For most Americans today, that principle is expressed most directly at the ballot box. But the right to vote, and the ability of communities to translate votes into meaningful representation, has never been guaranteed without struggle.

The promise outlined by Thomas Jefferson in 1776 took generations to broaden. It required war, constitutional amendments, civil rights organizing and continuing public pressure to extend voting rights beyond the narrow group originally allowed to participate. Women, communities of color and immigrants have long understood that political rights were not freely handed down; they were won, protected and, at times, reclaimed.

That history matters now because voting rights are facing new threats. In Washington, proposals continue to move forward that could make voting more difficult. The U.S. Supreme Court is also weighing questions that could affect how ballots are submitted and counted. In April, the court dealt a serious setback to the federal Voting Rights Act, weakening protections that have been especially important for Latino and Black voters.

California is not immune from these debates. A proposed proof-of-citizenship voting requirement has qualified for the November ballot, placing the state in the middle of a national fight over access to elections.

California’s own history shows why vigilance is necessary. For decades, women were barred from voting, Chinese immigrants were excluded from full civic participation, and the state used poll taxes and English literacy requirements to keep many residents of color from the ballot box.

The state has also made major progress. California is widely viewed as a leader in expanding voter access, and more women and people of color now serve in public office than in previous generations.

A major part of that progress came through the California Voting Rights Act. Over the past 20 years, the law has pushed more than 600 local governments away from at-large elections and toward district-based systems intended to better reflect the communities they serve.

Civil rights attorney Joaquin Avila, who helped shape the law, argued that voting rights must be measured not only by whether people can cast ballots, but also by whether communities have a fair chance to elect candidates who represent them. The state law helped increase Latino political participation and representation, leading in many places to government decisions more closely aligned with the needs of working families.

Still, the California Voting Rights Act does not address every problem. It does not stop discriminatory district maps before they are adopted. In some jurisdictions, voting lines can still be drawn in ways that weaken the influence of Latino communities. With federal protections diminished, California can no longer assume Washington will provide a reliable safeguard.

Advocates are now calling for the state to strengthen and update its voting rights laws. The California Democracy Partnership, a coalition focused on election protections, is seeking changes that would expand language access for voters, prevent discriminatory election changes before they take effect and give residents stronger tools to challenge maps that dilute their political voice.

California once helped lead the country in voting rights policy, and other states have since adopted protections that go further in some areas. At a time when confidence in democratic institutions is under strain, supporters argue the state has a responsibility to act again.

The idea of government by the people does not sustain itself automatically. It depends on each generation choosing to protect and expand participation. Strengthening California’s voting rights laws would be one way to honor the country’s founding promise and help ensure that all communities have a meaningful voice in their government.

Original source: CalMatters

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CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Saturday attempted to turn the tables on his likely rival in November, President Joe Biden, arguing that the man whose election victory Trump tried to overturn is “the destroyer of American democracy.”

Trump’s allegations about Biden, a Democrat, echo the ones that Biden has been making for years against his predecessor. As Trump has dominated the Republican presidential primary and talked about targeting his rivals and the news media if he wins the White House again, Biden has stepped up his own warnings, contending Trump is “ determined to destroy American democracy.”

On Saturday, Trump made his most explicit argument to date on why voters should instead see his rival as the bigger democratic threat. Trump repeated his longstanding contention that the four criminal indictments against him show Biden is misusing the federal justice system against his rival.

“He’s been weaponizing government against his political opponents like a Third World political tyrant,” Trump said to a crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “Biden and his radical left allies like to pose as standing up as allies of democracy,” Trump continued, arguing: “Joe Biden is not the defender of American democracy, Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy.”

Ammar Moussa, a Biden campaign spokesman, responded: “Donald Trump’s America in 2025 is one where the government is his personal weapon to lock up his political enemies. You don’t have to take our word for it — Trump has admitted it himself.”

Trump has long promised to prosecute Biden in retaliation should he return to the White House. On Saturday, though, the former president extended his arguments about Biden’s threat to democracy to lawsuits filed by two liberal organizations seeking to rule him ineligible for office under a rarely used Civil War-era constitutional provision that prohibits those who “engaged in insurrection” from returning to office.

All of the suits to date have failed. Biden has no involvement in them, but Democratic donors who back him also help fund the liberal groups filing the claims. That’s led Trump to blame them on the president, whom he contended had “defaced the Constitution” in trying to block him.

And the former president, who has a long history of speaking warmly about authoritarian leaders and sometimes echoing their rhetoric, seemed aware of criticisms against him. “Americans don’t like fascists,” Trump said. He praised Chinese President Xi Jinping and China’s criminal justice system for swiftly executing drug dealers, and boasted that North Korean President Kim Jong Un likes him.

But Trump noted he was often attacked for these relationships and tried to defend them. “It’s good to have a good relationship with people who have nuclear weapons,” he said.

Throughout the speech, Trump repeated his arguments the 2020 presidential election that he lost was “stolen” and that U.S. elections in general are “rigged.” There is no evidence that the 2020 election was stolen. Dozens of lawsuits were dismissed by courts and government and independent reviews have not found enough alleged fraud to throw the outcome into question.

Trump supporters would attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to try to stop the certification of Trump’s loss to Biden. On Saturday, Trump continued his practice of referring to some of those arrested in connection with the riot as “political prisoners.”

Earlier in the day, at a rally in Ankeny, Iowa, Trump returned to allegations of Democratic election fraud, one of his favorite themes on the campaign trail. He told the crowd to “guard the vote” in 2024, and focused on diverse cities he has often denigrated as examples of places where fraud would happen.

“You should go into Detroit and you should go into Philadelphia and you should go into some of these places, Atlanta, and you should go into some of these places and we’ve got to watch those votes when they come in,” Trump told his supporters.

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For a July meeting, the Little Hoover Commission — an independent state oversight agency — posted notice that the public could attend in Sacramento, but also in Traverse City, Mich., or Southampton, N.Y.

Why the locations scattered across the country? Because some commissioners were taking part in the discussion on aging while on vacation, but California’s open meetings law requires in-person access to members of state bodies during public meetings, wherever they are.

The odd setup is a reflection of a post-pandemic world: While COVID-19 public health rules have relaxed around in-person gatherings, remote work continues, even in state government. And as of July 1, some of the in-person requirements suspended during the pandemic are back in place — including disclosing remote meeting locations and making them accessible to the public.

Enter Senate Bill 544, sponsored by the California Commission on Aging, which seeks to reinstate some of those exemptions until Jan. 1, 2026. The bill — the latest of several in the last few years seeking to ease open meeting rules — passed the Senate in May, and is awaiting an Assembly appropriations committee hearing.

“While the executive order was in place during COVID about public meetings, costs went down 90%. Participation went up from vulnerable populations, and people were able to participate remotely in hearings the way they hadn’t before, and it was trying to continue those benefits,” said state Sen. John Laird, the bill’s author and a Democrat from Santa Cruz.

The bill seeks to remove requirements to post all teleconference locations, post agendas at each location and make those locations accessible to the public. Instead, boards would only be required to post the physical address for one site, and only one board member or staff member would have to be physically present at that site.

But the bill’s opponents — a rare coalition of good government, press, taxpayer and industry groups — say Californians should be able to address their government officials in person.

“We really believe that having the opportunity to have that face-to- face interaction … is a really core belief for the democratic institutions,” said Laurel Brodzinsky, legislative director for California Common Cause.

Opponents also raise concerns that state boards could save the controversial topics for remote-only meetings, where the public may have less opportunity to weigh in.

“We see this all the time here [in Sacramento] — there is a huge line of members of the public for controversial bills choosing to participate,” said Brittney Barsotti, general counsel for the California News Publishers Association, which opposes the bill unless it’s amended further. “And while it might be disruptive for those of us that work in the Capitol every day, like, that’s the point, right? It’s the ability to organize and have your voice heard, instead of being in an empty room with one poor staffer and a speaker.”

In a concession to those concerns, the bill was amended last week to require that a majority of the members of a board be at the same location for at least half of its meetings.

Ethan Rarick, executive director of the Little Hoover Commission, said it supports the bill based on its own positive experience with remote meetings, but also on its June 2021 report on online meetings, which showed that more than half of the 46 state boards surveyed reported greater attendance by members.

Rarick noted that the Bagley-Keene Act — the law that governs open meetings for state boards and commissions — doesn’t require meetings be livestreamed, which would become a mandate under Laird’s bill.

“The more important point for our commission was that it can also increase the kind of people who are able to serve, and thus kind of increase the diversity and representation,” Rarick said.

Barsotti doesn’t buy that justification from the state boards: “They’re not simply expanding access for the public virtually. What they’re doing is trading it off.”

Charting the new normal

The Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, passed in 1967, says: “The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them … The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.”

Staying informed means a state body — any multi-member body that is created by statute or required by law to conduct meetings — is required to post public notices about when they’re meeting, prepare agendas and accept public testimony.

But balancing openness with efficiency can be frustrating, according to the state itself.

A handbook by the Attorney General’s office, updated in 2004, notes that the “unnatural communication patterns brought about by compliance with its rules” is an intentional choice to ensure the public has a seat at the table. “Simply put, some efficiency is sacrificed for the benefits of greater public participation in government,” the handbook says.

But Laird said the state learned a lot during the pandemic on ways to increase public participation while protecting people’s health.

“While it’s very important to have a majority of people there in person, we’ve been given some options that increase participation and protect people,” he told CalMatters on Tuesday. “ And we should leverage those into a public process that really allows people to participate and has a majority of people there all the time in person.”

Still, some of the bill’s provisions remain to be worked out, such as no longer requiring disclosure and access to some remote locations, specifically private homes. Supporters argue that change is necessary to protect the privacy and safety of state board members, particularly those in “vulnerable groups” who may be targeted for “harm or harassment,” according to the bill analysis.

Brodzinsky of California Common Cause said she understands the privacy concerns, but aside from emergencies or health issues, doesn’t think it’s appropriate for members who choose to serve on boards and are accountable to the public to participate in meetings from home.

“Folks have gotten a little bit too comfortable with that, and saying, ‘Oh, this is really convenient, this is easy,’ and are losing the benefits to the public of being able to meet in person,” she said.

Common Cause, as well as the California Newspaper Publishers Association, also raised concerns that current language only requires an audio option, and not video.

It’s not just the expected opponents who are raising concerns.

In a July opposition letter, the Glass Packaging Institute, the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, the American Chemistry Council, the California Association of Winegrape Growers and the American Composites Manufacturers Association wrote that remote participation eliminates eye contact, discourages debate, and stifles pre- and post-meeting discussions.

“The elected and appointed members of government boards and commissions are making consequential decisions that quite literally affect the life, liberty, and property of business and individuals,” the groups wrote. “Those decisions should be made face-to-face, in full view of the public, media, and affected parties. It simply is not enough to sit in front of a computer screen at home or other undisclosed remote location while making such important decisions.”

Laird said he heard the concerns from last week’s hearing “loudly and clearly,” and is considering amendments, such as on-camera participation and quorum requirements.

“I believe this bill is a work in progress still,” he said. “We’re talking to all the stakeholders to decide what precisely those amendments will look like, but they will move the bill toward where the concerns for that are expressed.”

And while the Legislature is scheduled to adjourn Sept. 14, the senator still hopes to get it passed this session due to what he calls the ongoing need to allow people with disabilities or those with trouble traveling to serve on commissions or boards.

“We are still in the middle of COVID. And so I think that we still have to figure out a way that people that are compromised have a way to participate, and that is something that can’t be put off ’til next year,” he said.

A concerning trend?

Common Cause says its concern isn’t just with this bill, but with a “dangerous trend” of legislation the last two years that seeks to roll back public access.

Last year, a similar bill by former Assemblymember Bill Quirk that would have allowed meetings to be held entirely by teleconference died in committee. But Assembly Bill 2449 passed, extending until 2026 pandemic-era exemptions to teleconferencing rules for local governments.

This year, at least seven bills have been proposed that would expand the use of teleconferencing for public meetings, three of which have moved forward.

And it’s not just public meetings. Several pandemic-era practices are being carried over by state agencies and the Legislature that limit opportunities for the press to ask questions, such as fewer press conferences, written statements instead of interviews, or the shutdown of media phone lines where journalists could talk to a live staffer.

“Some of these bills are trying to present themselves as narrowly tailored and for really specific solutions,” Brodzinsky said. “But when you start looking at it as a trend comprehensively, it’s really concerning that this is going to be kind of the camel’s nose under the tent, to just rolling back all of these long-standing democracy protections.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — High inflation and fears about democracy’s health weighed heavily on U.S. voters in a midterm election in which once — and perhaps future — rivals for the White House, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, cast a shadow, AP VoteCast shows.

The survey depicts a country in distress at a moment when control of Congress — and a choice between sharply contrasting visions of America — hang in the balance. Much of the country is mired in pessimism about America’s future and its political leadership, with lingering tensions in how people feel about the current president and his predecessor shaping choices at the ballot box.

The detailed portrait of the American electorate is based on preliminary results from VoteCast, an extensive survey of more than 90,000 voters nationwide conducted for The Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago.

About half of voters say inflation factored significantly in their vote, as groceries, gasoline, housing, food and other costs have shot up in the past year, giving Republicans a vehicle for criticizing Biden. The economy was an overarching concern with voters, about 8 in 10 of whom said it was in bad shape as inflation, near a 40-year high, has raised fears of a recession. Voters are split as to whether Biden’s policies caused higher prices, or factors beyond his control, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Slightly fewer voters — 44% — say the future of democracy was their primary consideration. On the campaign trail, Biden has warned that Republicans are posing a threat to democracy. Many GOP leaders continue to cast doubt on the U.S. electoral system, falsely claiming that the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost, was rigged.

Yet the “Make America Great Again,” or MAGA, movement sparked by Trump appears to have tightened its grip on Republicans. Nearly two-thirds of GOP voters say they support the MAGA movement, a sign of the potential gridlock with Biden’s White House should Republicans win majorities in the House or Senate.

Republicans are counting on voter dissatisfaction with inflation, crime and immigration to help them take control of both chambers of Congress. Biden and his fellow Democrats have argued that the U.S. middle class is poised for a renaissance because of their investments on infrastructure, computer chip production and clean energy projects.

Voters for both parties consider inflation and the fate of democracy to be important. But Republicans were more likely to rank the economy as the top factor in their vote, while Democrats were more likely to prioritize the future of democracy.

Voters have become increasingly demoralized as the country’s political divisions have hardened. Roughly three-quarters say the country is headed in the wrong direction. That figure is higher than it was in the VoteCast survey of voters in 2020, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

Two years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic was considered the country’s top issue; now just 2% of voters name it the top priority as other issues have taken center stage.

Biden’s election was in part because of views that the pandemic was out of control under Trump’s leadership, VoteCast showed. A majority of voters said they thought he “cares about people like them.” A smaller percentage of 2022 voters say that.

Even Democrats harbor doubts about Biden, who has said he plans to seek reelection in 2024. Nearly a third of voters for Democratic congressional candidates say Biden is not a strong leader. One in five Democrats says he lacks the mental capability to serve effectively as president. And about 3 in 10 disapprove of his economic leadership.

The 2020 presidential election still hangs over these congressional, state and local races. Almost two-thirds of Democratic voters said they cast ballots to show opposition to Trump, while about 7 in 10 Republican voters said their votes were about defying Biden.

Inflation has been a clear blow to the well-being of many Americans. A third of voters describe their families as falling behind financially. That’s nearly double the percentage of the electorate that said the same two years ago.

About half of voters in the suburbs backed Democrats nationally, slightly less than in 2020 and 2018. Democrats still fare better with women, while men are more likely to prefer Republicans. Voters under 45 tend to favor Democrats; older voters generally lean Republican.

Facing headwinds on the economy, Biden and many Democratic candidates sought to tap their base’s outrage after the Supreme Court overturned the abortion protections in Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision enshrining the right to abortion. Overall, 7 in 10 voters say the ruling was an important factor in their midterm decisions.

VoteCast also shows the reversal was broadly unpopular. About 6 in 10 say they are angry or dissatisfied by it, while about 4 in 10 were pleased. And roughly 6 in 10 say they favor a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion nationwide.

Crime also was an important factor for most voters, and half say the Biden administration has made the U.S. less safe from crime.

Despite concerns about democracy, about 4 in 10 voters say they are “very” confident that votes in the midterm elections will be counted accurately, an improvement from the percentage of the 2020 electorate that said so.

Many voters came into the election with entrenched views. About half say they knew all along how they would vote, while a third decided over the course of the campaign, and roughly 1 in 10 say they made their choice in the last few days.

___

AP VoteCast is a survey of the American electorate conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for Fox News and The Associated Press. The survey of 93,406 voters was conducted for nine days, concluding as polls closed. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. The survey combines a random sample of registered voters drawn from state voter files; self-identified registered voters using NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population; and self-identified registered voters selected from nonprobability online panels. The margin of sampling error for voters is estimated to be plus or minus 0.5 percentage points. Find more details about AP VoteCast’s methodology at https://ap.org/votecast.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is sounding an alarm Thursday night about what he views as “extremist” threats to American democracy from the restive forces of Trumpism. He’s aiming to reframe the November elections as part of an unceasing battle for the “soul of the nation.”

Nearly two years after he defeated Donald Trump, it’s a reprise of Biden’s 2020 campaign theme, casting the midterm election stakes in as dire terms as those that sent him to the Oval Office. His prime-time speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia will lay out what he sees as the risks from those he has dubbed “ultra-MAGA Republicans” to the nation’s system of government, its standing abroad and its citizens’ way of life.

The explicit effort by Biden to marginalize Trump and and his “Make America Great Again” adherents marks a sharp turn for the president, who preached his desire to bring about national unity in his Inaugural address. White House officials said it reflects his mounting concern about Trump conservatives’ ideological proposals and 2020 election denialism.

“MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards,” Biden is saying, according to prepared remarks released by the White House. “Backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.”

“For a long time, we’ve reassured ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed. But it is not,” Biden says. “We have to defend it. Protect it. Stand up for it. Each and every one of us.”

Biden, who largely avoided even referring to “the former guy” by name during his first year in office, has grown increasingly vocal in calling out Trump personally. Now, emboldened by his party’s recent legislative wins and wary of Trump’s return to the headlines, Biden is sharpening his attacks.

Trump plans a rally this weekend in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden’s birthplace.

At a Democratic fundraiser last week, Biden likened the “MAGA philosophy” to “semi-fascism.”

In Philadelphia, White House officials said, Biden intended to hark back to the 2017 white supremacist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, which he says brought him out of political retirement to challenge Trump. Biden argues that the country faces a similar crossroads in the coming months.

“The president thinks that there is an extremist threat to our democracy,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday. “It’s not stopping. It’s continuing.”

Biden allies stress that he is not rejecting the entirety of the GOP and is calling on traditional Republicans to join him in condemning Trump and his followers. It’s a balancing act, given that more than 74 million people voted for Trump in 2020.

“I respect conservative Republicans,” Biden said last week. “I don’t respect these MAGA Republicans.”

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy dismissed any such distinction, accusing the president of trying to “disparage hard-working Americans.” He was delivering a preemptive rebuttal to Biden from Scranton Thursday evening.

In remarks earlier on Fox News, McCarthy said Biden was “trying to distract from the disaster that he’s created in this country.”

A senior White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to preview Biden’s remarks, said the president’s speech wasn’t aimed at one politician or the GOP as a whole, but rather the Trump supporters who deny the 2020 election results and sow doubt about future contests. The official said that Biden would acknowledge the importance of political disagreements in a country as diverse as the U.S., but draw a line at rhetoric and actions that call into question the health of the country’s democracy.

The official said Biden aimed to speak “not as a Democratic president, but as a president of a democracy.”

Larry Diamond, an expert on democracy and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, said calling Trump out for attacks on democracy “can be manipulated or framed as being partisan. And if you don’t call it out, you are shrinking from an important challenge in the defense of democracy.”

Even this week, Trump was posting on his beleaguered social media platform about overturning the 2020 election results and holding a new presidential election, which would violate the Constitution.

Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian at New York University, said it’s not unusual for there to be tension between a president and his successor, but it’s “unprecedented for a former president to be actively trying to undermine the U.S. Constitution.”

“The challenge that President Biden faces is to get on with his agenda while still doing what he needs to uphold the Constitution,” Naftali said. “That’s not easy.”

The White House has tried to keep Biden removed from the legal and political maelstrom surrounding the Department of Justice’s discovery of classified documents in Trump’s Florida home. Still, Biden has taken advantage of some Republicans’ quick condemnation of federal law enforcement.

“You can’t be pro-law enforcement and pro-insurrection,” Biden said Tuesday in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.

Biden’s appearance Thursday night was promoted as an official, taxpayer-funded event, a mark of how the president views defeating the Trump agenda as much as a policy aim as a political one. The major broadcast television networks were not expected to carry the address live.

Biden’s trip to Philadelphia is just one of his three to the state within a week, a sign of Pennsylvania’s importance in the midterms, with competitive Senate and governor’s races. However, neither Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democrats’ Senate nominee, nor Attorney General Josh Shapiro, their pick for governor, was expected to attend Thursday night.

The White House intended the speech to unite familiar themes: holding out bipartisan legislative wins on guns and infrastructure as evidence that democracies “can deliver,” pushing back on GOP policies on guns and abortion that Biden says are out of step with most people’s views, and rejecting efforts to undermine confidence in the nation’s election or diminish its standing abroad.

The challenges have only increased since the tumult surrounding the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Lies surrounding that presidential race have triggered harassment and death threats against state and local election officials and new restrictions on mail voting in Republican-dominated states. County election officials have faced pressure to ban the use of voting equipment, efforts generated by conspiracy theories that voting machines were somehow manipulated to steal the election.

Candidates who dispute Trump’s loss have been inspired to run for state and local election posts, promising to restore integrity to a system that has been undermined by false claims.

There is no evidence of any widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines. Judges, including ones appointed by Trump, dismissed dozens of lawsuits filed after the election, and Trump’s own attorney general called the claims bogus. Yet Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research polling has shown about two-thirds of Republicans say they do not think Biden was legitimately elected president.

This year, election officials face not only the continuing threat of foreign interference but also ransomware, politically motivated hackers and insider threats. Over the past year, security breaches have been reported at a small number of local election offices in which authorities are investigating whether office staff improperly accessed or provided improper access to sensitive voting technology.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will deliver a prime-time address “on the continued battle for the soul of the nation” Thursday outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the White House announced Monday.

Billed as a major address just over two months before the midterm elections, Biden, the White House said, will discuss how the nation’s standing in the world and its democracy are at stake.

“He will talk about the progress we have made as a nation to protect our democracy, but how our rights and freedoms are still under attack,” the White House said. “And he will make clear who is fighting for those rights, fighting for those freedoms, and fighting for our democracy.”

Biden has increasingly sought to portray the November elections as a choice for voters between “ultra-MAGA Republicans” — a reference to former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan — and Democrats. He told supporters last week that they had “to vote to literally save democracy once again” — and labeled some Republican ideology as “semi-fascism.”

NBC News was first to report on Biden’s plans for the address.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has gotten the same troubling questions from worried world leaders, ones that he never thought he would hear.

“Is America going to be all right?” they ask. “What about democracy in America?”

While Biden has tried to offer America’s allies assurances, he has only occasionally emphasized the gravity of the threat to democracy from the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and the repeated lie from the man he defeated, Donald Trump, that the 2020 election was stolen. And he’s not discussed the very real concerns about a growing collection of insurrection sympathizers installed in local election posts and changes by Republicans to election laws in several states.

Now, as the anniversary of that deadly day nears, the Democratic president is being urged to reorder priorities and use the powers of his office to push voting rights legislation that its adherents say could be the only effective way to counter the rapidly emerging threats to the democratic process.

The tension in Biden’s approach reflects his balancing of the urgent needs of Americans to make progress on the highly visible issues of the coronavirus pandemic and the economy and the less visible, but equally vital, issue of preserving trust in elections and government.

The president plans to deliver a speech on Jan. 6 focused on sustaining democracy — voting rights won’t be part of the remarks but will be the topic of another speech soon, White House aides said.

In his recent commencement address at South Carolina State University, Biden’s tone on the need for voting rights legislation took on added urgency.

“I’ve never seen anything like the unrelenting assault on the right to vote. Never,” Biden said, adding, “This new sinister combination of voter suppression and election subversion, it’s un-American, it’s undemocratic, and sadly, it is unprecedented since Reconstruction.”

And the world is taking notice. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, also has said that the riot at the Capitol has altered the view many countries have of the United States.

“Jan. 6 has had a material impact on the view of the United States from the rest of the world, I believe from allies and adversaries alike,” Sullivan said recently at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Allies look at it with concern and worry about the future of American democracy. Adversaries look at it, you know, more sort of rubbing their hands together and thinking, How do we take advantage of this in one way or another?”

In contrast, Republicans in numerous states are promoting efforts to influence future elections by installing sympathetic leaders in local election posts and backing for elective office some of those who participated in the insurrection.

White House officials insist Biden’s relative reticence should not be interpreted as complacency with the growing movement to rewrite history surrounding the Jan. 6 riot. Rather, they say, the president believes the most effective way to combat Trump, election denialism and domestic extremism is to prove to the rest of the country — and to the world — that government can work.

“I know progress does not come fast enough. It never has,” Biden said last fall. “The process of governing is frustrating and sometimes dispiriting. But I also know what’s possible if we keep the pressure up, if we never give up, we keep the faith.”

In Biden’s view, many of Trump’s voters didn’t wholly embrace Trumpism. Instead, Trump exploited long-standing dissatisfaction with the nation’s political, economic and social systems to build his coalition.

So Biden tailored his first-year domestic agenda to combating what he believed to be the root causes of the unease — the shaky economy and the pandemic’s drag on it — essentially to prove that government can work effectively.

He has directed federal law enforcement to shore up security at national institutions and improve communication systems and procedures that were in part to blame for U.S. Capitol Police being left overwhelmed for hours during the mob assault.

The Justice Department has undertaken the largest prosecution in its history, charging more than 700 defendants and still looking for more.

But it is voting rights that many Democrats and activists concerned about what may happen in 2022 and beyond are urging the president to make a key priority.

“The insurrection was part of a larger movement to suppress elections and overthrow our democracy,” said Christina Baal-Owens, a longtime organizer and the executive director of Public Wise, a group that researches and publishes information on candidates running for office who support the election lies.

Baal-Owens said efforts to discredit election integrity not only galvanize Trump supporters, they also make other voters less likely to vote. “We know — we’ve done some research on trust in the system — if voters don’t trust elections, they may not vote. This is part of a larger movement of voter suppression and why it’s so necessary for Biden to speak out.”

The House has approved far-reaching voting rights legislation, but Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia have been impediments, saying they oppose changing Senate rules to get around a GOP filibuster of the bill.

That legislation would restore the Justice Department’s ability to review changes to election laws in states with a history of discrimination, a provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013. According to the Brennan Center, 19 states have recently passed laws making it harder to vote.

Manchin and Sinema have helped draft separate voting rights legislation, but it lacks enough Republican support to overcome the filibuster.

“People are taking sides as opposed to looking at what the institutional threats are to maintaining our democracy,” said Democratic Rep. Peter Welch of Vermont, a candidate to replace Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, who announced his retirement.

Welch was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and the violence that day is etched in his memory.

“The norms that have been the bedrock of our democracy, the free and peaceful transition of power and the renunciation of violence, they’ve been shattered,” he said.

After Biden’s speech in South Carolina, Senate Democrats renewed their push to pass voting rights legislation early in 2022. And the president said in an interview with ABC that he supported creating an exception to the Senate filibuster if that’s what it takes to pass voting rights legislation.

For Biden, who served four decades in the Senate, it was a remarkable concession and underscored the gravity of the threat. And, he acknowledged, he knows the world is watching to see how the nation responds — and wondering if the country’s democracy will survive.

“Did you ever think you’d be asked that question by another leader?” Biden said.

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Cuban demonstrators have taken to the country’s streets in recent days to lash out at the communist government and protest food shortages and high prices amid the coronavirus pandemic. In Haiti, officials are asking the U.S. to intercede in a roiling political crisis after last week’s assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in a nation where military and humanitarian interventions by U.S. presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama have proved to be politically harrowing.

Biden is facing increased pressure from Republican lawmakers for his administration to step up support of Cuban demonstrators. And his aides have demonstrated determined caution in response to requests for more U.S. involvement in Haiti.

The administration has come under fire from both sides of the political spectrum for its responses to each of the crises, both unfolding less than two hours’ flying time from Miami. The troubled U.S. history in both countries has hardened positions, making virtually any policy decision politically unpalatable for a president seeking to toe a middle line.

In the background: How the Biden administration handles the crises looms large in electorally rich Florida. Biden lost the state in 2016 to Donald Trump, as Republicans improved their performance while paying special attention to courting the state’s large Cuban American population and other immigrant voters, noted Susan MacManus, a Florida political analyst and professor emerita at the University of South Florida.

“The caution Biden is showing reflects the poor showing in 2020 and a desire not to repeat it,” said MacManus, who added that Haitian Americans are becoming a growing political force in South Florida. “Democrats learned in 2020 that country of origin is a much more powerful voting cue in Florida than historical voting affiliation, and Trump’s hammering on socialism proved to be an effective message.”

Indeed, as the situations play out in Cuba and Haiti, Biden administration officials have responded cautiously. The White House on Sunday dispatched representatives from the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the White House National Security Council to meet with Haiti’s interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, designated Prime Minister Ariel Henry and Joseph Lambert, the head of its dismantled Senate, whom supporters have named as provisional president in a challenge to Joseph.

White House officials said Haiti’s request for the U.S. to deploy troops was under review. At the State Department, spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday he was not aware that the administration had rejected any request from Haitian officials but said the focus was on supporting the investigation into the assassination rather than providing military assistance.

U.S. officials have also made clear that the administration remains concerned about the infighting over who is rightfully Moïse’s successor in Haiti.

The White House is coordinating with Joseph in his capacity as acting prime minister, but is urging Haitian officials to work together to hold legislative and presidential elections as soon as feasibly possible. Meanwhile, the White House said a review of its Cuba policy remains underway.

To be sure, U.S. efforts to press for regime change have had their fair share of failures over the years: the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, CIA-backed assassination attempts on Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and sanctions that inflicted pain but never produced the ultimate goal of ending communist rule.

“We’re going to be taking a close look at what has and has not worked in the past, and unfortunately in the case of Cuba, there may be more that has not worked than what has worked,” Price said. This week, Cuban police have been out in force as President Miguel Díaz-Canel has accused Cuban Americans of using social media to spur a rare outpouring of weekend protests. The demonstrations in several cities and towns were some of the biggest displays of anti-government sentiment seen in years in tightly controlled Cuba, which is facing a surge of coronavirus cases as it struggles with its worst economic crisis in decades.

There are political crosscurrents for Biden as he addresses both situations.

On Cuba, the political right in the U.S. has accused Biden — who said as a presidential candidate that he would revert to Obama-era policies that loosened decades of embargo restrictions on Havana — of not being supportive enough of Cuban dissidents.

Democrats, meanwhile, are unhappy that Biden has yet to reverse Trump’s hard-line approach to the island’s communist government as his administration carries out its review of Cuban policy.

Trump in a statement criticized Biden’s past promises to loosen restrictions on Cuba.

“Don’t forget that Biden and the Democrats campaigned on reversing my very tough stance on Cuba,” Trump said.

Florida Republicans Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a freshman lawmaker who represents a Miami district that Democrats are hoping to flip in next year’s midterm election, were among elected officials this week who called on the administration to maintain Trump’s Cuba policy.

They also called on Biden to aid the protesters, including by making free satellite internet access available on the island to subvert the Cuban government’s effort to stop activists from broadcasting their messages on social media to the world.

Gimenez said in an interview that simply maintaining the status quo is not enough at a moment when the island is seeing some of the most intense protests in more than 60 years — what Biden himself referred to as a “clarion call for freedom.”

Biden lost Florida by about double the margin by which Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton there in 2016. Trump was helped in part by narrowing the Democrats’ margin of victory in population-rich Miami-Dade County by nearly 13 percentage points. Gimenez and another freshman lawmaker of Cuban descent, Maria Elvira Salazar, picked up Democratic-held seats as Trump and Republicans focused on courting Cuban Americans, an important voting bloc in the state.

The majority of Cubans in Florida supported Trump over Biden, 58% to 41%, according to AP VoteCast. The margin was nearly reversed among other Hispanic voters in the state, who were more likely to support Biden than Trump, 59% to 40%.

“Biden is no fool,” said Gimenez. “It’s not just the Cuba issue, it’s the whole issue of socialism and communism and censorship that’s shifted the people of Miami-Dade over to the right. The problem that the president has is the extreme parts of his own party seem to be driving the agenda, and that he just can’t escape right now.”

White House spokesman Chris Meagher said Biden, dating back to his days in the Senate, has been a fierce critic of the Castro regime and is committed to Cuban human rights.

“He’s committed to forming his policies toward Cuba based on two principles: that standing up for democracy and human rights is paramount, and that Americans — especially Cuban Americans — are the best ambassadors for freedom and prosperity in Cuba,” Meagher said.

Carlos Diaz-Rosillo, who served as a director of policy and interagency coordination in the Trump White House, said the situations in Cuba and Haiti offer Biden a chance to demonstrate his oft-repeated dictum that democracies can better service their people than autocracies as well as his preference for multilateral efforts to address big global problems.

“This is an administration that says that they believe in international organizations and that they believe in these multilateral bodies. If that’s the case, get our allies in the hemisphere together … and see how they can rally others can help out,” Diaz-Rosillo said.

AAMER MADHANI and MATTHEW LEE | AP News

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ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — President Joe Biden honored America’s war dead at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day by laying a wreath at the hallowed burial ground and extolling the sacrifices of the fallen for the pursuit of democracy.

The president was joined on Monday by first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff in a somber ceremony at the Virginia cemetery’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which is dedicated to deceased service members whose remains have not been identified.

His face tight with emotion, Biden walked up to the wreath, cupping it in his hands in silent reflection and then making the sign of the cross. Later, he called on Americans to commemorate their fallen heroes by remembering their fight for the nation’s ideals.

“This nation was built on an idea,” Biden said in an address at Arlington. “We were built on an idea, the idea of liberty and opportunity for all. We’ve never fully realized that aspiration of our founders, but every generation has opened the door a little wider.”

He focused much of his speech on the importance of democracy, saying that it thrives when citizens can vote, when there is a free press and when there are equal rights for all.

“Generation after generation of American heroes are signed up to be part of the fight because they understand the truth that lives in every American heart: that liberation, opportunity, justice are far more likely to come to pass in a democracy than in an autocracy,” Biden said.

The Bidens stopped by a row of gravestones after the ceremony, holding hands and speaking with a family whose relative died during World War II.

Other dignitaries at the Arlington event included Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

On Sunday, Biden addressed a crowd of Gold Star military families and other veterans in a ceremony at War Memorial Plaza in New Castle, Delaware. Earlier in the day, he and other family members attended a memorial Mass for his son Beau Biden, a veteran who died of brain cancer six years ago to the day.

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ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The highest-earning New Yorkers would face the nation’s steepest income tax rate under a budget lawmakers expected to vote on Tuesday.

It would serve as a win for the Democratic party’s left wing, who say that millionaires in Manhattan penthouses have fared far better amid the pandemic then struggling small businesses and low-income New Yorkers.

States including California, Minnesota and Washington are also considering wealth taxes, raising taxes on capital gains or setting new top income tax rates. President Joe Biden — who said on the campaign trail he’d raise income taxes on high earners — has proposed tax hike s on wealthy individuals and families and a corporate tax rate increase to pay for his infrastructure plan.

Democrats in New York hope the tax increase could bring in at least $3 billion and prevent the need for spending cuts in years to come. Assembly Member Helene Weinstein said the bill would be introduced Tuesday, and Sen. Liz Krueger said the leaders of the Assembly and Senate have agreed on the bill.

New York’s top income tax rate is currently 8.82%, while New York City residents face an additional 3.88% top tax rate.

Democrats want to raise the combined top tax rate for New York City millionaires above California’s top income tax rate of 13.3%, though exact details of the proposal weren’t available Tuesday afternoon.

Senate Democratic Majority spokesperson Mike Murphy said he expected the public could view the revenue bill online shortly. Spokespeople for the governor and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie’s office didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.

Democrats won control of the state Senate in 2018, but they gained more leverage last year by winning a veto-proof supermajority.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo expressed newfound openness to raising taxes on top-earners this year — his budget proposal included a limited, temporary tax increase on high-earners if New Yorkers didn’t receive extra COVID-19 aid.

He’s also long warned that raising taxes on the wealthy could drive them out of New York at a time when the state’s economy is still recovering from COVID-19 economic shutdowns last week. His budget director, Robert Mujica, has said the top 1% of earners pay 40% of New York’s income taxes.

And Mujica has said an additional $12 billion in expected federal COVID-19 aid could prevent the need for a tax hike.

But Democratic legislative leaders who have pushed forward with a proposed tax hike said there’s no conclusive evidence that tax hikes drive out the rich. And they criticize years of “fiscal austerity” under Cuomo, as health care costs rise and educational advocacy groups call for more spending on schools.

Medicaid costs have skyrocketed as New York has boosted enrollment, raised the minimum wage for all workers and taken on more Medicaid bills once shouldered by counties.

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