Daniel Nichanian. Editor-in-chief and founder of @BoltsMag. (Follow us!) And here's everywhere else you can find me: https://t.co/3h3lUA8v3Q
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Apr 9 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Don't sleep on this: *2* state justices who just voted to make all abortion illegal in Arizona are on the ballot this year.
They're each up for retention, as I had detailed here last week: boltsmag.org/your-state-by-…
I skipped the headline story here assuming you've seen it elsewhere, but if not: the Arizona supreme court just declared abortion illegal. 12news.com/article/news/p…
Apr 4 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
A thread about a messed up situation in Mississippi.
It's on how state officials have voided direct democracy thru an absurd excuse, and how they keep refusing to yield that power back to people.
The state constitution gives people the right to ballot initiatives.
It outlines how they should do so, & how they should collect signatures in each of MS's five congressional districts.
The language was written into the constitution in 1992.
Mar 5 • 17 tweets • 5 min read
Tomorrow is extraordinary busy election day... and you may have missed critical battles.
So here's a thread with the 15 races I'll watch most closely, across 4 states. It has some of everything: school boards, local politics, DAs, voting rights...
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1️⃣ Let's start with the Arkansas supreme court races.
Because they're so odd. 2 seats, 4 sitting justices running for them, none of which are their current occupants, plus two outsiders. Depending on the results, the big winner may be Huckabee Sanders.
not all about the Santos seat and Trump/Biden: there are a ton of critical elections coming up literally in coming weeks.
here are just four you should know about.
1. the former sheriff of Los Angeles, ousted after protecting police abuse, is trying a comeback in 3 weeks: boltsmag.org/los-angeles-co…
Dec 7, 2023 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Dems won full control of Michigan in the midterms, for the first time in 38 years.
Then? In the last few weeks, Michigan adopted into law a big range of voting rights reforms.
Let me count 7 different ways. ⬇️
1️⃣ Michigan will be automatically registering people to vote when they leave prison.
It'll add them to voter rolls, then send them a mailer notifying them, & ppl can opt out.
NEW: It was just confirmed that Dauphin County, PA, home to Harrisburg , flipped to Democratic control in last week's elections. For the first time in 100+ years.
GOP incumbent conceded this am, h/t @pennslinger.
One reason this matters? Ballot access. See next tweet.
County officials in PA have a lot of discretion to design voting procedures. For instance, many GOP-run counties (like Dauphin) haven't allowed ballot curing.
This past Tuesday saw elections all over the place.
With many eyes on VA & KY, you may have missed some critical races for election administration, mayor, DA, sheriff, AG, or election deniers seeking offices, conservatives wanting school boards.
A 🧵 of highlights:
1️⃣ Pennsylvania supreme court
Dems prevailed 53/47 for this BFD vacant seat, expanding their majority & shielding their edge on issues that are sure to come up -- not just next year for elections, but into 2030s with redistricting. This is a 10-year term) boltsmag.org/democrats-penn…
Nov 5, 2023 • 18 tweets • 7 min read
"The election is in one year." No. Elections are in 2 days.
Control of state government in 4 states. A key supreme court seat. Abortion measure. Major DA & sheriff races. Mayors. Election deniers seeking elections office. M4L trying to take over school boards.
A sampling:
1️⃣ Pennsylvania's supreme court.
There's a vacant seat on a swing state court that's frequently rendered tight decisions. GOP candidate has indicated she'd be interested in restricting mail voting, in a state where that's sure to have cases next year. boltsmag.org/pennsylvania-s…
Nov 3, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Have you heard of far-right 'constitutional sheriffs' who are linking up around the nation?
Well, two of them may be tossed out of office next week: one in Virginia, one in Washington State.
Some of more under-radar but important races we reported on at @boltsmag. Quick thread:
First up: Snohomish County, in Washington, is a county of 800,000+ that voted for Biden by 20%.
It also has a sheriff who campaigned with Mark Lamb, defied Inslee's COVID orders, & rehired deputies with a violent history. @jesspish lays it all out: boltsmag.org/snohomish-sher…
Oct 28, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
in 1890, white supremacists met to design Mississippi’s constitution, with stated goal of excluding Black people.
So they set up a list of specific felonies for which you’d lost right to vote for life: only felonies they thought Black people would be likelier to be convicted of.
This involved some racist ideology of what whites & black people were likelier to do. (Supreme court ruling said whites committed “robust” crimes.) But it also allowed court system to pick & choose what felonies to charge people with, and whether it’d be disqualifying.
Oct 26, 2023 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
Pennsylvania's elections are run by county officials. If Trump is going to game system next year, this is who matters.
And in all 67 counties, voters are electing their officials in 2 weeks.
I did a dive into some of what you should be looking at. Here's a 🧵 of key findings.
First: Here's the article with a lot of details that I can't do justice to in a thread. So if you're in Pennsylvania, or if you're not but care about these issues, check that out! boltsmag.org/pennsylvania-c…
Oct 15, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Did you miss something in Louisiana?
Worry not, here's a thread to wrap up the 5 big results I was watching. 🧵
1/ Jeff Landry overwhelmingly wins the governor's mansion, a flip for the GOP.
This is going to change a lot for public policy in the state, as Landry is an arch-conservative who fought to overturn the 2020 election, and a lot else, see:
Democrats have filed no candidate in the majority of state House *and* state Senate districts in Louisiana, so the GOP is already assured of keeping both chambers of the state legislature this fall before any vote has been cast.
But 3 reasons you should still watch Louisiana:
1. measure on banning private grants to help election admin
What is transpiring here is that the Democratic candidate who won a safe blue seat in North Carolina on a pro-choice platform, and then switched to the GOP to give them a supermajority for their anti-abortion law, was a Republican plant all along. nyti.ms/3QmuUDx
I can’t think of anything comparable in my 2+ decades of following US politics.
Jul 23, 2023 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
Alabama Republicans defied federal courts in passing their new congressional map this week.
This move is just the top of the iceberg in a long series of GOP maneuvers this month/this year to directly undercut Black voting power.
Brief thread:
In Tennessee just a few months ago, as you'll recall, Republicans expelled two Black lawmakers from the state House.
Important note: The (safe) two special elections for the two Justins to regain full terms are in just two weeks.
Jun 20, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Senator Joe Morrissey, the pro-life conservative Democrat in Virginia's Senate, is trailing 66% to 34% so far against his progressive challenger in the Democratic primary.
Still early: That's based on 2.5K votes. (There were 16K cast in his 2019 primary.)
Update (wow): with 4K votes now counted, Lashrecse Aird leads incumbent Joe Morrissey 69% to 31%.
Jun 20, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Polls have just closed in Virginia's primaries.
This is the first election the state is holding under the new extremely exclusionary rules announced by Youngkin -- there's no more automatic rights restoration for anyone convicted of a felony, ever. boltsmag.org/virginia-gover…
Among the highlights of the night:
Incumbent prosecutors in Northern Virginia are facing challenges from their right.
One of the main ones is in Arlington, with controversy over the police's role here:
GOP just changed elections rules ONLY for this part of Texas, & they'll come into effect JUST WEEKS before the race. Groups are warning this may create chaos that GOP may then weaponize for more oversight. boltsmag.org/texas-republic…
Or, as Common Cause put it, this is an effort by the legislature to "create a feedback loop of problems."
I fear I'll have to share this tweet/thread again in mid-November, when the GOP is clamoring for hearings or investigations into what their laws created.
May 17, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
In 2022, six GOP commissioners in 3 PA counties blocked election certification bc they wanted to kick out some mail ballots.
In PENNSYLVANIA, of all places.
Their fate...? All 6 won their GOP primaries yesterday to stay in office in 2024 & beyond: boltsmag.org/pennsylvania-k…
Similar results played out throughout the state.
In Allegheny County, the state's second most populous county, there's a fake Trump elector on the county board that effectively runs elections. He was running unopposed for the GOP nomination yesterday.
May 17, 2023 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
A ton happened last night.
Here it is in 280-characters, but if you missed it let me walk through the main hits of election night 🧵.
Let's start with the Florida thunder: The GOP lost its most populous city, Jacksonville: Dem Donna Deegan defeated a DeSantis-endorsed Republican tied with Moms for Liberty & will take on the mayorship.
JUST IN: Criminal justice reformers scored major wins in the Pittsburgh region's Dem primaries.
The 24-year DA with a punitive record lost to the chief public defender, Matt Dugan.
And Sara Innamorato, a left lawmaker, won the county executive primary: boltsmag.org/pittsburgh-all…
A third noteworthy result: Bethany Hallam, an at-large county commissioner who is formerly incarcerated, prevailed against a challenger who attacked her over former drug use.
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