Republicans are right: democracy is rigged. But they are the beneficiaries

Stephen Holmes
Thu, November 26, 2020

The Republican establishment, despite being unfairly advantaged by the skewed composition of the electoral college, by over-representation in the House due to partisan gerrymandering and in the Senate due to equal State suffrage, has been in no hurry to reject Donald Trump’s ludicrous allegation that the American electoral system is rigged to favor Democrats. Sweating the make-or-break Georgia runoffs, the party’s leaders are apparently frightened to cross the mad king, who owns their voters, lest he cause their ratings to plummet as he is doing with Fox News. But Republican complicity with this unprecedented attack on American democracy is not a matter of short-term expediency or fear of reprisals. It is much worse than that. Mitch McConnell and the others are not merely humoring the president until his mania subsides. Trump’s voters are the Republicans’ voters and the Republican party cannot easily cut them, and their deranged conspiracy theories, loose even after 20 January.

This has important implications for how Biden should respond to the incalculable damage Trump has inflicted on the country, including how his Department of Justice approaches the restoration of the rule of law.

The Republican party is deeply committed to the outrageously tilted playing field that allows a minority of voters to choose a majority of senators and, indirectly, a majority of supreme court justices, not to mention the occasional president as in 2000 and 2016. They are an unabashedly anti-democratic party in that sense alone, even if we set aside their brazen efforts at voter suppression and voter intimidation. This is perhaps the main reason why its leaders have proved so reluctant to dissociate themselves from Trump’s specious allegation that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged”. They know that the system is rigged. It is rigged to favor Republicans. And they relish not only the irony of Trump’s audacious reversal of the truth, but also the way it distracts attention from the genuinely unconscionable rigging that gives an American minority the power to impose its will on the American majority.

Republican officials are slowly distancing themselves from the embarrassingly delusional president’s refusal to accept the reality of his defeat. But the fact that it is taking them so long reflects a deep truth about the country’s politics, namely that Americans are still fighting the civil war. When Trump and his madcap surrogates cry “voter fraud”, they do not mean fraud in the technical sense of ballot stuffing or the miscounting of legal votes. What they mean is that Democrats have debased the composition of the electorate by making it easier for African Americans in Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Milwaukee, the most reliably Democratic voters in the country, to register and vote. Trump would have been elected in a landslide, they imply, if only “real Americans”, meaning exactly who you think, had been allowed to vote.

Nixon’s famous “southern strategy”, crafted with the support of Strom Thurmond, the infamous South Carolina segregationist, suffices to remind us that Republican pandering to white fears of demographic inundation did not begin, and will not end, with Donald Trump. Key to the historical origins of Republican acquiescence in Trump’s efforts to wreck American democracy is his last-ditch and doomed gambit to convince Republican controlled state legislatures in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania to replace the pro-Biden delegates to their state’s electoral college with a pro-Trump slate of electors.

Trump’s advisers evidently believe that this anti-democratic maneuver is perfectly constitutional since article II, section 1, clause 2 of the US constitution declares that “each state shall appoint” presidential electors “in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct”. That clause seems straightforward enough until we recall, as Republicans are apparently loath to do, that the framers’ constitution was radically revised by the civil war amendments. In particular, section 2 of the 14th amendment of 1868 was designed to penalize any state that attempted to deny any American citizen “the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for president and vice-president of the United States”. Allowing Republican-controlled state legislatures to appoint the electors would run grievously afoul of this all-important clause. It was bitterly contested in the states of the former Confederacy for the same reason that Trump’s diehard supporters are refusing to accept his defeat. Section 2 of the 14th amendment was seen at the time, and is apparently still seen today, as a betrayal of the racial solidarity of the white majority because crafted to reshape the American electorate by enfranchising African Americans. Shamelessly echoing the South’s post-civil war howls of betrayal, Trump shows why he should forever be remembered as the second president of the Confederacy.

While none of this implies that Joe Biden’s well-meaning appetite for some measure of bipartisanship is completely hopeless, it does suggest that he may be thinking about it in the wrong way. The Republican establishment, as mentioned, is panicked by the prospect of alienating Trump’s voters. But they also have strong reasons, after 20 January, to consign Trump himself to political oblivion. This is the wedge that the president-elect should exploit. After all, the presidential hopes of Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and even Mike Pompeo depend on the current darling of their electorate being swept from the scene. And if his strident voice can be silenced, the party can hope to retreat into its pre-Trump habits of making only the kind of discreet appeals to white resentment acceptable in polite company.

Although Biden says that he wants to restore the rule of law that has been desecrated by the outgoing attorney general, William Barr, he may imagine that the best way to convince at least some Republicans to cooperate with his administration is to close the books on the past by directing his new justice department to let bygones be bygones. But attempting to “heal the soul of the nation” by discouraging a thorough inquiry into Trump’s potential violations of federal law recalls Robert Frost’s definition of a liberal as “a man who can’t take his own side in an argument”.

If retreat from confrontation is what Biden has in mind, he may be underestimating the tacit desire of the Republican leadership to rid themselves of the rabble-rouser who is keeping their electorate hostage. They may well silently but heartily approve if Biden keeps his promise to abstain from interfering with his new attorney general’s efforts to uncover the extent of Trump’s malfeasance in office. Even criminal prosecution, if it comes to that, might be an act of bipartisanship since, by publicly disgracing Trump, it would free a few more Republicans to be occasionally cooperative. This possibility should appeal to a president-elect who, with 80 million voters at his back, is not only willing to reach across the aisle but eager to take his own side’s side in an argument.


Stephen Holmes is professor of law at NYU School of Law and co-author with Ivan Krastev of The Light that Failed: A Reckoning (Penguin 2019)

Rudy Giuliani has tried to subvert the will of the voters before. He did it after 9/11

Nicholas Goldberg
Tue, November 24, 2020

New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, left, with President George W. Bush and Fire Commissioner Thomas Van Essen on Sept. 14, 2001. (Doug Mills / Associated Press) 

CHUCK SCHUMER IN BACKGROUND

The problem with Rudy Giuliani isn’t that his mascara runs or that he held a post-election event next to an adult book shop. Nor is it his behavior toward the young woman in the Borat movie or his pinkie ring or the fact that he told his second wife he was divorcing her by announcing it at a news conference.

The problem with the former New York City mayor is that he doesn’t respect elections.

Not only has Giuliani been President Trump's chief accomplice in his outrageous and deceptive efforts to subvert the will of the American people, a role he is continuing to play even as the transition gets underway, but he also fought hard in the aftermath of 9/11 to keep himself in office after his term as mayor ran out.

Let me remind you what happened then.

Sept. 11, 2001, in New York City was a crisp, shockingly clear fall day. When the two World Trade Center towers were attacked, and then collapsed in a cloud of dust, steel and concrete, then-Mayor Giuliani rose to the occasion, emerging from an office two blocks away covered in ash but ready to defend the city. He was calm and commanding in the days that followed, supporting first responders and comforting survivors and speaking effectively for an anxious city. He revived his battered political image, reinventing himself as “America’s mayor.”

Sept. 11 was also primary day in New York City. A mayoral election was underway. Giuliani was termed out — it was the end of his second term and his time in City Hall was up at the end of the year. More than half a dozen candidates — including Mark Green and Michael Bloomberg, who eventually became the nominees in the general election — were fighting for their parties’ support. Because of the World Trade Center attacks, that day’s primary was put off for two weeks.

Delaying the primary was entirely reasonable. People weren’t going to turn out to vote on a day when the city had been violently terrorized.

But Giuliani saw an opportunity for something else. In the days that followed — as he watched his poll numbers rise — Giuliani and his aides and supporters began hinting that the mayor shouldn’t be required to leave office when his term was up. What the city really needed was an extraordinary three-month extension of his term to help deal with the fallout of the attack and ease the transition for the next mayor. This was a catastrophe after all. Steady leadership was needed. The November election should be canceled.

Or maybe that wasn’t enough. In fact, according to Giuliani and his aides, the 1993 law barring him from serving a third consecutive term should be overturned entirely if his bid for an extension was rejected and he should be allowed to run again. Giuliani even considered trying to get himself on the ballot despite the term limits law. He lobbied the governor and the Legislature to keep him in office.

Trump-like, Giuliani insisted that supporters were “begging me to stay in the run for another term.”

He got some support in the heat of the crisis, but a lot of pushback too. The New York Civil Rights Coalition accused Giuliani of bullying the mayoral candidates and being “disruptive to electoral democracy.” The Democrats in the state Assembly (whose support was necessary for any extension) refused to back his proposal. Frederick A.O. Schwarz, who had served as the city’s top lawyer, said Giuliani had “created the very dangerous idea that we couldn’t survive without him.”

Republican Gov. George Pataki wrote later that Giuliani’s team “pushed the issue” with the governor’s staff for weeks. Pataki finally told Giuliani he would neither support an extension nor cancel the upcoming election.

“Regardless of Rudy’s motivation, regardless of his raw emotions in the situation, he abandoned some of the most basic conservative principles — to follow the law and relinquish power when your term is over, even in times of crisis,” Pataki wrote later.

Sound familiar?

Another opponent of Giuliani’s attempted power grab was his friend Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who advised the mayor to back down. According to ABC News at the time, McCain cautioned Giuliani to “listen to people you trust, not people who have a stake in your decision.”

When it became clear that state leaders would not authorize his continuing on as an unelected mayor, Giuliani gave in. But he appears to have learned nothing from the experience.

Even as he approved starting the transition, Trump refused to concede and may well never do so. His tactics — and Giuliani’s — have undermined the integrity of a legitimate election in the eyes of Americans and deepened the fissures in an already deeply divided country.

It is precisely in times of crisis — whether a terrorist attack or a pandemic — that democracy must show its resilience. Rules, laws and norms, including elections, obviously shouldn’t be tossed aside at the first signs of strain.

That’s a lesson Giuliani should have learned two decades ago when the towers came down.

@Nick_Goldberg

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

A 14-year-old boy drew a portrait of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. He never expected her to see it — then she called.

Sarah Al-Arshani
Wed, November 25, 2020

Vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris speaking in Washington, DC, on August 27, 2020. ERIC BARADAT/AFP via Getty Images

Fourteen-year-old Tyler Gordon drew a portrait of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, who inspires him, but he never thought she would actually see it.

His tweet of a time-lapse video of him drawing the portrait went viral.

Harris called him after she saw it.

A teenager from the San Francisco Bay Area who was inspired by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris painted a portrait of her. And while he hoped she would see it, he never expected that she would — or that she would call him.

Tyler Gordon, 14, got a call from Harris after a time-lapse video of him painting a portrait of her went viral. Gordon told Insider that he looks up to Harris who overcame a lot of obstacles to become the first woman vice president-elect — and the first South Asian American and Black woman to hold the title — the way he's had to overcome hurdles in his own life.

"She inspires me and she broke through tons of barriers. I also broke through barriers with my stutter, being in a wheelchair for two years, and being deaf until I was six," he said. "So she just inspires me and also she's from the Bay Area, my hometown. So I feel like I just relate to that.
—Tyler Gordon (@Official_tylerg) November 23, 2020

Gordon, who began drawing when he was 10, said he hopes that Harris can one day have her portrait and that he aspires to someday plaint the official White House portrait. He also harbors dreams of opening up his own art gallery.

After the phone call, he described Harris as "humble," a quality he admires.

"I'm really grateful because she's really humble, actually. When she called me actually today, I was shocked. She thanked me for the painting and told me that I was really talented and bright during the conversation," he said.

He added that during the call, a timer went off for Harris' cornbread and she told him, 'hold on, I gotta check my cornbread,'" which he thought was very personable.

Gordon said that his mom Nicole Kindle initially did not allow him to paint when he first showed interest. It was only after he had a dream where he said God had told him if he didn't use his artistic talent, he would take it away, that he went to his mom crying, who eventually agreed.

Kindle told Insider that she's glad her son didn't let her stand in the way of his passion and that she regretted that she hadn't been as supportive from the get-go.

"He's painted for lots of celebrities and done lots of work, but he's really a humble kid," Kindle said of her son."He just enjoys playing with his twin brother and eating pop tarts, like a normal kid. He still has his chores. He's just a normal kid that has extreme talent, and that's what I love about him. He'd never let it go to his head. He's really humble about it. "

Read the original article on Insider

'She called me!!!!!': Vice President-elect Kamala Harris phones California teen to thank him for painting her portrait


Jessica Flores, USA TODAY
Wed, November 25, 2020

A teen artist from California asked his Twitter followers on Sunday to share his painted portrait of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to improve the chances she'd see it.

On Wednesday, Tyler Gordon learned Harris had seen it. How? She called to thank him.

"I was really shocked," Gordon, 14, of San Jose, told USA TODAY.

On Twitter, Gordon wrote, "She called me!!!!!! @KamalaHarris called ME!!!!"

He said he painted a portrait of Harris because he was inspired by the barriers she broke as the first woman, first Black person and first person of Asian descent to be elected as vice president.

"I, myself, broke a lot of barriers with my stuttering, breaking my hips and being deaf since I was 6," he said. "I feel like she represents that."

@KamalaHarris My name is Tyler Gordon and I'm 14 years old and I live in the Bay Area! I painted this picture of you and I hope you like it!!! Please Rt and tag her so that she can see this. Please!!!@JoeBiden @DouglasEmhoff @SenKamalaHarris @WeGotGame2 pic.twitter.com/X0qtChKBf2
— Tyler Gordon (@Official_tylerg) November 23, 2020

The tweet included a time-lapse video of Gordon painting his portrait of Harris with the Golden Gate Bridge as his background.

"My name is Tyler Gordon and I'm 14 years old and I live in the Bay Area! I painted this picture of you and I hope you like it!!" the tweet says.

Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo helped spread Gordon's message on Twitter.

I’d like to proudly add that the very talented Tyler is a resident of @CityofSanJose ! He’s a wonderful young man who has demonstrated unique strength of character to overcome obstacles in his young life. @ChelseaClinton @KamalaHarris @DouglasEmhoff @WeGotGame2 @JoeBiden https://t.co/4mFhAdsEfe
— Sam Liccardo (@sliccardo) November 25, 2020

Madame Vice President-Elect @KamalaHarris 🇺🇸, check out this beautiful portrait of you by @Official_tylerg! https://t.co/2JrmJoiueG
— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) November 25, 2020

Gordon's mother, Nicole Kindle, captured the moment Harris called him in a video.

"I'm overwhelmed with just the magnificence of your artistry," Harris told Gordon. "You really have a gift, my goodness. I was so touched to see it."

Harris, who was born in Oakland, also told Gordon she hopes to meet him one day.

This isn't the first time Gordon's artwork has captured the attention of a high-profile figure. His portraits of celebrities have led him to meet Jennifer Lopez, Alex Rodriguez, Janet Jackson, Kevin Durant and Kevin Hart, he said.

When he grows up, Gordon said he hopes to have his own art gallery and display his work around the world.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: California teen who painted Kamala Harris portrait gets surprise call

Obama says Republicans won votes for Trump by wrongly framing white men as victims

Adam Payne
Thu, November 26, 2020

Barack Obama 

Republicans have wrongly created a narrative where white men see themselves as "victims" who are "under attack", according to Barack Obama.

The former president said this belief was pervasive among many Republican voters despite the fact that it "obviously doesn't jive with both history and data and economics."

"That's a story that's being told and how you unwind that is going to be not something that is done right away," Obama said in a radio interview on Wednesday.

Trump and the Republicans have won millions of votes partly by framing white American men as "victims" who are "under attack," according to former president Barack Obama.

In an interview with the Breakfast Club radio show on Wednesday, reported by The Guardian newspaper, Obama said one of the reasons Trump managed to secure a record-breaking number of votes in his defeat to Joe Biden was that Republicans have created and perpetuated "the sense that white males are victims."

"What's always interesting to me is the degree to which you've seen created in Republican politics the sense that white males are victims," Obama told the Breakfast Club radio show.

"They are the ones who are under attack — which obviously doesn't jive with both history and data and economics.

"But that's a sincere belief, that's been internalized, that's a story that's being told and how you unwind that is going to be not something that is done right away."

Obama said that pushing this narrative helped Trump secure the highest number of votes for any sitting president in American history, despite his administration "objectively" having "failed, miserably, in handling just basic looking after the American people and keeping them safe."

Trump won white men by a margin of around 31% in his 2016 election victory over Hilary Clinton, and performed particularly well among white men in rural areas. Analysis of this month's election indicates that the outgoing president lost ground with this group, though he still defeated President-elect Biden by around 23%.

Rey Del Rio/Getty Images

In his interview on Wednesday, Obama said he understood why some black people and those from other ethnic minorities felt disappointed by what he did for them while in the White House, but insisted that he managed to improve their conditions significantly despite the constraints of Congress.

"I understand it [the disappointment] because when I was elected there was so much excitement and hope, and I also think we generally view the presidency as almost like a monarchy in the sense of once the president's there, he can just do whatever needs to get done and if he's not doing it, it must be because he didn't want to do it," he said, adding that unlike Trump, he didn't break the law and disregarded the constitution in the pursuit of his agenda.

Watch Obama talk about race and politics



"The good news for me was I was very confident in what I had done for Black folks because I have the statistics to prove it," Obama said.

He warned that Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would face similar struggles in implementing their own policies if the Democrats did not win two upcoming runoff elections in Georgia. Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are being challenged by Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock respectively.

"If the Republicans win those two seats, then Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will not be able to get any law passed that Mitch McConnell and the other Republicans aren't going to go along with," he told host DJ Envy.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Ilhan Omar underperformed Biden by more than perhaps any House Democrat thanks to a 3rd party candidate and well-funded GOP rival

Eliza Relman Wed, November 25, 2020

Rep. Ilhan Omar speaks during a news conference outside of the U.S. Capitol on January 27, 2020 in Washington, DC. Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images

Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, handily won a second term this month, but underperformed President-elect Joe Biden by more than perhaps any other Democratic candidate in the country.

There are a slew of factors that likely impacted Omar's race, including a third party on the ticket, a supremely well-funded Republican opponent, and the fact that she was virtually guaranteed to win reelection.

But Democratic operatives and Minnesota politicos told Insider that Omar's underperformance was largely in line with down-ballot Democrats across the state, who underperformed Biden, particularly in the suburbs.


Rep. Ilhan Omar, a progressive Minnesota Democrat, handily won a second term this month, but underperformed President-elect Joe Biden by more than perhaps any other Democratic candidate in the country.

While Biden won 80% of the vote in Minnesota's fifth congressional district — one of the most progressive in the country — the outspoken congresswoman won 64%, a 14-percentage point drop from her 2018 election.

There are a slew of factors that likely impacted Omar's race, including a third party on the ticket, a supremely well-funded Republican opponent, and the fact that she was virtually guaranteed to win reelection. But Democratic operatives and Minnesota politicos told Insider that Omar's underperformance was largely in line with down-ballot Democrats across the state, who underperformed Biden particularly in the suburbs.

A pro-marijuana alternative and a well-funded Republican

Experts chalked up much of Omar's underperformance to pro-marijuana legalization third parties, which recently achieved major party status and made it onto the ballot this year. The pro-cannabis candidate in Omar's district won 10% of the vote, most, if not all, of which pollsters say would have gone to Omar.

Donna Victoria, a Democratic pollster, called the third-party candidate the "single biggest factor" in Omar's underperformance. She said many voters likely felt compelled to vote for Biden given how competitive Minnesota's presidential race was expected to be, but may have felt more confident in casting a symbolic third-party vote in Omar's race as she was virtually guaranteed reelection.

"I don't think it's a very sexy answer, I think it's a structural answer," Victoria told Insider. "With Trump insisting he was going to win Minnesota, you weren't going to risk skipping Biden."

Tim Lindberg, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota Morris, said Omar was hurt most by the pro-marijuana third-party, which siphoned votes from Democrats across the state, and the significant money and negative messaging leveraged against her. Like fellow progressive freshman congresswomen of color, who call themselves the "Squad," Omar has attracted outsize national attention — and vilification — over the last few years.

"Whether it was the more xenophobic, racist kind of messages - 'go back to your country,' or whether it was more of a message of corruption or of nepotism, she was really targeted because of her role as part of the Squad and as a lightning rod for Republicans everywhere, but also for President Trump," Lindberg said.


—Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 25, 2020

Her reelection race reflected that dynamic: Omar's Republican opponent, Lacy Johnson, raise almost double the amount of money she did -- $10.1 million to Omar's $5.4 million.
In 2018, Omar's Republican opponent spent just $23,000. 

Suburban ticket-splitting

Down-ballot Democrats in Minnesota particularly underperformed Biden in the suburbs.

Minnesota was at the center of the nationwide protests for racial justice and against police brutality. It was George Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police in May that sparked months of Black Lives Matter protests, some of which involved rioting and violence.

Some moderate Democratic voters were likely put off by Omar's call to dismantle the Minneapolis police department, criticism of her campaign payments to her husband, and a series of anti-Semitic remarks she's made. Omar also attracted a well-funded moderate primary opponent, whose attacks likely stuck with some portion of Democratic voters.

Blois Olson, a Minnesota-based political communications strategist, pointed to Biden's success and Omar's lackluster support in the wealthy Minneapolis suburb of Edina — a longtime bastion of country club Republicans that flipped blue nearly a decade ago. Olson argued Omar's underperformance in Edina is an indication that some suburban voters were turned off by Omar's more progressive politics and polarizing profile.

"One of the takeaways is, Democrats can't go that far or they will begin to lose the suburbs quickly," Olson told Insider. "She's a bridge too far for upper middle class suburban voters."

Supporters attend a campaign event with Dr. Jill Biden, wife of Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Joe Biden, at Utepils Brewery on October 3, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

But across the state, Republican state legislative candidates won down-ballot even when the same voters picked Biden over Trump.

This came as voter turnout in Minnesota jumped by about 11 percentage points to a staggering 80% this year — the highest turnout of any state in the country in a year when more Americans voted than ever before.

Biden did much better against President Donald Trump in Minnesota than Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton did in 2016. Biden won the Midwestern state by about seven percentage points — a nearly six point swing against Trump from 2016, when Hillary Clinton won the state by 1.5 points.

Biden ran up his lead in Omar's district, which had among the highest turnout of any in Minnesota.

Omar's spokesperson, Jeremy Slevin, told Insider that Biden's large lead in Hennepin County had much to do with the Omar campaign's get out the vote effort.

Slevin said Omar's general election campaign devoted nearly all of its manpower and resources to boosting turnout for Biden. The campaign primarily worked with the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, knocking doors even while most Democratic campaigns across the country halted door-knocking during the pandemic.

"We didn't campaign for ourselves after the primary," Slevin said. "Biden vastly overperformed Clinton in 2016 and we're proud of that. That's what our goal was. Our goal wasn't to pad our numbers."

Olson credited Omar, who endorsed and campaigned with Sen. Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary, with the surge in turnout in Minneapolis.

"That's what she did, she delivers the grassroots," Olson said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Biden Promises Bill Providing Pathway to Citizenship for 11 Million Illegal Immigrants in First 100 Days


Zachary Evans  NATIONAL REVIEW
Wed, November 25, 2020



Joe Biden vowed on Tuesday to send a bill to the Senate that would set up a path to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants.

The president-elect’s team has already indicated that Biden will attempt to overturn much of President Trump’s immigration agenda, including reinstating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and rescinding the Remain in Mexico policy.

“I will send an immigration bill to the United States Senate with a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people in America,” Biden told NBC’s Lester Holt.

Such a bill would likely be dead on arrival if Republicans hold on to their Senate majority. Georgia senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are both facing runoffs on January 5, and if one of them wins, Republicans will hold 51 seats in the chamber. However, if Democratic challengers Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff both win the runoffs, the Senate will be tied 50-50, allowing vice president-elect Kamala Harris to serve as the tie-breaker.

Biden also plans to implement a 100-day freeze on deportations before reinstating Obama-era guidance that limits deportations to criminal offenders.

Once Biden takes office, his administration will likely be preoccupied with vaccine distribution and economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. While the Biden administration will eventually attempt to overhaul Trump’s immigration agenda, the process will still take time.

The Trump administration had an extraordinary preoccupation with immigration issues and they invested an enormous amount of attention and single-minded focus on immigration,” Doris Messiner, a former immigration official, told CBS earlier this month.. “An administration that wants to undo those changes would have to devote a similar amount of time and effort — and arguably more, because you don’t want to just be undoing things.”

More from National Review

Biden to Rescind Major Trump-Era Immigration Restrictions through Executive Orders

Biden Promises Zero Deportations in First 100 Days of Office

NAACP releases report on Breonna Taylor case

Tonya Pendleton THE GRIO
Thu, November 26, 2020

Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron showed a pro-police bias in his presentation of the case to the grand jury, according to the NAACP

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund has released a report that revealed new findings in the Breonna Taylor case. The report entitled “Justice Denied: An Overview of the Grand Jury Proceedings In The Breonna Taylor Case” said that Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron showed a pro-police bias in his presentation of the case to the grand jury.

On Sept. 23, jurors declined to charge two of the three officers in the Taylor raid which took place on March 31. Acting on a ‘no-knock’ search warrant, the officers entered Taylor’s residence after midnight. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, a legal gun owner, fired a warning shot at the officers coming into their apartment and they returned fire, killing Taylor.

Breonna Taylor and Kenneth Walker (Credit: Taylor family)

Only one officer, Brett Hankinson, who was fired for not following proper police procedures in June, was charged. He was charged with three counts of wanton endangerment for shooting blindly in to Taylor’s apartment building, thus endangering the other residents. That meant that none of the officers in the raid were found to be liable in Taylor’s death.

Read More: Something is fishy about Daniel Cameron and the Breonna Taylor case

NAACP LDF report said Cameron “did not make a fair and comprehensive presentation to the grand jury about the involved officers’ conduct that led to Ms. Taylor’s killing, but instead displayed an inappropriate bias in favor of the officers.”

Protesters carried signs in support of justice for Breonna Taylor on September 23, 2020 in Chicago, Illinois. Across the country, protesters have taken to the streets after the grand jury’s decision to only charge one Louisville Metro Police officer in the raid in which Taylor was killed. (Photo by Natasha Moustache/Getty Images)

The NAACP also said that Cameron did not provide grand jurors with video or audio evidence that was taken at the scene, nor did he explain why the evidence wasn’t made available. And perhaps most damning, the report said that the grand jury testimony that had a heavy impact on the trial, came from one witness, whose testimony was contrary to the accounts of multiple other witnesses.


The Louisville Courier Journal · BT Sept. 21 – 1.MP3

In October, CNN reported that three grand jurors came forward anonymously to say they didn’t believe they were presented with enough information to fairly determine the facts of the case. One, who CNN identified as a white male on a call with the media, said that there was an “uproar” when jurors realized that no murder charges would be possible.

“Was justice was done? No, I feel that there was there’s quite a bit more that could have been done or should have been presented for us to deliberate on,” said grand juror 1, the white male.

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron stands on stage in an empty Mellon Auditorium while addressing the Republican National Convention on August 25, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

A second grand juror, a Black male, expressed his feelings about the proceedings, which line up with the findings of the report.

“We were open the whole time to listen to everything they presented, and it would have been nice if they had presented every charge, but they only presented those three charges, ” said the second grand juror.

The third juror concured that they had no other charges, aside from wanton endangerment, to consider.

Read More: BLM leader in Breonna Taylor protests fatally shot in carjacking

The report concluded by requesting, in line with the wishes of Taylor’s family, that another grand jury be convened so as to include other charges for consideration. The report recommends that the governor put into law the appointment of a special prosecutor in cases involving “potential criminal wrongdoing” by law enforcement to avoid any possibility of partiality in those cases.

Trump campaign sued for attempting to disenfranchise Black voters

Crystal Hill·Reporter
Wed, November 25, 2020

The Trump campaign has repeatedly attempted to use the judicial system to overturn the president’s defeat to President-elect Joe Biden, filing more than two dozen unsuccessful lawsuits since Election Day.

But the president’s campaign now finds itself on the other side of a legal case in a newly filed federal lawsuit alleging that it violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 when it sought to “disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters,” particularly African Americans in metropolitan areas of Michigan.

“It’s not even about the success of President Trump and the Trump campaign’s attempts to overturn the election,” Monique Lin-Luse, assistant counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, which filed the lawsuit, told Yahoo News. “The very attempt ... to overturn it by disenfranchising and de-legitimizing Black voters is what we believe is unlawful, and it's also dangerous and corrosive to our democracy.”

President Trump at the White House on Tuesday. (Susan Walsh/AP)

The lawsuit, filed Friday in a Washington, D.C., federal court, was brought on behalf of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and three Detroit residents over Trump’s apparent efforts to sway local officials in Wayne County, Mich., and state legislators to hold off on certifying votes or interfere in the electoral process.

President Trump met with Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield and Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey at the White House on Friday in what was viewed as an attempt by Trump to convince the GOP legislators to cooperate with a plan to override the will of voters in Michigan.

The lawmakers said after the meeting that they intend to “follow the law” regarding the selection of Michigan’s electors. Shirkey told the Associated Press that Trump talked about Michigan election results with them, but added that the meeting was harmless, the AP reported Tuesday.


Shirkey confirms to @AP Trump talked about Mich. election results with GOP delegation. He says at 1 point, Trump got Giuliani to call in & Giuliani repeated the Wayne County allegations he had raised in a news conference last Thursday. Shirkey says meeting was 'innocuous'
— David Eggert (@DavidEggert00) November 24, 2020

In Wayne County, Trump reportedly tried to pressure the two Republican members — Monica Palmer and William Hartmann — of the county’s four-person Board of Canvassers not to certify the results of the election there.

Palmer and Hartmann initially voted against certification, sparking outrage on social media, then backtracked and voted to certify the results. The AP reported that the president then personally called the two officials, after which they filed affidavits seeking to rescind their certification, which can’t be done, court records show.

“During the meeting, one of the Republican Canvassers said she would be open to certifying the rest of Wayne County (which is predominately white) but not Detroit (which is predominately Black),” the complaint said.

The lawsuit also cites a press conference last Thursday in Washington, during which Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s lawyers, claimed without evidence that the campaign had identified 300,000 illegitimate ballots.

“These ballots were all cast in Detroit,” Giuliani said, according to the complaint. “It changes the result of the election in Michigan, if you take out Wayne County.”

The case points to several tweets from Trump alleging fraud in Detroit. “Voter Fraud in Detroit is rampant, and has been for many years,” Trump tweeted on Nov. 19.

In Detroit, there are FAR MORE VOTES THAN PEOPLE. Nothing can be done to cure that giant scam. I win Michigan!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2020

Yahoo News sent an email to the Trump campaign seeking comment, and court records don’t yet list an attorney in this particular case. NPR reported Tuesday that the campaign denied going after Black voters. Senior legal adviser Jenna Ellis told the station that their only goal is “to ensure safe, secure and fair elections.”

The Michigan Board of State Canvassers voted Monday to certify the state’s election results, after days of speculation over whether outside influence from Trump’s campaign or false allegations of voter fraud would complicate a fairly routine process. Black people account for roughly 39 percent of the population in Wayne County, the largest county in the state, which includes Detroit, according to the most recent census data. Biden won there by more than a 2-1 margin, and won the state by more than 150,000 votes.

The civil case goes beyond Michigan, alleging a strategy from the Trump campaign to disenfranchise voters in cities with large swaths of Black voters.

A drive-by rally to certify the presidential election results in Lansing, Mich., on Nov. 14. 

(Paul Sancya/AP)

“President Trump and his campaign have repeatedly — and falsely — raised the specter of widespread fraud in Detroit and other cities with large Black populations, including Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Atlanta, in an effort to suggest votes from those cities should not be counted,” the complaint says.

Court records show that the case was assigned Tuesday to Judge Emmet Sullivan, the same judge who presided over the criminal case against former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn and who in early November ordered the U.S. Postal Service to sweep facilities in states including Georgia and Michigan to ensure that mail-in ballots were delivered.

The new lawsuit asks the court to declare that Trump’s campaign engaged in conduct that violated the Voting Rights Act and seeks to prohibit the campaign, and anyone acting in concert or on its behalf, from “continuing to exert pressure on state or local officials to disenfranchise Plaintiffs or other Black voters by not certifying the results of the November 2020 election, or by appointing an unlawful slate of electors that disenfranchises Plaintiffs or other Black voters.”

“To cast doubt on the election & to use Black ppl as a vehicle for that doubt is one of the most destructive ways to handle defeat in an election.” -⁦@JNelsonLDF on Trump’s odious maligning of the integrity of ballots cast by Black voters. ⁦@allinwithchris⁩ ⁦ pic.twitter.com/SCBrszs22G
— Sherrilyn Ifill (@Sifill_LDF) November 25, 2020

Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told Yahoo News that voter suppression is “alive and well” in the country. “What’s different about this,” she said, “is that this may mark the first time in recent history when we've seen a voter suppression effort orchestrated by a sitting president, that aimed to cancel out the votes of black voters on a massive and unprecedented scale.”

The lawsuit also raises the question of what, if any, consequences the Trump campaign and its allies could face in court for the state and federal civil cases they’ve filed that have yet to produce credible claims or evidence of widespread voter fraud.

“I think that a court could discourage frivolous litigation,” Justin Levitt, an elections expert and professor at Loyola Marymount University, told Yahoo News via email. “But it’s extremely unlikely that a court not presently hearing the litigation will be the court to engage.”

In other words, any sanctions against the Trump campaign in court would most likely come from a judge in one of the campaign’s election cases. Generally, sanctions are pursued by one of the parties, who files a motion detailing as much and a judge eventually rules on whether to grant it. Sanctions can include requiring the plaintiff to pay legal fees for the defendant.

Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani speaking at the Republican National Committee headquarters last week. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

Last week, lawyers for the city of Detroit sought sanctions against the Trump campaign’s counsel in federal court in the form of striking from the record the two affidavits submitted by Hartmann and Palmer in Wayne County in a federal lawsuit and a voluntary motion to dismiss from the campaign that falsely said the county declined to certify the results of the election, court records show.

“The affidavits and the text in the notice were submitted for an improper purpose: to make a gratuitous, public statement about their purported reason for voluntary dismissal, before the court could reject their baseless claims of election fraud,” the Nov. 19 legal filing said.

Clarke said that in one of the now-dismissed cases involving Maricopa County, Ariz., the judge essentially invited the county to seek to recoup legal fees from the campaign. An example, she said, of a court finding the campaign’s conduct to be “irresponsible and inappropriate.”

“Some [courts] have been making quite clear that they find the claims meritless, and if the meritless litigation continues, defendants may well seek sanctions in the cases where they are sued,” Levitt said.

Legal and elections experts have for weeks stressed to Yahoo News and other news outlets that the Trump campaign’s unsubstantiated allegations of fraud and voter irregularities will only serve to undermine voters’ confidence in the electoral process.

“They’re frivolous in the sense that the legal claims are baseless,” Clarke said. “They’re not frivolous to the extent that we have a sitting president who's placed a target on the backs of Black voters. It’s hard to ignore the grim racial reality driving this effort.”
_____

The 2020 election wasn’t ‘stolen.’ Here are all the facts that prove it.

Archbishop Gregory stood up to Trump. 

Now he's about to be the first Black cardinal in U.S.

Tracy Wilkinson Wed, November 25, 2020

Archbishop of Washington Wilton Gregory, center, walks past parishioners at St. Augustine Catholic Church in Washington, D.C. In a ceremony Saturday, Gregory and several others will be elevated to the cardinal's rank; he'll be the first Black American to reach that position. (Andrew Harnik / Associated Press)More

Few of his parishioners were surprised when Washington, D.C., Archbishop Wilton Gregory took on President Trump.

Gregory isn't known to speak out often about issues specifically facing Black Americans. But when he does, it is unambiguous and forceful — in words unusually strong for a man of the cloth.

In June, racial justice demonstrators outside the White House had just been tear-gassed so Trump could stand for a photo-op in front of the iconic St. John's Episcopal Church, awkwardly waving a Bible. In a statement the next day, Gregory condemned the president's actions as an attempt "to silence, scatter or intimidate" crowds "for a photo opportunity in front of a church."

Then he took aim at the largest lay Catholic organization in the U.S., the Knights of Columbus, which hosted Trump the following day at the St. John Paul II Shrine in northern Washington.

Archbishop Wilton Gregory, left, greets parishioners after Mass at St. Augustine Catholic Church in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik / Associated Press)

"I find it baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles," he said.

On Saturday, Pope Francis will elevate Gregory to cardinal, the first Black American to reach that position, the highest rank in the Roman Catholic Church and part of an elite that chooses popes and is the final word on doctrine.

In selecting Gregory, 72, Francis is rewarding a man who over the decades took courageous stands to end sexual abuse by clergy. They were positions that at times seemed to sideline his career, but that put him, his supporters say, on the right side of history and on a firm moral footing.

Over the years, Archbishop of Washington Wilton Gregory, 72, has spoken out against clergy sexual abuse and in June condemned the tear-gassing of antiracism protesters to clear the way for President Trump's photo-op outside an iconic church. 

(Andrew Harnik / Associated Press)More

Like most Black people in the United States, Gregory was not born into the Catholic faith, growing up in a Protestant denomination. It was largely with the great migration of Black Americans from the South to the North in the first half of the 20th century that many turned to Catholicism, drawn partly by its educational opportunities and social work in urban areas.

As a child on the South Side of Chicago, the young Gregory so admired the nuns who taught him in the grade at his Catholic school that he decided he wanted to become a priest. He informed the school's head father of this ambition, according to a story Gregory often relates. He was told: Well, maybe you should become a Catholic first.

And so he did, taking his first communion while in elementary school.

Msgr. Wilton Gregory, archbishop of Atlanta, left, embraces Msgr. Joseph F. Naumann, archbishop of Kansas City, Kan., inside St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican in 2005. 

(Pier Paolo Cito / Associated Press)

He was ordained a priest in 1973 in Chicago, a bishop a decade later, and legendary Cardinal Joseph Bernardin took him under his wing. Rather than send Gregory to head up a Black parish, or to take an auxiliary position in a large, prominent diocese, Bernardin dispatched him to a small and very troubled predominantly white diocese in rural Illinois.

It was there in Belleville, Ill., that Gregory got the on-the-job training that would inform the rest of his ministry. The community was plagued with numerous cases of priests who had allegedly sexually abused minors but gone unpunished. In Gregory's first year there, 1994, nine priests were removed from duty, nearly 10% of the roster of active clerics in the city.

Years later, when he was chosen to be president of the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference from 2001-2004, he carried forth the same campaign to crack down on clerical sexual abuse, a widening scandal worldwide. He spoke of "zero tolerance" long before the Vatican adopted that policy. The Holy See continued for the most part to prefer to deal with abusive clergy privately, often transferring them rather than allowing them to be arrested.

Gregory was undaunted, his friends and colleagues say. He pushed all the way to the Vatican the Dallas Charter, a 2002 document that made it easier to remove sexual abusers. Praised in some circles as a trailblazer, Gregory's actions also stirred up antagonism against him among the church's more conservative factions.

Some in the church leadership say that the more conservative U.S. prelates chose to punish him, sending him to Atlanta as archbishop in 2005. While Atlanta was a perfectly fine, fast-growing archdiocese, it was not considered a natural stepping stone to being promoted to cardinal or winning other accolades.

Msgr. Edward Branch, now retired, has known Gregory for decades and worked with him in Atlanta, where Branch credits him with bringing organizational efficiency to the sprawling, million-member diocese. He established "priest Tuesdays," when any priest could drive into the archdiocese office, knock on the chancery door and have a private exchange with Gregory.

"He drips with confidence. He does not suffer fools gladly," Branch, 75, said. "He is not mean. but he knows what he wants and you know who is in charge."

Archbishop of Washington Wilton Gregory, left, hugs Noah Tanner at St. Augustine Catholic Church in Washington in 2019. Gregory "drips with confidence," retired Msgr. Edward Branch says. "He ... knows what he wants and you know who is in charge."

 (Andrew Harnik / Associated Press)More

Finally it was Pope Francis, who leads a more progressive wing of the church, who tapped Gregory as archbishop of Washington last year. Because of the ranking of the D.C. diocese, any archbishop is almost guaranteed to be elevated to cardinal. For Gregory, that opportunity came when Cardinal Donald Wuerl resigned in May 2019, after being named in a Pennsylvania grand jury report for bungling cases of abusive priests.

Though expected, Gregory's elevation represents a milestone for Black Catholics, who still represent a minority in the faith — about 3 million out of 70 million Catholic adults in the U.S.

"This was Francis' way of saying this guy got on the right side of history," said Jesuit Father Thomas Reese, a prominent commentator on the church and Vatican. Gregory "has the courage to take the tough decisions and not be afraid to lead."

And though the timing of Gregory's appointment was not tied to the protests against racial hatred and violence targeting Black people that swept the U.S. this summer, the moment could not have been more appropriate, activists say.

"He has this love for the faith and also for his African heritage," said Sister Barbara Spears, past president of the traditionally Black St. Francis Academy Catholic high school in Baltimore. "He is able to blend the two [seamlessly]. Not everyone has that gift."

Spears, 79, meets with Gregory periodically when a contingent of Black nuns, priests and deacons gets together as the Black Catholic caucus to discuss the trials and tribulations facing their congregations.

"He has love and respect for family, and when we African Americans talk about family, it's not just the blood family," Spears said. "It's about widening his tent. We are small but powerful. We hold onto God and each other."

Gregory rarely wades into politics, but his criticisms of Trump have been pointed — and welcomed by Black Catholics and many others.

After his installation as archbishop last year, now perched in the heart of the nation's capital with its large Black population, Gregory decried in his first statement after the ceremony that Trump's divisive rhetoric had "deepened divisions and diminished our national life."

"I have stressed that I am a pastor and fellow disciple of Jesus, not a political leader," he said in the same statement. "There are, however, sometimes, when a pastor and a disciple of Jesus is called to speak out to defend the dignity of all God's children."

His willingness to speak out only grew as Black men and women were being shot by police in questionable circumstances, including the death of George Floyd as a police officer kneeled on his neck in Minneapolis on May 25.

As his voice grew, so did the backlash. Some conservative Catholics, a group successfully courted by Trump, said it was unseemly for a priest to meddle in politics.

But Gregory compared his actions to clergy who marched in the civil rights movement in the 1950s and ’60s.

"If we don't work together, I believe we will miss perhaps the most significant moment for real national transition I've experienced," he said in a virtual panel discussion in June.

The recent comments are as "emotive" as Gregory gets, said Msgr. Kevin Irwin, a professor at Catholic University of America, who has known the cardinal-designate since the two were studying liturgy as graduate students at the Pontifical University of Sant'Anselmo on the Aventine Hill of Rome in the 1970s.

Though Gregory is generally measured in public, "when it is the time to act or do, he will strike," Irwin said. "And there is no question he is in the right."

Others disagreed. Brian Burch, president of a pro-Trump organization called CatholicVote, shot back that it was "regrettable" that Gregory chooses "to engage in a partisan attack on the president, especially when the country is in desperate need of healing and unity."

The White House also slammed Gregory for criticizing Trump's photo op, saying that it was shameful for the archbishop to "question the president's own deeply-held faith."

As the ceremony approaches in which he will receive the distinctive blood-red cardinal's cap, Gregory's supporters are rallying to defend him.

"He is not radical — he is principled," said Father John Cusick of Chicago, who has known Gregory since they were in seminary together at St. Mary of the Lake, near Chicago, in the early 1970s.

Often it's the church itself that is part of the problem, with its own history of racism and sexism, Sister Spears said.

Gregory "may not be able to change that," she added, "but he is a beacon of hope to call on the church to face racism, to acknowledge it," Spears said. "It's a journey, sometimes along a well-paved road and sometimes along a bumpy road."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Rev. Raphael Warnock considers vote sacred as pastor and Senate candidate

Warnock is promoting his plans to address issues of the poor that he recalls from his days growing up as the 11th of 12 children of Pentecostal preachers in public housing in Savannah.

The Rev. Raphael Warnock has adopted a VOTE mask he uses when out talking with the community. Image courtesy of Rev. Warnock Flickr November 13, 2020

By Adelle M. Banks

(RNS) — Many clergy, having risen to occupy the pulpit once held by Martin Luther King Jr. and his father, “Daddy King,” might consider their careers made and not look beyond the Kings’ historic, 6,000-member Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Many a politician, closing in on taking the top spot in a wide-open primary for a U.S. Senate seat, might take a few days before Election Day off from work to campaign.

Then there is the Rev. Raphael Warnock. In the days before Georgia voters gave Warnock, a Democrat, a seven-point victory and sent him into a runoff with GOP incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler, the pastor found time to participate in Ebenezer’s virtual worship services. In the prerecorded services, he immediately began cajoling viewers to get on social media to invite others to tune in.

“Maybe start a watch party,” he suggested, before making an announcement about free COVID-19 tests available on the church’s campus.

Warnock appeared online at his pulpit the following Sunday, looking crisp but relaxed behind “this sacred desk.” His runoff campaign was already underway, but he exuded the same ease he has shown over months of hard campaigning. (Inoculating himself against the kind of mudslinging Loeffler engaged in with her closest Republican rival, Doug Collins, in the primary, Warnock ran a parody negative ad against himself last week in which he admitted loving puppies.)

If the bald, bespectacled 51-year-old is conflicted about choosing between his prestigious pulpit or becoming Georgia’s first-ever African American senator, he doesn’t show it. Despite a direct question sent to his campaign by email, he hasn’t even made clear whether he will quit the job he has held since 2005 if he goes to Washington.

“It’s unusual for a pastor to get involved in something as messy as politics, but I see this as a continuation of a life of service: first as an agitator, then an advocate, and hopefully next as a legislator,” Warnock responded to Religion News Service on Wednesday through his campaign. “I say I’m stepping up to my next calling to serve, not stepping down from the pulpit.”

RELATED: Raphael Warnock, heir to MLK’s pulpit, heads for runoff for Georgia Senate seat

Indeed, it’s not always clear which role Warnock is inhabiting, pastor or politician. In church and on the campaign trail, he has compared voting to praying with stump-speech familiarity.

“We must vote because a vote is a kind of prayer about the kind of world that you want to live in,” he said at a Nov. 2 Democratic campaign rally in Atlanta before former President Obama took the stage.

Obama, who has spoken at Ebenezer, most recently at the funeral of U.S. Rep. John Lewis in July, praised Warnock at the rally for his 2014 arrest at a protest to expand Medicaid in Georgia.

Political and social engagement naturally comes with the pastor’s role at Ebenezer.

“King was deeply concerned about the issues facing everyday people,” said Marla Frederick, professor of religion and culture at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, recalling how the civil rights leader was assassinated as he made plans to march with sanitation workers seeking better wages.

“It’s the concerns about everyday people: living wages, access to health care, access to a good education, access to the democratic process, making sure that the democratic process is fair,” said Frederick. “Those are the types of things that King fought for. Those are the same types of things that Raphael Warnock wants to fight for in the Senate.”

These issues didn’t come to Warnock solely as part of King’s legacy but from his own experience as the 11th of 12 children of Pentecostal preachers, growing up in public housing in Savannah. He attended Morehouse College, King’s alma mater, starting on what Warnock called a “full faith scholarship” because he didn’t have sufficient funds. He then earned a master of divinity degree at Union Theological Seminary in New York in 1994.

As he pursued a doctoral degree, he served 10 years as a youth pastor and assistant minister at Abyssinian Baptist Church, one of New York’s most prominent Black churches, under Abyssinian’s longtime outspoken pastor, Calvin Butts. In 2001 he was called to lead Douglas Memorial Community Church, a 700-member congregation in West Baltimore. At 32, he urged the area’s clergy to be tested for AIDS to help remove its stigma and set a social justice agenda that included advocating for education.

The Rev. Raphael Warnock. Image courtesy of Rev. Warnock Flickr

At Ebenezer he has continued to pursue the problems that plague Black communities. A past social justice chair for the Progressive National Baptist Convention, he has represented the denomination in supporting Black farmers, advocating for prison reform and opposing Trump administration efforts to dismantle the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits explicit partisan activity by houses of worship.

On Juneteenth of 2019, Warnock and a group of interfaith partners launched the Multifaith Initiative to End Mass Incarceration in New York and Georgia. It is now expanding in other states.

“I believe that criminal justice is one of the unique areas where people on both sides of the aisle agree reform is desperately needed,” Warnock said.

Asked how he might help heal the country’s political and racial divisions, Warnock said his campaign was founded with a promise of “shared destiny” and unity.

“From day one, my campaign has been about representing all Georgians in the U.S. Senate, and that’s the kind of Senator I will be working with the Biden-Harris administration,” he told RNS. “We’re going to help our country live up to the highest meaning of its creed: equal protection under the law where everybody’s protected, where all of our children feel safe.”

An ally of the Black Lives Matter movement, he has tried to frame its goals as moral, not political. Since the pandemic closed his church, Warnock has opened the building to the public rarely, including for Lewis’ funeral and for that of Rayshard Brooks, a Black man fatally shot by a white Atlanta police officer. “Black Lives Matter is just a way of saying ‘see our humanity,'” he told those in attendance.

If he has gotten pushback for his progressive positions, said Justin Giboney, president of the AND Campaign, a nonpartisan think tank that promotes Christian civic engagement, it is from Georgia’s Black clergy. Some of his colleagues in the state, Giboney has heard, were disappointed that Warnock hasn’t challenged the Democrats’ broad support of abortion rights.

“I think if you talk to a lot of Black Christians there would be some distinction there,” Giboney said. “I think there would have been more pushback but for the Trump factor.”

Warnock, who has been endorsed by NARAL and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, pointed to his “lifelong work to protect and uplift human dignity,” including protecting women and families, and the racial divide in rates of maternal and infant mortality. “Black women are three times more likely to die as a result of childbirth,” he said. “People with any moral bearing should be deeply disturbed by that disparity.”

RELATED: Ebenezer pastor Raphael Warnock enters US Senate race

He also told RNS he wants to see the Senate pass the Equality Act, which features broad protections for the LGBTQ community with few exceptions for churches, charities and schools that object to same-sex marriage and homosexuality on religious grounds.

“Equality is a covenant that we share as Americans,” he said. “There is no such thing as equal rights for some.”

Rev. Raphael Warnock speaks to a crowd in Philadelphia after a Progressive National Baptist Convention march to the Liberty Bell. Warnock is the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Image courtesy of Gandhi Pinder

The Rev. T. DeWitt Smith, a former Progressive National Baptist Convention president, said Warnock’s stances on living wages, decent housing and voting rights will ensure that he will unite fellow clergy and his base alike. “I don’t think he would fumble the ball,” said Smith.

With Republicans’ options reduced to one candidate, Warnock now faces a tough battle in a state that gave Joe Biden an initial victory so narrow it has gone to a recount. And the negative campaigning has begun — Loeffler has raised an incident from 2002 when authorities accused Warnock of obstructing a child abuse investigation at a church camp. (“Law enforcement officials later apologized and praised him for his help in this investigation,” Warnock’s campaign told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution this week.)

As he headed to the runoff at the end of Election Day, Warnock expressed confidence in brighter days ahead — for his campaign and his state.

“Let us stick together, push through this dark night into the daybreak of a brand-new season,” he said. “The Bible tells us that ‘the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness cannot overcome it.’”