was invited to meet privately there with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and former Vice President Mike Pence.
“She’s a rock star among the Republican Party activists and voter base,” said U.S. Representative Dan Bishop, a Republican who said he encouraged Ms. Cotham to join his party and who stood behind her when she announced the decision.
A Democratic upbringing
Ms. Cotham had deep Democratic roots when she first entered the state House in 2007, replacing a lawmaker who resigned amid corruption charges. At 28, she became the state’s youngest legislator.
Her mother was active in party politics, and later ran successfully for the Mecklenburg County Commission. A first cousin became a Democratic Party leader in Maine, and ran a political action committee supporting abortion rights.
As a student, Ms. Cotham volunteered for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign and interned for John Edwards, then a United States Senator.
A lot of people in the Democratic Party “have known her since she was a child,” said Ms. Cotham’s mother, Pat Cotham.
In the North Carolina House, Tricia Cotham was re-elected to four full terms and became a progressive force, calling for higher taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents to help close budget gaps. She criticized charter schools. She fought against the so-called bathroom bill that required people to use restrooms in accordance with their birth gender.
She repeatedly railed against waiting periods for abortions, and speaking on the House floor in 2015, invoked her personal experience.
“Legislators, you do not hold shares in my body,” she said in a speech that has now become famous, “so stop trying to manipulate my mind.”
In 2016, Ms. Cotham chose to run for Congress, rather than for another term in the legislature, and was defeated.
Lacey Williams, a former advocacy director at the Charlotte-based Latin American Coalition who considered Ms. Cotham a friend for years, said Ms. Cotham “felt she did not get the gratitude or spotlight that she felt she deserved,” and added, “she was jealous that other Democrats were getting the adulation from the party.”
In response, Ms. Cotham said Ms. Williams “has a right to her feelings,” but “I do not perceive it that way — I’m a very confident and accomplished woman.”
The Lobbyist
For a time, Ms. Cotham left elective politics and went into lobbying, with a focus on education. In 2019, she and three partners founded a firm called BCHL. One of the partners was C. Philip Byers, a major donor to state Republicans who was also president of a company that built charter schools.
In office, Ms. Cotham had criticized charter schools, but now her firm supported private investments in the public school system and charter schools. (Ms. Cotham said she had been supportive of public school alternatives “for years.”)
In 2019, she also became president of an education organization called Achievement for All Children, which was chosen by state officials to turn around a foundering public school in Robeson County. For the next year and a half, Ms. Cotham commuted to the school, Southside-Ashpole Elementary, which is about 100 miles from her home outside Charlotte.
Ms. Cotham fought policy battles energetically, recalled Brenda McCallum, an office manager at the school. She also appealed to her younger constituents, once dressing as the Cat in the Hat for a reading event.
“She was an excellent advocate for our school,” said Ms. McCallum. “The kids loved her.”
In early 2020, Ms. Cotham fell sick with Covid-19, a diagnosis that hobbled her for the next two years. In a local television interview in 2022, she said she was still struggling with the virus’s lingering effects.
It was around that time that state Democratic Party officials were homing in on a redrawn state House district in Mecklenburg County, where Ms. Cotham lived, and where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans. Partly because of her public Covid battle, party leaders didn’t seriously consider nominating her, but she surprised them by filing at the deadline in March to run for the seat.
Some Democrats welcomed her return, seeing her as a reliable ally on social issues like abortion, but activist Democrats in the Charlotte area said she never responded to their offers of help. Text messages from political allies and friends, wishing her well, were met with silence.
She fumed that Lillian’s List, an abortion rights organization, had “really screwed” her by endorsing another Democrat in the primary, according to a message she sent to a campaign worker, Autumn Alston, that was reviewed by The New York Times.
Ms. Cotham seemed to have embraced a me-versus-them mentality, said Jonathan Coby, her former campaign consultant. “She would say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to talk to that group, they’re out to get me; they don’t like me,’” Mr. Coby recalled.
Ms. Cotham said that Mr. Coby, who worked with her for nearly a decade, including on her most recent campaign, was not a reliable source of information.
Meanwhile, as Ms. Cotham grew leery of activists and groups on the left, she was receiving counsel from prominent Republicans. “I reached out to her and told her good luck, I hope she wins,” said Mr. Moore, the House speaker. “She was somebody I realized we could work with.”
Ms. Cotham said that Mr. Moore and “others” were pleased that she was running. She called their well wishes “pretty common.”
Both Mr. Moore and John Bell, the Republican majority leader, said they didn’t know at that time that Ms. Cotham would change parties.
Ms. Cotham’s top campaign donors included the North Carolina Dental Society PAC — which gave almost exclusively to Republican candidates — and the North Carolina Health Care Facilities PAC, which gave mainly to Republicans.
“Those groups have honored me with their support for years,” Ms. Cotham said. “I’ve earned it.”
A rocky return
In January, Ms. Cotham was part of a small group of lawmakers who escorted Mr. Moore to the dais to be sworn in as speaker. Some Democrats said they were surprised to see Ms. Cotham play such a role.
In a recent interview, Mr. Moore praised Ms. Cotham’s ability to “work with Republicans at all times.”
Democrats, including Ms. Cotham, sponsored a House bill that month to write Roe v. Wade’s protection of abortion rights into state law. Yet she refused to meet or take phone calls from Planned Parenthood, according to Jillian Reilly, a lobbyist for the group.
Ms. Cotham told Mr. Coby and her mother that she was put off that Democrats treated her as a newcomer when she returned to the House, inviting her to freshman orientation and offering her a mentor. She declined both.
Ms. Cotham would later say she was offended by what she regarded as bullying and groupthink inside the Democratic caucus, which was no longer the “big tent” she had once known. She said the caucus focused too much on process over the hard work of governance.
Democrats said they were baffled by the accusations she later aired. Text messages between Ms. Cotham and house Democratic Party leader Robert Reives reviewed by The Times show friendly dialogue.
“It never would have crossed my mind that she was having issues,” said Mr. Reives.
Mr. Bell, the Republican majority leader, said he was aware of Ms. Cotham’s unease. He and Mr. Moore tried to engage her about joining the G.O.P., telling her “you have a home over here.”
After Ms. Cotham was criticized for missing the vote on gun regulations, Mr. Bishop, the Republican congressman, called her and said he had heard she was thinking of joining his party.
“I got the sense when we talked that she was much farther along in that decision than I had understood before calling her,” he recalled.
After the gun vote, Mr. Coby said he found Ms. Cotham to be angry. “She said, ‘I’m either going to switch parties or resign,’” he remembered. “The things she was telling me then were like, ‘The Democrats don’t like me, the Republicans have helped me out a lot and been nice to me’.”
Four days later Ms. Cotham announced her decision to defect. “The party wants to villainize anyone who has free thought,” she said of the Democrats during a news conference.
She accused Democrats of spreading “vicious rumors” about her — perhaps alluding to chatter that she and Mr. Moore were romantically linked. Mr. Moore has denied the assertion; Ms. Cotham called it “insulting.”
Ms. Cotham was soon fielding thousands of texts, emails and phone messages calling her a traitor and liar, delivering vulgarities her mother described “as a new low in society” and demanding that she resign.
Four months after Ms. Cotham’s party switch, the bitterness still runs deep.
Linda Meigs, a political activist from Charlotte, drove to Ms. Cotham’s district this month for a meeting with local lawmakers hosted by Common Cause North Carolina and other liberal advocacy groups.
Ms. Meigs said she had come prepared to confront Ms. Cotham over how she could have campaigned on “Democratic Party values such as women’s rights to reproductive freedom and L.G.B.T.Q. rights,” only to reverse her support. Ms. Cotham was invited to speak, but didn’t attend.
“When I’m talking to somebody and asking them a question, I usually like to look them in the face,” Ms. Meigs told a crowded room at a Mint Hill church. “I can’t do that tonight.”
Instead, she pointed to a front-row chair. “So,” she said to cheers, “I’m going to talk to this empty chair.”
READ MORE 
'The county has since last year been gripped by a dispute over the placement of LGBTQ+ children’s books inside library branches.' (photo: WP)
Act 372 would have taken effect Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks issued a preliminary injunction Saturday, siding with bookstores, libraries and patrons in the state that argued in a lawsuit filed last month that parts of the law were unconstitutional.
Article 1 would have made it a criminal offense to knowingly provide a minor with any material deemed “harmful” — a term defined by state law as containing nudity or sexual content, appealing to a “prurient interest in sex,” lacking “serious literary, scientific, medical, artistic or political value for minors” or deemed “inappropriate for minors” under current community standards.
Plaintiffs also challenged Article 5, which would have allowed anyone “affected by” material in a particular county or municipal library to challenge the “appropriateness” of the material.
The plaintiffs argued that the law would force librarians and booksellers to make an impossible choice: Remove books that some might deem offensive to young readers from their shelves; create secure, adult-only spaces for those books; ban minors from their facilities altogether — or expose themselves to criminal charges or fines.
In his injunction, Brooks said the law “would permit, if not encourage, library committees and local governmental bodies to make censorship decisions based on content or viewpoint,” in violation of the right to free speech under the First Amendment. He agreed with the plaintiffs that the state’s definition of “harmful” materials was overly vague.
The judge also denied the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) signed Act 372 into law in March, making Arkansas the latest state to introduce criminal charges for librarians or booksellers over material deemed harmful or obscene.
The offices of Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin (R) and Sanders did not immediately respond to a request early Sunday for comment. Griffin told the Associated Press in an email Saturday that his office would be “reviewing the judge’s opinion and will continue to vigorously defend the law.”
Act 372 would make “furnishing a harmful item to a minor” a class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.
The injunction noted that Arkansas already has a law that makes it a crime to provide obscene materials to minors. However, librarians and other people working in museums, libraries or schools were protected from prosecution even if they disseminated material “claimed to be obscene,” as long as they acted “within the scope of [their] regular employment.”
Act 372 removed that protection, signaling “a fundamental change in how librarians are treated under the law,” according to the injunction.
The ACLU of Arkansas, which jointly filed the suit against Act 372, celebrated the court’s decision in a statement Saturday and said the victory was part of a broader battle to defend freedom of speech and thought. “The question we had to ask was — do Arkansans still legally have access to reading materials? Luckily, the judicial system has once again defended our highly valued liberties,” ACLU of Arkansas Executive Director Holly Dickson said in the statement.
In his injunction, Brooks also referred to the wider implications of the Arkansas law, quoting “Fahrenheit 451,” a novel about an American society run by authorities who burn books to control people’s access to information and knowledge. “There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches,” the judge wrote, citing the author, Ray Bradbury.
The suit challenging Act 372 named Arkansas’ 28 elected prosecuting attorneys, as well as the western county of Crawford and its county judge, Chris Keith, as defendants, contending that they would be responsible for enforcing the law.
The lawsuit names Crawford County as a case study in how the law could be used to curtail constitutionally protected rights to access certain materials. The county has since last year been gripped by a dispute over the placement of LGBTQ+ children’s books inside library branches. According to the complaint, after the books were moved to dedicated areas in the adult books sections, the county defended its right to protect “children from exposure to materials that might harm their innocence.” The county also said Act 372 could make it “necessary to continue modifying and changing the library system’s policies and procedures,” hinting at possible future crackdowns, per the complaint.
Plaintiffs in the suit included Hayden Kirby, a 17-year-old high school student and resident of Little Rock who frequents the Central Arkansas Library System, another plaintiff. In a statement, Kirby said the law would “restrict the spaces I’ve accessed freely throughout my life.”
“I want to fight for our rights to intellectual freedom and ensure that libraries remain spaces where young Arkansans can explore diverse perspectives,” she added.
READ MORE 
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), right, appear at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March. Ads for gold coin companies have appeared on Cruz's podcast. (photo: Jabin Botsford/WP)
Ads for gold coins have become a mainstay on Fox News, Newsmax and other conservative outlets, even as regulators have accused some companies of defrauding elderly clients.
One such ad caught the attention of Terry White, a disabled retiree from New York. In 2018, White invested $174,000 in the coins, according to a lawsuit by the New York attorney general — only to later learn that Lear charged a 33 percent commission.
Over several transactions, White, 70, lost nearly $80,000, putting an “enormous strain” on his finances, said his wife, Jeanne, who blames Fox for their predicament: “They’re negligent,” she said. A regretful White said he thought Fox “wouldn’t take a commercial like that unless it was legitimate.”
While the legitimacy of the gold retirement investment industry is the subject of numerous lawsuits — including allegations of fraud by federal and state regulators against Lear and other companies — its advertising has become a mainstay of right-wing media. The industry spends millions of dollars a year to reach viewers of Fox, Newsmax and other conservative outlets, according to a Washington Post analysis of ad data and financial records, as well as interviews with industry insiders. Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani have promoted the coins, while ads for Lear’s competitors have appeared on a podcast hosted by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Newsmax broadcasts of former president Donald Trump’s political rallies.
An analysis by The Post of political newsletters, social media, podcasts and a national database of television ads collected by the company AdImpact found that pitches to invest in gold coins are a daily presence in media that caters to a right-wing audience and often echo conservative talking points about looming economic and societal collapse. The Post found no similar ads for gold retirement investments in mainstream or left-wing media sources in the databases.
These so-called “gold IRA” companies are not publicly traded, so their revenue, profits and ad budgets largely cannot be determined. Court documents filed by Lear say the company has about $200 million in annual revenue; Dale Whitaker, the former chief financial officer at another company, Augusta Precious Metals, said overall industry revenue likely approaches $1 billion a year.
Over the past decade, more than 30 customers in 20 states have sued a dozen gold IRA companies, including Lear. Federal regulators have sued four companies — two in the past year alone — claiming investors were systematically charged as much as triple the coins’ value.
None of the cases have gone to trial; some are still pending. Of those that have been resolved, most have settled or been sent to arbitration, where outcomes are not made public. The companies have not admitted wrongdoing in any of the cases and say their customers have been adequately informed of the details of their purchases.
Joe Rotunda, enforcement director at the Texas State Securities Board, said the industry is extraordinarily difficult to police because selling gold, even as a retirement investment, is “extremely thinly regulated.”
Experts on commercial speech say Fox and other media outlets have no obligation to spurn advertising from gold IRA companies, despite the allegations. “Courts are very hesitant to impose liability on publishers,” said Harvard law professor Rebecca Tushnet, an expert in First Amendment and advertising law, who said the law is designed primarily to compel truthfulness by advertisers.
Tushnet added that “it might be reasonable, if you found out about the lawsuits, [to] contact the advertiser” and ask questions about the claims before running the ads. But if an advertiser blames their legal troubles on “the woke mob,” she said, “you’re often allowed to believe them.”
Fox News declined to comment. In a statement, Newsmax spokesman Bill Daddi said the network does not see allegations against the gold IRA companies as “a cause to block them from advertising.” Daddi compared them to some major financial firms that have been sued by customers or regulators, and whose ads continue to be accepted by mainstream outlets. For example, Wells Fargo paid $3 billion in 2020 to settle potential charges related to opening fake accounts in customers’ names.
In a statement, Lear Capital spokesperson Tracy Williams defended the company’s operations, saying most of Lear’s customers would have made a profit if they had sold at a recent market high. Williams said that White, the New York retiree, had acknowledged the company’s fee in a recorded call.
Last year, Lear settled New York’s 2021 lawsuit involving White without admitting wrongdoing. However, the company agreed to repay some customers and to disclose its fees more clearly. Lear now gives customers 24 hours to pull out of purchases, Williams said, putting the company at the “vanguard of disclosure … within its industry.”
Lear declined to say how much it spends to advertise on Fox News, but Williams said the network is not Lear’s primary source of customers. Nor is Lear likely to make up a significant share of Fox’s total ad revenue, which exceeds $1 billion a year, according to securities filings.
Fox is a logical place for Lear to advertise because “purchasing physical assets appeals to persons who have concerns regarding … topics often discussed on that platform,” Williams said. She added: “U. S. monetary policy is inseparable from U.S. political dynamics and themes.”
‘Trump Rally Special’
For years, gold IRA industry advertising has echoed accusations against Democratic politicians commonly found in news segments on conservative outlets. The ads tout the coins as a safe haven from economic uncertainty and social upheaval.
Most of the coins are manufactured by the Royal Canadian Mint, which says they’re bullion, a kind of coin whose value is determined by the underlying metal. As such, they meet IRS rules for retirement investments.
Unlike most bullion coins, however, the gold IRA industry’s coins are typically exclusive to the companies who sell them, usually with markups far higher than those charged by mainstream coin retailers, regulators and coin experts say. Alex Reeves, a spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mint, said the mint has no control “over sales practices further down the chain of distribution.”
“They are priced like collectibles, but collectible coins aren’t typically sold in bulk,” said Everett Millman, a precious metals specialist at coin dealer Gainesville Coins. “If a customer spent the same amount of money on products that are more standard, like [Canadian] Silver Maple Leafs, they would end up with a lot more ounces per dollar.”
With the exclusive coins, Millman said, “They’re simply torching money.”
“No one in their right mind would pay the premiums that these guys are charging,” added Ken Lewis, CEO of online coin dealer Apmex, who reviewed several customer invoices at The Post’s request.
The ads explain none of that. Instead, they focus on news events, such as a spate of recent bank failures and “everything that’s happening in the economy right now … with all the talk of inflation,” Rotunda said.
For example, an email ad for Augusta, sent to a Newsmax mailing list last July, warned that “The Biden administration’s economic policies are ‘declaring war’ on retirement savers.” In December, American Hartford Gold Group sent an email ad with the subject line: “Bill O’Reilly Warns: Retirement Funds at Risk From a Biden Recession.” The email is signed by O’Reilly, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Another ad for Hartford sent to the Newsmax mailing list in March warned of “Biden and Yellen’s Secret Plan to Steal your Hard-Earned Money and Bail Out Their Wall Street Buddies.”
Trump rallies are particularly big events for Hartford. On July 1, Newsmax aired a live broadcast of a Trump speech in Pickens, S.C., on a split screen with an ad for Hartford, which also sends “Trump Rally Special” email ads via Newsmax.
Since October 2020, email newsletters distributed by Newsmax have included more than 1,100 ads for gold IRA companies — nearly a quarter of all Newsmax email ads reviewed by The Post. At $1,000 to $5,000 each, according to Augusta financial records from 2016 reviewed by The Post, the ads likely generate more than $1 million a year in revenue.
Daddi, the Newsmax spokesman, said gold IRA companies represent “a small percentage of the total advertisers on Newsmax across all platforms.”
Some conservative figures offer explicit endorsements. Giuliani has called Hartford “the experts I trust most” on his podcast “Common Sense.” The “Verdict with Ted Cruz” podcast has featured ads for Hartford for at least a year, and a recent segment touted Augusta, urging listeners “to protect your dollars … with a gold IRA.” Neither Giuliani nor Cruz responded to requests for comment.
Two media dealmakers who have been involved in negotiations between conservative media figures and the gold IRA industry said revenue from the companies can amount to as much as 10 percent of total earnings for some personalities. The dealmakers spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their business relationships; one said the biggest personalities stand to earn millions of dollars a year.
A 92 percent markup
Hartford spokesman Steven Goldberg said it runs ads “where we believe it will create the most value.” Among the company’s chosen venues: a “prophetic” evangelical Christian email newsletter, two right-wing TV channels, and more than a dozen conservative radio shows and podcasts, including Giuliani’s and Cruz’s.
One of Hartford’s ads caught the attention of Ed DeSanto, 65, a semiretired Florida medical coder and an avid right-wing radio fan. He invested a $100,000 lump-sum payout from his pension in a Hartford IRA in 2019.
DeSanto said he doesn’t remember exactly where he heard the Hartford ad, but “if you listen to those radio shows, they play those commercials all the time.” He said he believed he was being careful: He picked Hartford because it scored well in a ranking of gold IRA companies he found online. (Such rankings often include disclosures noting that the authors are paid by the gold IRA companies.)
DeSanto’s $100,000 investment netted him just $53,000 worth of gold and silver, according to a Post analysis of his invoices — meaning the coins had been marked up 92 percent over the value of the metal. DeSanto blames himself.
“I did a little bit of research, but evidently not enough,” DeSanto said. “When I found the invoice, it was a big shock.”
In 2018 and 2019, another retiree, John Mathys of Illinois, claimed a Hartford salesman persuaded him to invest his $569,000 retirement savings by “bombarding him” with calls and emails for months, according to a federal lawsuit Mathys filed against Hartford in 2020. The lawsuit was sent to arbitration. Neither Mathys nor his lawyer responded to requests for comment.
Mathys, who was 83 at the time of the lawsuit, is one of three customers who sued Hartford in the past six years accusing the company of fraud. The other two lawsuits settled.
Hartford declined to comment on any of the cases. “We are fully transparent with our clients about the pricing of the products they purchase and the potential range of markup for those products,” Goldberg said in a statement, adding that the company operates “with a steadfast commitment to doing business legally and ethically.”
“We deny the allegation that we’ve misled or otherwise acted improperly,” Goldberg said.
In February and April, DeSanto sold back some of his gold coins to Hartford. Although gold prices had climbed an average of 32 percent since his 2019 purchase, he lost money on the sales, according to a Post analysis of his invoices.
‘God, Gold and Guns’
The gold IRA industry’s ties to right-wing media date to the Great Recession, when the price of gold was rising rapidly and Fox commentator Glenn Beck was one of the most popular hosts on TV. Beck recorded ads for Goldline, a gold dealer that also offered IRAs, and interviewed its CEO on his show.
“We could be facing recession, depression or collapse. Nothing left!” Beck told viewers in 2009, urging them to rely on “God, Gold and Guns.” After segments promoting gold investments, Beck’s show would sometimes cut to commercials featuring gold sellers like Goldline, according to a 2010 congressional report.
The gold companies were loyal advertisers: After Beck claimed in 2009 that President Barack Obama was “racist” and had “a deep-seated hatred for White people or the White culture,” many big advertisers dropped his show. Gold sellers were among the few who stayed on, according to reporting at the time.
Goldline soon came under scrutiny, first in congressional hearings, then by Santa Monica, Calif., prosecutors, who charged the company with misdemeanor grand theft, elder theft and conspiracy in 2011. Though Goldline defended its business practices as fully transparent and never admitted wrongdoing, the company later agreed to pay up to $4.5 million to settle the charges.
Beck faded from prominence after departing Fox News in 2011 to start his own channel. He still endorses Goldline on the company’s website. Neither Beck nor Goldline executives responded to requests for comment.
The controversy sent Goldline employees scrambling for safer harbors. Some got jobs at Merit Financial, according to interviews and public records. Merit, whose offices were just a few blocks from Goldline’s in Santa Monica, also sold coins by phone and ran ads on Fox. (Merit’s former owner declined to comment publicly.)
In 2014, Santa Monica prosecutors accused Merit of “an aggressive, nationwide fraud scheme.” The company denied the allegations but went out of business and settled as the case approached trial.
Several Goldline and Merit salesmen then struck out on their own, founding many of the companies that exist today, according to staff lists and interviews with 21 current and former industry employees.
A former Merit salesman founded Augusta Precious Metals, which has been accused of defrauding its customers by Whitaker, its former CFO. Whitaker filed a whistleblower complaint to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which has not taken public action. Augusta has denied the allegations, and CEO Isaac Nuriani said in a statement that Whitaker “never had any visibility into Augusta’s business operations.”
Other former Goldline and Merit employees founded Metals.com, the founders said in depositions. That company recruited customers on Facebook, where it faked an endorsement from Fox News host Sean Hannity, a court filing by Georgia securities regulators alleged.
Facebook data reviewed by The Post shows that many Metals.com ads targeted people 59 or older. One 87-year-old customer received daily phone calls from a Metals.com broker who eventually flew to Alabama for a weekend to meet her, regulators alleged. She ultimately invested nearly $90,000, they said — most of which was lost.
The FBI raided Metals.com in 2020. A judge ordered the company shut down after 31 states and the CFTC filed suit, alleging a $185 million commodities fraud, as well as violations of rules about investment advice. Company founders have denied the allegations, saying their company “strived for transparency” and disclosed that it charged a premium. They have also said in court filings that they are under criminal investigation. Company executives did not respond to requests for comment submitted to their lawyer.
After Metals.com closed, some salesmen went to work at Safeguard Metals, according to one of the salesmen, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. In February 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission, CFTC and 27 states sued that company, too. Safeguard recently settled the SEC’s case without admitting liability; the CFTC’s suit is still pending. Safeguard’s lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.
Lear Capital also hired several salesmen from Goldline’s ranks and bought Merit’s database of customers, according to court records and staff lists submitted to California regulators and obtained by The Post through public records requests. Williams, the Lear spokesperson, said “Merit’s liquidation was an opportunity to acquire a customer and prospect base to service and market to in the future” and that Lear performed background checks on everyone it hired.
Lear recently exited bankruptcy reorganization after resolving investigations from dozens of states. It remains in business.
Hartford’s CEO also worked at both Goldline and Merit before starting that company. Goldberg, the Hartford spokesman, declined to comment when asked whether the company was under investigation by state or federal regulators.
DeSanto said he has complained to both the Florida attorney general and the CFTC about his experience with Hartford. He said he spoke twice with CFTC investigators in 2020, but the agency has not taken public action.
In February, DeSanto also called Hartford to try to sell back his coins. He said he was flabbergasted to learn that the salesman who handled his purchase was still employed there. And he was shocked to find O’Reilly’s photo still featured on the company’s website.
“Everything is the same there,” DeSanto marveled. Of O’Reilly, he added: “I would think, for his reputation, he’d want to get away from a company like them.”
READ MORE 
Driver Jose Viveros delivers bottled water and other beverages in the Little Tokyo district of Los Angeles on Thursday. (photo: Damian Dovarganes/AP)
But the GOP is stuck in a climate bind – and likely will be for the next four years, in large part because they’re still living in the shadow of former president and 2024 Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.
Even as more Republican politicians are joining the consensus that climate change is real and caused by humans, Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric has driven the party to the right on climate and extreme weather. Trump has called the extremely settled science of climate change a “hoax” and more recently suggested that the impacts of it “may affect us in 300 years.”
Scientists this week reported that this summer’s unrelenting heat wave would have been “virtually impossible” were it not for the planet-warming pollution from burning fossil fuels. They also confirmed that July will go down as the hottest month on record – and almost certainly that the planet’s temperature is hotter now than it has been in around 120,000 years.
Yet for being one of the most pressing issues of the 21st century, climate is rarely mentioned on the 2024 campaign trail.
“As Donald Trump is the near presumptive nominee of our party in 2024, it’s going to be very hard for a party to adopt a climate-sensitive policy,” Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, told CNN. “But Donald Trump’s not going to be around forever.”
When Republicans do weigh in on climate change – and what we should do about it – they tend to support the idea of capturing planet-warming pollution rather than cutting fossil fuels. But many are reticent to talk about how to solve the problem, and worry Trump is having a chilling effect on policies to combat climate within the party.
“We need to be talking about this,” Rep. John Curtis, a Republican from Utah and chair of the House’s Conservative Climate Caucus, told CNN. “And part of it for Republicans is when you don’t talk about it, you have no ideas at the table; all you’re doing is saying what you don’t like. We need to be saying what we like.”
Extreme weather changes GOP minds
With a few exceptions, Republicans largely are no longer the party of full-on climate change denial. But even as temperatures rise to deadly highs, the GOP is also not actively addressing it. There is still no “robust discussion about how to solve it” within the party, said former South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis, who now runs the conservative climate group RepublicEn, save for criticism of Democrats’ clean-energy initiatives.
“The good news is Republicans are stopping arguing with thermometers,” Inglis told CNN. Still, he said, “when the experience is multiplied over and over of multiple days of three-digit temperatures in Arizona and record ocean temperatures, people start to say, ‘this is sort of goofy we’re not doing something about this.’”
Meanwhile, the impacts of a dramatically warming atmosphere are becoming more and more apparent each year. Romney and Curtis, two of the loudest climate voices in the party, both represent Utah – a state that’s no stranger to extreme heat and drought, which scientists say is being fueled by rising global temperatures.
“There are a number of states, like mine, that are concerned about wildfires and water,” Romney said, adding he believes Republican governors of impacted states have been vocal about these issues.
Utah and other Western states are looking for ways to cut water use to save the West’s shrinking two largest reservoirs, Lakes Powell and Mead. And even closer to home, Utah’s Great Salt Lake has already disappeared by two-thirds, and scientists are sounding alarms about a rapid continued decline that could kill delicate ecosystems and expose one of fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the nation to toxic dust.
“I think the evidence so far is that the West is getting drier and hotter,” Romney told CNN. “That means that we’re going to have more difficulty with our crops, we’re going to have a harder time keeping the rivers full of water. The Great Salt Lake is probably going to continue to shrink. And unfortunately, we’re going to see more catastrophic fires. If the trends continue, we need to act.”
An issue ‘held hostage’
While Republicans blast Democrats’ clean energy policies ahead of the 2024 elections, it’s less clear what the GOP itself would prefer to do about the climate crisis.
As Curtis tells it, there’s a lot that Republicans and Democrats in Congress agree on. They both want to further reform the permitting process for major energy projects, and they largely agree on the need for more renewable and nuclear energy.
As the head of the largest GOP climate caucus on the Hill, Curtis’ Utah home is “full solar,” he told CNN, and is heated using geothermal energy.
While at a recent event at a natural gas drilling site in Ohio, as smoke from Canada’s devastating wildfire season hung thick in the air, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was asked how he would solve the climate crisis. He suggested planting a trillion trees to help offset the pollution created by burning fossil fuels – a bill House Republicans introduced in 2020. The measure has not yet passed the House and has an uncertain future in the Senate.
But the biggest and most enduring difference between the two parties is that Republicans want fossil fuels – which are fueling climate change with their heat-trapping pollution – to be in the energy mix for years to come.
Democrats, meanwhile, have passed legislation to dramatically speed up the clean energy transition and prioritize the development of wind, solar and electrical transmission to get renewables sending electricity into homes faster.
On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Democrats want to pass more climate legislation if they take back a full majority in Congress. He later told CNN the GOP is “way behind” on climate and there’s been “too little” progress on the party’s stances.
“I think we’d get a lot more done with a Democratic House, a Democratic president and continuing to have a Democratic Senate,” Schumer told CNN. “Unfortunately, if you look at some of the Republican House and Senate Super PACs, huge amounts of money come from gas, oil and coal.”
Even though Curtis and Romney are aligned on the party needing to talk about climate change, they differ on how to fix it. While Curtis primarily supports carbon capture and increased research and development into new technologies, Romney is one of the few Republicans speaking in favor of a carbon tax – taxing companies for their pollution.
“It’s very unlikely that a price on carbon would be acceptable in the House of Representatives,” Romney said. “I think you might find a few Republican senators that would be supportive, but that’s not enough.”
The idea certainly doesn’t have the support of Trump, or other 2024 candidates for president, and experts predict climate policy will get little to no airtime during the upcoming presidential race.
“Regrettably, the issue of climate change is currently being held hostage to the culture wars in America,” Edward Maibach, a professor of climate communication at George Mason University and a co-founder of a nationwide climate polling project conducted with Yale University, told CNN in an email. “Donald Trump’s climate denial stance will have a chilling effect on the climate positions of his rivals on the right — even those who know better.”
Even if climate-conscious Republicans say Trump won’t be in the party forever, Inglis said even a few more years may not be enough time to counteract the rapid changes already happening.
“That’s still a long way away,” Inglis said. “The scientists are saying we can’t wait, get moving, get moving.”
Follow us on facebook and twitter!
PO Box 2043 / Citrus Heights, CA 95611
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.