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Amidst endless partisan bickering and with the unpredictability of the pandemic looming in the background the notion of a unified Democratic party seems like a pipe dream. With the advent of social media, what once occurred behind closed doors has become a spectator sport. Flash and virility have replaced good governing. Opinions have replaced facts.

As the newly elected president of the Democratic Mayors Association, Ive been given the privilege to speak on behalf of Democratic Mayors across the country. Weve witnessed the tenets of the Democratic Party being drowned out by a national screaming match and its time to get back to the basics: jobs, housing, education and healthcare.

Im the Mayor of Richmond, Va., the former Capital of the Confederacy where I see firsthand the struggles that everyday Americans are facing. While catchphrases touted by both sides of the aisle make headlines that evoke strong emotional responses, their most lasting legacy is division. Its time we shift our focus away from appeasing party extremists and get back to appealing to our base. This is not reinventing the wheel. This is how countless mayors, including myself, have gotten elected and how weve chosen to lead.

At the end of the day, being a Democrat is about helping folks. We want everyone to have the opportunity to succeed, and if youve fallen on hard times we want there to be a way out.

My upbringing had no silver spoons or picket fences. My mom was 16 when she had me and I was raised paycheck to paycheck by my father and grandmother he was a public school custodian with a felony on his record, and she was a domestic worker. Free school lunches were sometimes the difference between hungry and not.

The reason I bring this up isnt for sympathy. Its because when Democrats talk about helping those in need, I was one of those people. I understand what its like to need help, and how valuable that help can be. In spite of my circumstances, I became the first in my family to graduate high school (and then college) and now Im the twice elected Mayor of Richmond, Virginia. I was lucky.

I got into public service because my story is not unique. Its not an inner-city story, a Black story, or a coming from a broken home story. Its an American story that far too often doesnt get to happily ever after and that is something I will spend my life fighting to change.

Recent elections and the current trajectory of the GOP should serve as a cautionary tale. If we continue to allow them to set the narrative we will continue to lose. Our party was once one of inclusion; a party whose rhetoric was based on hope and growing stronger together. The issues of the Democratic Party are issues that affect peoples everyday lives that should give us a huge advantage.

As we head towards the midterms and future elections, my hope is that our party will unify. We must resist theeye for an eyementality when baited by the Republicans. We must extricate ourselves from the culture war and remind voters, and ourselves, what Democratic leadership means: access to affordable housing, good-paying jobs, and high-quality education and healthcare.

Getting back to the basics isnt just about winning. Its how we help people. In a country as powerful as the United States, the status quo is unacceptable. We can do better. This is a critical moment for our country and our democracy, lets not let it pass by.

LevarStoneyis the 80th mayor of the City of Richmond. He is the youngest mayor in Richmond history and the first millennial African American mayor to serve in the city.

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To win in 2022, Democrats must cut the squabbles and get back to basics | TheHill - The Hill

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) expressed openness to lowering the income limits for families to access the expanded child tax credit if it helps win Sen. Joe ManchinJoe ManchinCongress in jeopardy of missing shutdown deadline A strategic pivot to healthcare reform could save the midterms for Democrats Carville says he'd help fundraise for potential Gallego Senate bid MOREs (D-W.Va.) support for the partys sweeping climate and socialspending bill.

Clyburn said in an interview withThe Washington Post on Thursday that he thinks Democrats still have wiggle room with getting Manchin on board with a party-backed expansion to the child tax credit after its recent lapse.

The No. 3 House Democratsaid Manchin has made it very clear that he has concerns about the structure of the expansion, but Clyburn said he doesnt think the West Virginia senator is entirely opposed to the credit.

He wanted to see it means-tested. I'm not opposed to that, Clyburn said, adding he would like to see Manchin come forward with a bill for the child tax credit thats means-tested.

I think it would pass. Hed get it through the Senate. I think we could get it through the House, Clyburn continued, adding he thinks theres a lot in Build Back Better that he says hes for so, lets do that.

Democrats have been working for months to make changes to and scale down the partys Build Back Better Act, in large part to try to get support from Manchin, a key centrist holdout.

Democrats hope to pass the bill,a legislative priority for President BidenJoe BidenCongress in jeopardy of missing shutdown deadline Senate to get Ukraine, Russia briefing on Thursday As Social Security field offices reopen, it's time to expand and revitalize them MORE, using a complex procedure known as budget reconciliation thatwould allow them to greenlight the package in an evenly split Senate with a simple majority.

But, with Republicansuniformly opposed to the bill, Senate Democrats would need total support from their caucus to pass the measure, giving Manchin significant influence over the shaping of the legislation.

In an interview on Thursday morning, Manchinsignaled that he is stillopen to participate in negotiations around the spending plan and the expanded child tax credit, but added he thinks means testing will ensure it is targeted to those most in need.

Everyone thinks the child tax credit has gone away. The child tax credits still there, the $2,000 child tax credit is still there, and we're going to make sure that we can help, continue to help those in need, Manchin toldWest Virginia MetroNews's Hoppy Kercheval.

I want to target West Virginians basically to make $75,000 or less should be the highest priority we have. They have it up to $200,000 for an individual and $400,000 for families. That's a lot of money, headded,after expressing concerns about inflation earlier in the interview.

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Top House Democrat open to lower income caps for child tax credit to win over Manchin | TheHill - The Hill

Hello, and happy Thursday,

On Tuesday afternoon, Jim Cooper, a moderate Democrat who has been in Congress for more than three decades, announced he was retiring. The timing was not a coincidence.

Less than 24 hours earlier, the Tennessee legislature had approved a map with new boundaries for the states eight congressional districts. Since 2003, Cooper has represented a district that includes all of Nashville, and it has been reliably Democratic (Joe Biden carried it by 24 points in 2020). But the legislatures new plan erased his district. Republicans sliced up Nashville into three different districts, attaching a sliver of Democratic voters in each to rural and deeply Republican areas. Donald Trump would have easily won all three of the new districts in 2020.

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Cooper was blunt in his assessment of what had happened. Republicans, he said in a statement, had made it impossible for him to win re-election to Congress. Despite his best efforts, he said, he could not stop Republicans from dismembering Nashville.

The map doesnt just weaken the voice of Democrats, it also dilutes the influence of Black voters and other voters of color in Nashville. In Coopers current district, Black voters make up about a quarter of the voting-age population. They will comprise a much smaller share of the voting age population in the new districts, making it harder for them to make their voices heard.

Andrew Witherspoon, my colleague on our visuals team, and I put together an interactive map that shows exactly how Republicans transformed Coopers district. Its one of the clearest examples of how politicians can essentially rig elections in their favor just by moving district lines. It underscores how gerrymandering is a remarkably powerful and efficient method of voter suppression the influence of certain peoples votes matter less before a single ballot is even cast.

Tennessee isnt the only place this is happening. In Kansas, Republican lawmakers are advancing a plan that would similarly crack Kansas City, making it more difficult for the Democrat Sharice Davids, the first Native American woman elected to Congress, to get re-elected. In North Carolina, Republicans cracked the city of Greensboro in order to dismantle the states sixth congressional district, currently represented by a Democrat.

Democrats have also shown a willingness to engage in this kind of distortion where they have control of the redistricting process, in places such as Illinois, Maryland and probably New York. Democrats will have complete control over drawing 75 congressional districts, compared with 187 for Republicans.

The day before he announced his retirement, I spoke with Cooper about why he thought this was happening and what he thought the consequences would be for Nashville voters. Whats happening now is just raw politics, Cooper said.

In two previous redistricting cycles, none of the politicians in the state knew that I existed as a candidate. That made it easier they werent trying to get Jim Cooper. And then in cycles where they did know I existed, it was either too difficult to rearrange the counties, or they were gentler, he told me. Politico reported recently that after Republicans werent as aggressive as they could have been in states such as Texas and Georgia, there is some pressure to be even more aggressive in places like Tennessee.

The Nashville constituents who are being sliced up into each of the three districts are likely to have much less importance to their new, Republican representatives, Cooper said. Any input they have, at most, it will be tokenism.

This is not a majority-minority community, but it will limit the ability for them to be heard. Because theyll become essentially a rounding error in much larger districts that are dominated by the surrounding towns, he said. The center of gravity will shift.

Also worth watching

A federal court told Alabama to redraw its congressional districts after finding Republican lawmakers had discriminated against Black voters. Alabama is appealing the ruling.

Arizona Republicans are proposing a suite of new voting restrictions after a widely criticized review of the 2020 election results.

Texas continues to face significant problems after implementing sweeping new voting restrictions ahead of its 1 March primary.

Ohio Republicans are redrawing state legislative and congressional maps after the state supreme court struck down earlier efforts as unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders. There are still concerns the new state legislative maps are severely gerrymandered.

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Republicans just wiped out a Democratic district. Heres how - The Guardian

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greenewho has been stripped of her House committee assignments for writing inflammatory social-media posts, thrown off Twitter for spreading COVID-19 misinformation, and fined more than eighty thousand dollars for violating House rules on masksis facing a primary challenge. Three Republicans are running against her for the Party nomination in Georgias Fourteenth Congressional District, in the northwest corner of the state. The most serious of these challengers, it seems, is Jennifer Strahan, a health-care executive who has tried to portray herself as right-wing, just not loony right-wing. Strahan claims to be uniting conservatives who want a congresswoman who can accomplish something other than managing to embarrass the Republican Party and the entire state of Georgia.

A poll released last week suggested that Strahan might have a shot at beating Greeneif, that is, she gets a lot of help. The poll, conducted by a firm called TargetPoint, was designed to test anti-Greene messages. Respondents were asked, for example, whether theyd be more or less likely to vote for Greene after hearing that she had called the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Connecticut, and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, false flag operations. (The Web site Jewish Insider, which first obtained the poll, reported that it was financed not by the Strahan campaign but by a group of anti-Greene Georgia Republicans.) By the time respondents had been informed of some of Greenes most outrageous positions, including her claim that 9/11 was a hoax, she and Strahan were roughly even. Meanwhile, when respondents who said that they were planning to vote in the Democratic primary were asked whether they would consider, instead, voting for Greenes opponent, in order to hold Marjorie Taylor Greene accountable, all of them said yes.

Georgia is an open-primary state, meaning that voters can choose which partys primary they want to participate in. (Voters in Georgia do not register with a party.) Thus, some of Strahans help could come from people who disagree with her and have no intention of casting a ballot for her in November. All of this raises the question: Should it?

Crossover voting, as its known, has an unfortunate reputation. Usually, when its been advocated for, this has been done with the intention of undermining the opposition. In March, 2008, for example, the conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh launched what he called Operation Chaos. At that point, John McCain had already clinched the Republican Presidential nomination, and Barack Obama was leading in the race for the Democratic nomination. Limbaugh urged his listeners to vote for Hillary Clinton, to prolong the Democratic contest. In Indiana, an open-primary state, it seems that Limbaugh was either effective or else served as a convenient excuse, because the Obama campaign blamed crossover voters, at least in part, for Clintons victory in that states May primary.

Twelve years later, in South Carolina, another open-primary state, several G.O.P. politicians urged Republicans to cross over and cast their ballots for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Presidential primary. They, too, dubbed their campaign Operation Chaos. The Greenville News reported that conservative political groups were calling on Republicans to vote for the worst Democrat. We dont see this as in any way improper or underhanded because were being very open about it, Stephen Brown, the former chairman of the Greenville County Republican Party, said at the time. (Whatever the impact of the effort, Joe Biden won the South Carolina primary by a wide margin.)

Voting for the worst candidate in order to sow chaos is, for obvious reasons, a bad idea. Universalized, such conduct wouldor, at least, couldlead both parties to nominate extremists and incompetents. But what about voting for the least worst candidate in an effort to save the Republic? This would seem to fall into a different ethical category. As John Stuart Mill put it, in Utilitarianism, The morality of the action depends entirely upon the intention.

Because Republicans are nominating extremists, Democrats could engage in crossover voting with the very best of intentions. In Greenes district, they could vote for Strahan in the hope of defeating a dangerous conspiracy monger. Were G.O.P. voters in blue-leaning districts to do the sameto engage in what might be called principled crossover votingthey would end up voting for the most centrist candidates in Democratic primaries. If that happened, its hard to see how the country would be worse off than it is now.

The lines for Greenes district have recently been redrawn in such a way as to render it slightly less red. (Greene has blasted the new lines, calling them a fools errand that was led by power-obsessed state legislators.) Still, the district leans heavily Republican, and whoever wins the G.O.P. nomination will, almost certainly, head to Washington. Indeed, Democrats in the district are such a minority that its not even clear they could swing a primary. But, it could be argued, they have an obligation to try.

Why Republicans keep electing politicians like Greene is a question that will occupy historians and political scientists for decades. Part of the reason, though, would seem to be structural. In safe red districts, which sophisticated gerrymandering is producing more and more of, the only campaigns that matter are primary campaigns, and voters who turn out for primaries tend to be the most politically committed. (James Huntwork, a Republican election-law expert, once described the primary-campaign dynamic in a lopsided district as a race between one candidate who says, I am completely crazy! and another who claims, I am even crazier than you!)

In total, fifteen states hold open primaries. These include Michigan, where Representative Peter Meijer, who was one of ten House Republicans to vote for Donald Trumps second impeachment, is facing a primary challenge from a former Trump staffer, John Gibbs, who is perhaps best known for claiming, in 2016, that Hillary Clintons campaign chairman, John Podesta, was a satanist. (Asked whether he regretted his rhetoric, Gibbs said, I regret that its unfortunately become an issue.) Nine other states allow unaffiliated voters to participate in either partys primary. These include Colorado, where Greenes ally Representative Lauren Boebert is facing a primary challenge from State Senator Don Coram, whos considered a moderate. (Boebert has repeatedly been criticized for anti-Muslim remarks; most recently, she is reported to have asked a group of Orthodox Jews visiting the Capitol whether they were there to conduct reconnaissance.) The lines for Boeberts district, too, have been redrawn, and it is considered a safe Republican seat. But unaffiliated voters in the district outnumber both registered Democrats and Republicans, so they, presumably, could decide the races outcome. Lets hope they turn out for the G.O.P. primary, because right now leaving the future of the Republican Party to Republicans seems way too risky.

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Should Democratic Primary Voters Help Save the G.O.P. from Itself? - The New Yorker

Rep. Colin Allred (D-Tex.) announced Sunday he has tested positive for COVID-19 in a breakthrough case after returningfromcongressionaltripto Ukraine.

Allred was among 10 House members whorecentlymet with Ukrainian presidentVolodymyr Zelenskyy and other officialsduring two days of meetings amid themounting tension between Ukraine and Russia.

After testing negative before boarding our flight home and again when I returned home, I tested positive for COVID-19 today," Allred said in a statement, adding that he tested negative throughout the trip, then again beforeleaving Ukraine and again upon arriving in the U.S.

"I feel well and I will be following guidelines from the CDC and House Attending Physician to quarantine and keep others safe,he added.

Despite this diagnosis, this was still a vitally important trip, where my colleagues and I heard directly from NATO, EU and Ukrainian officials about the threat of Russian aggression. Our bipartisan delegation traveled thousands of miles and together, showed our strong commitment to the Ukrainian people, Allred added.

The congressional delegation was led byHouse Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory MeeksGregory Weldon MeeksDemocratic rep tests positive for COVID-19 upon return from Ukraine trip The Hill's Morning Report - Biden: Russia attack 'would change the world' Overnight Defense & National Security Biden says no US troops going to Ukraine MORE (D-N.Y.) and also included Reps. David CicillineDavid CicillineDemocratic rep tests positive for COVID-19 upon return from Ukraine trip Advocacy groups urge Congress to tackle tech giants' auto industry focus Meeks leading bipartisan trip to Ukraine amid Russia tensions MORE (D-R.I.), Ami BeraAmerish (Ami) Babulal BeraDemocratic rep tests positive for COVID-19 upon return from Ukraine trip Global Health, Empowerment, and Rights Act will permanently end to harmful global gag rule Meeks leading bipartisan trip to Ukraine amid Russia tensions MORE (D-Calif.), Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), Tom MalinowskiThomas (Tom) MalinowskiDemocratic rep tests positive for COVID-19 upon return from Ukraine trip GOP faces divisions over siding with Ukraine against Russia Meeks leading bipartisan trip to Ukraine amid Russia tensions MORE (D-N.J.), Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), Mark GreenMark GreenDemocratic rep tests positive for COVID-19 upon return from Ukraine trip The US and the UK a force for good Meeks leading bipartisan trip to Ukraine amid Russia tensions MORE (R-Tenn.), August Pfluger (R-Texas), Mikie SherrillRebecca (Mikie) Michelle SherrillDemocratic rep tests positive for COVID-19 upon return from Ukraine trip SALT change likely to be cut from bill, say Senate Democrats Meeks leading bipartisan trip to Ukraine amid Russia tensions MORE (D-N.J.) and Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.).

Allred, asecond-term congressman, said he is fully vaccinated with a booster shot. "Thankfully so far, my symptoms are mild and I am glad to have the protection of a safe vaccine. If you havent, please get your vaccination and booster shot as soon as you can,he concluded.

Allreds announcement comesafter several fellow lawmakers including Reps. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa.), David TroneDavid John TroneDemocratic rep tests positive for COVID-19 upon return from Ukraine trip Nebraska Republican tests positive for COVID-19 in latest congressional breakthrough case The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Facebook - Voting rights week for Democrats (again) MORE (D-Md.), Jim CooperJim CooperDemocratic rep tests positive for COVID-19 upon return from Ukraine trip Romney tests positive for coronavirus DCCC expands list of vulnerable House Democrats MORE (R-Tenn.), Sean CastenSean CastenDemocratic rep tests positive for COVID-19 upon return from Ukraine trip Overnight Energy & Environment EPA unveils new pollution monitoring in South Watchdog finds 'substantial' evidence Illinois Democrat promised job to potential challenger MORE (D-Ill.), and Alexandria Ocasio-CortezAlexandria Ocasio-CortezDemocratic rep tests positive for COVID-19 upon return from Ukraine trip Carville says he'd help fundraise for potential Gallego Senate bid Ocasio-Cortez: Supporting Sinema challenge by someone like Gallego would be easy decision MORE (D-N.Y.) announced they have tested positive for the novel virus this month.

Nearly a quarter of federal lawmakers have tested positive for the virus since the start of the pandemic.

The omicron wave of the virus appears to be on the decline across the country, with average daily cases falling to around 500,000 from a peak above 800,000 two weeks ago.

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Democratic rep tests positive for COVID-19 upon return from Ukraine trip | TheHill - The Hill