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Wisconsin Lawmakers Want to End Party Primaries

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“A bipartisan group of Wisconsin lawmakers proposed a new kind of election system for Congressional races on Friday, arguing that the state’s existing system exacerbates partisanship and discourages compromise,” NBC News reports.

“Currently in Wisconsin, the winners of party primaries compete in the general election. This bill proposes switching to ‘Final-Five’ voting, which would require nonpartisan, single-ballot primaries in federal races. The top five candidates would then proceed to the general election, where voters would vote on ranked-choice ballots to determine a winner through an instant runoff.”

Jeff Bezos Ordered Twitter War on Sanders and Warren

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Recode: “Amazon has long been at odds with Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren over their criticisms of the company’s labor and business practices. But the discord reached a new height last week when Amazon aggressively went after both on Twitter in an unusual attack for a large corporation.”

“Turns out that Amazon leaders were following a broad mandate from the very top of the company: Fight back.”

“Recode has learned that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos expressed dissatisfaction in recent weeks that company officials weren’t more aggressive in how they pushed back against criticisms of the company that he and other leaders deem inaccurate or misleading. What followed was a series of snarky and aggressive tweets that ended up fueling their own media cycles.”


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The Reason Biden Is Popular Is No Secret

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Harry Enten: “President Joe Biden’s approval hasn’t moved in two months. He had an average 55% approval rating at the beginning of his presidency. Two months later, Biden’s approval rating stands at 54%. That’s less movement than even former President Donald Trump had during his first few months on the job, and opinion on Trump was notoriously stagnant.”

“Biden’s secret to success is simple: he’s addressing the issues Americans care about, while his weaker issues are those that most Americans don’t seem as worried about.”

“You can see this well in Gallup polling and a newly released ABC News/Ipsos poll.”

The GOP’s New Power Centers

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“Democrats control Washington, but Republicans have a mighty counterweight that gets little attention: dominance in the states and the courts,” Axios reports.

“That one-two punch gives Republicans domain over a huge swath of America’s governing system, including power over voting laws and the redistricting of House seats, plus the ability to use state courts to their advantage.”

“Just as Biden is taking a maximalist approach to Washington power; Republicans are doing the same state-by-state.”

Biden’s Challenge Is to Keep Focus on His Priorities

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This piece is only available to Political Wire members.

President Joe Biden wants to talk about infrastructure and the White House confirmed today there will be two bills, one to spend on “traditional infrastructure” and the other to invest in “human infrastructure.”

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Quote of the Day

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“I got called by the President. It was very uncomfortable, very direct and very difficult to hear.”

— Dr. Deborah Birx, telling CNN that then-President Donald Trump was very upset with an interview she gave on the coronavirus pandemic.

A Hobbled NRA Takes a Backseat

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CNN: “But thanks to years of shedding its claim to bipartisanship and aligning almost entirely with the Republican Party, the country’s premier pro-gun lobby’s agenda has firmly planted its agenda within the GOP, a legacy that continues to frustrate efforts to change gun laws.”

“Both Republican and Democratic aides have told CNN the NRA has not been much of a factor on Capitol Hill in recent months.”

That said, the Washington Post reports that prospects for new gun control laws remain.

Justices Sit on Blockbuster Abortion Case

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“The Supreme Court is sitting on a petition in a Mississippi abortion case that could blow the lid off Roe v. Wade,” the Washington Examiner reports.

“The case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, has been before the court since September without a word from the justices. It has been considered at the court’s conferences eight times and each time left on the table. That likely means that fewer than four justices so far have voted to take up the case. Another possibility is that the court has already rejected the case and one of the conservative justices is working on a dissent that will be released in one of the court’s orders list.”

Census Delay Scrambles Redistricting Plans

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“Stymied by delayed census data needed for redistricting, some states are considering postponing their 2022 primaries or turning to other population estimates to start the once-a-decade task of redrawing voting districts used for U.S. House and state legislative elections,” the AP reports.

“The U.S. Census Bureau was supposed to provide redistricting data to the states by March 31, but after setbacks from the pandemic, it won’t be ready until mid- to late August and might not be available in an easy-to-use format until Sept. 30. That’s later than the legal deadlines to complete redistricting in some states and could mean less time for court challenges, candidate filing and ballot creation.”

Alaska’s Other Senator Will Back Murkowski

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Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) told ABC News that he would support the reelection of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) if she runs again, after the two GOP lawmakers split on former President Trump’s impeachment.

Said Sullivan: “We don’t agree on everything, but we make a good team for Alaska… If Sen. Murkowski runs again, I’m going to support her.”

GOP Leaves Raffensperger Twisting In the Wind

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Politico: “The former president is obsessed with defeating him next year. He’s getting mauled by his own state party. Last week alone, a Republican congressman announced he’d challenge in the primary and the state legislature voted to strip his office of some official powers.”

“By most accounts, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger doesn’t have a prayer of being reelected.”

Said GOP strategist Jay Williams: “He’s toast. I don’t know that there’s a single elected official who would put their neck out for Brad Raffensperger right now.”

HuffPost: Georgia voting law punished Secretary of State for defying Trump.

Pandemic Laid Groundwork for Big Government Push

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Dan Balz: “That Biden has become the vehicle for a second Great Society or modern-day New Deal is testament to a general leftward movement within the Democratic Party over the past half-dozen years, with Sanders acting as a principal catalyst in the rethinking.”

“It is probable as well that the coronavirus pandemic has played a significant role in providing the conditions that have allowed Biden to emerge as the advocate of changes on the scale that he is pushing. Pandemics are disruptive when they happen, and they can effect changes long after they have been tamed. Among those are shifts in economic patterns and needs, as the current pandemic has done.”

About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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