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In mid-April, some of Texas most prolific Republican donors convened at the palatial and secluded mansion of Dallas pipeline mogul Kelcy Warren.

The RSVP list counted the likes of legendary GOP strategist Karl Rove, real estate billionaire Harlan Crow and Texans for Lawsuit Reform co-founder Dick Weekley. It also included several erstwhile Republican leaders, including Texas longest serving governor, Rick Perry; former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison; and two former Texas House speakers, Dennis Bonnen and Joe Straus.

Their mission: Save Dade Phelan.

It was a dramatic show of force from the states most influential GOP power brokers or at least, it would have been a decade ago. Today, the once-gilded group of Republican kingmakers, who shaped Texas and national conservative politics across the Bush era, are locked in a power struggle with the partys far-right, socially conservative wing the very forces that pushed Phelan, the Republican Texas House speaker, into a career-threatening runoff five weeks earlier.

These conservative establishment players, whose own reputations have been under attack in recent months as theyve been recast as RINOs, are going to bat for Phelan in a May 28 runoff that, by one account, is the most expensive state House race in history. They hope to prevent Texas lower chamber from falling under the control of hardline conservatives like their longtime rival, Tim Dunn, a Midland oilman and billionaire megadonor. Dunn and his sprawling political network have funded an aggressive campaign to oust Phelan, attack his allies and scrub so-called moderates from the party.

If you have 100 issues, and you agree with them 99 times, youre their enemy, said Alan Hassenflu, a Houston real estate magnate who was on the host committee for Phelans April fundraiser.

Hassenflu, a board member of the powerful tort reform group Texans for Lawsuit Reform, added that the interests of the Dunn cohort frequently diverge from fiscal conservative orthodoxy.

Often that purity isnt conservative, he said. Theyd be just fine having the government tell businesses they cant have unisex bathrooms or mandate vaccines Thats not limited governance.

Phelans primary against GOP activist David Covey has emerged as a last stand for the Republican Partys business-minded old guard against an insurgency, primarily motivated by social and cultural issues, that aims to reshape the House in the mold of the more conservative Senate and its leader, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. That movement landed a major victory in the March primaries, when nine House GOP incumbents were unseated by far-right challengers and eight others, including Phelan, were pushed into runoffs.

The ouster of Phelan, R-Beaumont, would give Dunns cohort its best chance yet to elect a speaker who is aligned with Patrick and the Senate, likely clearing the way for unfinished priorities like private school vouchers, expanded state control of elections in Democrat-run counties and various measures aimed at infusing more Christianity into public life.

This is not the party of George Herbert Walker Bush or [former Sen.] John Tower or Kay Bailey Hutchison or George W. Bush, said Jon Taylor, a political science professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. It is a party that is decidedly more conservative, much less interested in the kind of approach that Texas Republicans took for decades, which was working strongly and closely with the business community but not pushing very hard on social stuff.

Some hardline conservatives reject the notion that they have abandoned their pro-business principles, arguing its possible to focus on things like loosening the regulatory environment while also restricting abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.

I don't think anybody has a better voting record than I do when it comes to alleviating and fighting against problematic regulations that we're putting on small businesses, said state Rep. Steve Toth, a Republican from The Woodlands who owns a pool service business.

Toth, one of Phelans most outspoken critics in the House, has endorsed Covey and joined with a group of lawmakers and candidates who want to upend the Houses rules to further diminish the influence of Democrats and weaken the speakers power.

The fourth-term Republican blamed the intra-party tension on an element of our party working against social conservatives, singling out one of the most prolific pro-Phelan groups this cycle, the Associated Republicans of Texas. The group, known as ART, spent around $3 million defending House incumbents in the first round and likely millions more in the runoffs.

If we try and take out someone that is moderate, we're seen as extreme, and we're the problem with the Republican Party, said Toth, who was opposed in his own primary by ART, making him the groups only GOP incumbent target this year.

Added Toth, who was backed by Dunns PAC and easily fended off a moderate challenger in March: They dont want you to be socially conservative, they only want you to be moderate on those issues, and to get along and go along with the Democrats. And we're just not willing to do it.

Phelans high-profile backers include some of the states wealthiest business executives who have benefited from the states boom years and industry-friendly approach to governing.

One member of the Dallas fundraisers host committee was Jeanne Tower Cox, daughter of former U.S. Sen. John Tower. Tower, the first Republican Texan elected to the Senate since Reconstruction, helped launch Associated Republicans of Texas in 1974 when the party held fewer than two dozen seats in the Legislature.

Phelans backers also include Robert Rowling, the billionaire owner of Omni hotels; energy titan Ray Hunt; and beverage distribution magnate John Nau, who serves as co-chair of ARTs board. Each is also among Gov. Greg Abbotts top donors, contributing at least a million dollars to the governors campaigns. Abbott, for his part, has remained neutral in Phelan's race.

The wave of anti-establishment energy this cycle has not only threatened Phelans career, but also raised the prospect that his supporters in the Republican old guard already considered pariahs among a large segment of the GOP could become full-on outcasts in the party they helped create decades ago.

Among them is Rove, who masterminded the Texas GOPs rise in the 1980s and 1990s, engineering some of the partys earliest statewide wins, including the 1990 campaigns of Perry for agriculture commissioner and Hutchison for state treasurer, followed by George W. Bushs election as governor in 1994.

Rove, who declined comment for this story, has been in the crosshairs of the GOP grassroots since he penned an essay last year suggesting Attorney General Ken Paxton was likely to be convicted at his impeachment trial. Rove continued to blast Paxton after he was acquitted by the state Senate, arguing the attorney general bore full responsibility for the impeachment because of his arrogance.

Perry, once praised for deftly changing his political stripes to become a tea party darling, has also fallen out of favor with much of the GOP grassroots after penning his own opinion piece calling for Paxtons impeachment trial to go forward, and more recently emerging as Phelans most high-profile defender on the campaign trail.

Perry, a former Trump cabinet member, has leaned into the criticism, joking at a Phelan rally that the derisive term RINO is kind of sexy, frankly. He has also defended Phelans willingness to work with Democrats, noting that he often did so himself on the vast range of issues that transcend partisan politics.

The speakers role is not to be a dictator, Perry said at a Phelan rally in February. He later added that he was worried about the magnitude of intra-party fighting among Republicans, telling the Tribune, if we continue down this path, pointing our guns inside the tent, that is the definition of suicide.

Former state Sen. Don Huffines, a wealthy businessman who has also championed social conservative causes, argued that much of Phelans support is coming from groups like Texans for Lawsuit Reform that are interested in preserving their access to House leadership.

You've got these people that are used to that environment in Austin, and they want to keep the levers of power, said Huffines, who challenged Abbott in the 2022 primary with the financial backing of Dunn and fellow West Texas oil billionaire Farris Wilks.

Texans for Lawsuit Reform, known as TLR, is a major force in state politics, with a war chest of more than $29 million at last count and a reputation as the business communitys leading bellwether. Once heralded on the right for helping Republicans flip Texas, TLR has been recently vilified by Paxton and his hardline allies, who believe the group worked behind the scenes to orchestrate his impeachment. TLR, which spent more than $3 million trying to oust Paxton in the 2022 primary, has insisted it had nothing to do with the effort.

Lucy Nashed, a spokesperson for Texans for Lawsuit Reform, said the group backs incumbents who support TLRs legislative agenda though she suggested other factors also play a role in endorsement decisions.

TLRPACs primary consideration is whether a candidate is philosophically aligned on civil justice issues, but we also seek to support men and women of integrity who we expect will be constructive members of the Legislature, Nashed said in an email.

Since winning control of the speakers gavel in 2021, Phelan has shepherded the passage of numerous conservative priorities once seen as a bridge too far for some Republicans, including laws banning abortion, allowing the permitless carry of handguns, restricting transgender rights and vastly expanding Texas role in immigration law enforcement.

At the same time, Phelan, a real estate developer, has overseen a number of key wins for the Texas business community, including the revival of a corporate tax break program, a new law aimed at speeding up permitting for developers and a sweeping limit on city and county ordinances a priority of business groups that complained of a growing patchwork of local regulations. The Legislature also created a new court, filled with governor-appointed judges, to hear business cases involving large transactions.

Hassenflu, who founded the Houston firm Fidelis Realty Partners and has long been involved in local Republican politics, said he appreciates that Phelan has supported business-friendly policies that promote growth and limit government. He described Phelan as more conservative than his two predecessors as speaker, fellow Republicans Bonnen and Straus, and said Dunn and his allies used outright lies to distort the records of Phelan and other incumbents in this years ugly Republican primary campaign, which is nearing its conclusion with early voting underway this week.

Theres no integrity in that, Hassenflu said of the anti-Phelan tactics.

Dunn and Phelan did not respond to requests for comment.

The far-right faction of Texas Republicans have cast Phelan as a feckless capitulator to Democrats who has slow-walked conservative priorities approved by the Senate. A 2023 documentary by Texas Scorecard a conservative media organization funded by Dunn made the bold and specious claim that the House is actually controlled by Democrats.

That wing of the GOP has increasingly pushed Phelan to stop appointing Democratic committee chairs, a longstanding practice in the House that has sought to foster bipartisanship by rewarding the minority party with minor positions in leadership.

What got Phelan in trouble with the far right last year were two issues: the Houses rejection of Abbotts school voucher bill after it sailed through the Senate and Phelans full-throated support for impeaching Paxton one of Dunns key political allies on corruption and bribery charges.

Phelan did not take a public stance on the voucher measure at the time, but he later told the Tribune he would have preferred a modest version of it to pass; his critics say he didnt do enough to whip his caucus in line.

The speakers political foes have pointed to a handful of other conservative priorities that did not make it through the House, including a proposal to bar the sale of Texas farmland to citizens and entities associated with China and several other countries. Covey has also blamed Phelan for allowing Democrats to sink a bill that would have created a Border Protection Unit, staffed by deputized everyday residents and licensed peace officers, with authority to deter and repel migrants between ports of entry. Phelan and his allies point to his record overseeing an eightfold spike in border security spending and passage of landmark immigration laws.

The opposing factions in Phelans primary have been on divergent paths since Straus, a San Antonio Republican, first became speaker a decade and a half ago.

Straus rose to power in 2009, assembling a coalition of around a dozen Republicans and most Democrats in the House. Straus reliance on the minority party made him a frequent punching bag in GOP primaries the following year, when the tea party wave swept out part of his moderate coalition, making his position seem tenuous. But the threat never materialized. Straus easily held onto the speakers gavel, with only 15 members voting to oppose him in 2011.

Straus said this years crop of fire-breathing, I'm-gonna-change-everything conservatives reminds him of the freshman class he faced in 2011. Many of them changed their tune, Straus said, once they actually met him and learned about the give-and-take needed to pass legislation.

It was always gratifying to see how many of those who came in with that disposition learned about the institution of the House, and learned that if they were just respectful of others, and respectful of the rules and of the institution, they could be leaders too, Straus said.

Still, there are important differences this year that could point to more enduring changes in the House next session. For one, Phelan is in jeopardy of becoming the first speaker in 52 years to lose reelection, while Straus was never truly threatened in his district. The in-House challenges to Straus speakership were even less serious; in contrast, the first challenger out of the gate against Phelan is one of his own committee chairmen.

These people have a taste for blood in the water, and they're going after him, said Taylor, the political scientist, noting that the anti-Phelan insurgents are not only pushing a really strong conservative agenda like in 2011, but also outlining a specific list of demands aimed at kneecapping Phelan.

The resurgence of the partys rightmost faction comes after Dunn and his cohort spent the last several years struggling to make a dent in the primaries including in 2022, when candidates supported by Dunns network lost every head-to-head matchup against Phelan-backed incumbents.

The group seemed to reach its nadir in late 2023, when its leader was caught hosting Nick Fuentes, a prominent antisemite and white supremacist, at his consulting firms office. But Dunn went on to notch a number of key wins in the March 5 primaries.

Unlike in previous years, hardline candidates are getting a major boost from Abbott and deep-pocketed groups looking to oust GOP lawmakers who oppose private school vouchers. While the governor has stayed out of Phelans primary, he is going after four of the speakers anti-voucher allies in the May runoffs and one of the pro-voucher groups, Club For Growth, has targeted the speaker directly with a TV ad that calls him unwaveringly liberal and a Democrat in disguise.

Democrats, meanwhile, are determined to fight to preserve the limited power they have in the lower chamber. Their caucus leader, Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio, said Republicans should not discount the fact that Democrats currently control 64 of 150 seats in the House and could pick up more in November.

And Republicans, no matter what they may say in campaign speeches about stamping out the last vestiges of Democratic influence in the chamber, need the minority party for certain votes. Passing the budget, establishing a daily quorum and approving constitutional amendments each require 100 ayes a threshold Republicans, currently with 86 members, lack on their own.

Martinez Fischer said with Republicans fighting among themselves, the possibility exists for a more moderate conservative to successfully attain the gavel through a bipartisan coalition, much as Straus did to begin his five-term reign that ended in 2019.

But if House Republicans attempt to further cut the minority party out of the legislative process, the Democratic leader said they will fight back.

House Democrats will show up and work hard every day, Martinez Fischer said. You show us what the rules are and well find a way to elevate the discussion thats just who we are.

Beyond ending the tradition of bipartisan committee chairs, Phelans critics have also called for the next speaker to only solicit support from Republican members, a demand aimed at forestalling another Straus-type coalition. The hardline faction also wants the next speaker to ensure all GOP legislative priorities receive a floor vote before any Democrat bills.

Sylvester Turner, a Democrat who spent 27 years in the Texas House before his recent stint as Houston mayor, said the proposed changes would produce a fundamental shift, and in the end, quite frankly, I think everybody loses.

Turner, a key ally of Straus predecessor, GOP speaker Tom Craddick, served as speaker pro tempore for all three of Craddicks terms leading the chamber. Phelans critics are also calling for an end to that tradition, which has often been used as an olive branch by Republicans to fill a largely ceremonial role.

The Houses bipartisan culture, Turner said, has long prevented the chamber from devolving into outright gridlock, while allowing members of both parties to prevent a lot of bad shit from reaching the House floor.

If one side is going to play this partisan hardball sort of system, it forces the other side to do the same, Turner said. So, you gotta be careful what you ask for.

Disclosure: Texans for Lawsuit Reform and University of Texas at San Antonio have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Dade Phelans primary is last stand for Texas GOP old guard - The Texas Tribune

There was a time when Nikki Haley thought an unstable and unhinged person should not be president. But that was February. Now she says she will vote for Donald J. Trump just three months after warning that he would be an unsafe president.

She is hardly the first losing candidate to reverse course and support the rival who beat her for a party nomination. Flip-flopping has a long if uninspiring history in American presidential politics. But rarely have the flip-flops been as stark and head-snapping as those prompted by Mr. Trump.

Ever since he vaulted to the leadership of the Republican Party eight years ago, the same Republicans who once deemed him a kook, a pathological liar and a delusional narcissist nonetheless have come around to endorse handing him the nuclear codes. Even many of those who called him out for trying to overturn an election that he lost are now willing to entrust him again with the future of American democracy.

Given Mr. Trumps enduring popularity with the party base and willingness to punish apostates, the lesson of recent years has been that nearly everyone hoping for a future in Republican politics feels the need to swallow any past criticism and fall in line. Even some Republicans no longer aspiring to hold public office have buried their apprehensions to stay with the choice of the partys voters.

The disparity between their onetime judgments and their eventual public postures has been scorned by none other than Ms. Haley that is, Ms. Haley, the Trump critic, before she became Ms. Haley, the Trump voter.

Many of the same politicians who now publicly embrace Trump privately dread him, she said while competing with him for the Republican nomination this year. They know what a disaster hes been and will continue to be for our party. Theyre just too afraid to say it out loud. Well, Im not afraid to say the hard truths out loud. I feel no need to kiss the ring.

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Once Critics of Trump, These Republicans Are Now Playing by His Rules - The New York Times

Anti-abortion activists who describe themselves as "abolitionists" protest outside a fertility clinic in North Carolina in April 2024. Sarah McCammon/NPR hide caption

Anti-abortion activists who describe themselves as "abolitionists" protest outside a fertility clinic in North Carolina in April 2024.

As some Republicans try to moderate their messaging on abortion over concerns about voter backlash this November, some activists are trying to go much further.

Outside a fertility clinic in Charlotte, N.C., last month, dozens of protestors lined both sides of the street, as some shouted toward the closed front door.

"How many children are in the freezer here? How many?" one man yelled, interspersing his speech with Bible verses.

"The fruit of the womb is the reward!" he shouted, referencing a verse from the book of Psalms.

The protest was organized by a group of activists who describe themselves as null who recently spent a long weekend in Charlotte meeting and strategizing.

"We want to ban IVF," explained Matthew Wiersema, 32, of Gainesville, Ga., another protestor standing nearby. "We want to criminalize IVF."

Using the language of the antislavery movement, abortion abolitionists like Wiersema say they oppose all abortions no exceptions and want to null. Many are also speaking out against IVF, at a time when most Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, are stressing their support for the procedure.

"I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious little beautiful baby," Trump said during a null. Trump noted that most Americans, including most who oppose abortion rights, support access to IVF.

This story is part of We, The Voters, a special 2024 Election series that dives into the issues that are top of mind for many voters. null.

His comments came after null that embryos created through the process should be null children.

Republicans there rushed to pass a law designed to protect providers from legal consequences.

T. Russell Hunter leads Abolitionists Rising, a group of activists that hosted last month's gathering in Charlotte.

T. Russell Hunter of the anti-abortion group Abolitionists Rising speaks to activists in Charlotte, N.C. in April. Hunter favors charging abortion patients with homicide. Sarah McCammon/NPR hide caption

T. Russell Hunter of the anti-abortion group Abolitionists Rising speaks to activists in Charlotte, N.C. in April. Hunter favors charging abortion patients with homicide.

"Pro-lifers are scared to death of that [issue] because IVF has not been thought about," Hunter said in an interview with NPR.

Hunter, who is based in Oklahoma, accuses mainstream anti-abortion rights groups of being too willing to accept incremental restrictions, and inconsistent in their message.

"You can't say, 'Life begins at conception ... but we're going to allow abortion in the first five weeks,'" he says. "If life begins at conception you believe that human life must be protected, you're stuck logically. [You should support banning] all abortions."

Hunter opposes IVF, which often produces null that are then frozen or destroyed.

On a whiteboard, participants in a conference hosted by Abolitionists Rising in Charlotte, N.C. in April voted in an informal poll regarding their views on the fertility treatment known as IVF. Sarah McCammon/NPR hide caption

On a whiteboard, participants in a conference hosted by Abolitionists Rising in Charlotte, N.C. in April voted in an informal poll regarding their views on the fertility treatment known as IVF.

He also believes that embryos should have legal rights. Speaking to fellow activists, Hunter said that means charging patients who seek abortions and anyone who helps them with murder.

"We know the mother is the abortionist or the father is the abortionist," Hunter told a couple hundred supporters gathered in a hotel ballroom in Charlotte. "Whoever it is, the abortionist needs to be punished and we're not going to lie about it in order to be friends with the world, because that is precisely what the pro-life movement has done and is doing."

Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California Davis, said that's a departure from the null of most anti-abortion groups, who've argued that women seek abortions under duress, and that penalties for violating abortion laws should target providers not patients themselves.

"Increasingly on the pro-choice side, you have voices of people saying either abortion is really important healthcare and there's nothing wrong with it women understand what it is and choose it or people in the abortion storytelling world saying, 'I felt no regret about abortion; I felt relieved, I felt happy,' " Ziegler said. "Statements that I think abolitionists also have really weaponized."

Kristine Harhoef lives in Texas and has been involved in anti-abortion activism for well over a decade. She leads a group called Not A Victim dedicated to the idea that most women actively choose abortions and should be punished for doing so.

Jason Garwood, left, a Virginia pastor and anti-abortion activist who attended a conference hosted by the group Abolitionists Rising in April, argues with students at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte during an anti-abortion demonstration the group organized on the college campus. Sarah McCammon/NPR hide caption

Jason Garwood, left, a Virginia pastor and anti-abortion activist who attended a conference hosted by the group Abolitionists Rising in April, argues with students at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte during an anti-abortion demonstration the group organized on the college campus.

"We're dealing with different types of women," she said in an interview during a break in the abolitionist conference.

Harhoef says in her work trying to persuade women not to have abortions, she has met some who were reluctant patients.

"But so many other women who are loud and proud," she said, noting that a group of abortion rights activists in 2021 had demonstrated outside the U.S. Supreme Court by taking abortion pills as a protest against abortion restrictions. "You know, they were not ashamed at all."

The nullquoted an organizer of the demonstration who said none of the women who took the pills were pregnant at the time.

Harhoef says she's frustrated that after the fall of Roe v Wade even in Texas where abortion is banned women are still taking abortion pills.

She's been talking with lawmakers in Texas and neighboring states like Louisiana and Oklahoma trying to promote legislation that would treat abortion as identical to homicide.

"The penalty could be anything from nothing at all if she was truly innocent truly forced into that abortion to a fine or community service, to, yes, some a jail time and possibly even the death penalty," Harhoef said, "if the court, the judge, the jury all deemed that to be an appropriate penalty for that particular situation."

Harhoef's position is null, even among abortion rights opponents. A null majority of Americans say abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

According to the National Addiction and Social Attitudes Survey, less than a quarter of those who say abortion is murder say women who get one should be punished for it.

"I don't think that has been or will be our focus," Hawkins said in an interview with NPR.

Kristan Hawkins is president of Students for Life of America, a major anti-abortion group that opposes prosecuting patients. She describes abortion abolitionists as "social media trolls" who do more harm than good, and don't represent the mainstream of her movement.

"The prolife movement opposes throwing mothers in jail," Hawkins said. "That's not the strategy that's going to end abortion."

On the subject of IVF, Hawkins' group and others have raised ethical concerns. She has null as "under-regulated."

Rachel Bitecofer, a Democratic political strategist, says the line between the mainstream anti-abortion rights movement and the abortion abolitionists is quite thin.

"If you radicalize people ... to gain power and that's what Republicans did, they've been targeting those folks for 25, 30 years now with ever-increasing hyperbolic rhetoric about abortion and defining any kind of abortion as an act of murder," Bitecofer said.

"So if you accept that abortion is murder, then it makes sense that you have pretty rigid requirements to stop it at all costs," she added.

In a statement, Nimra Chowdhry of the Center for Reproductive Rights called the use of language from the antislavery movement to advance abortion restrictions "transparently in bad faith."

"To be clear, the anti-abortion movement has always intended to criminalize pregnant people, but they know it's wildly unpopular with the public, so they have done it through indirect ways," Chowdhry said. "State officials have long weaponized and misapplied other laws, like feticide, to prosecute pregnant people, null. The emerging legislative effort to explicitly criminalize pregnant people is simply saying the quiet part out loud."

So far, abortion abolitionists have been mostly unsuccessful in pushing through laws that explicitly define abortion as homicide.

But they've made some strides in state legislatures null that made it to null floor in 2022.

In an interview with nullpublished last month, former President Trump said he'd be open to letting women who have abortions be prosecuted he said he'd leave that question up to the states.

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'Abortion abolitionists' want to charge patients with murder and ban IVF - NPR

To paraphrase Cicero, how long, O gerrymandered Ohio lawmakers, will you continue abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us?

Ohio Statehouse Republicans stand determined to make a lurid, revolting example of themselves on just how toxic, misrepresentative, and destructive gerrymandering can be.

In our top three stories in the Ohio Capital Journal on Wednesday, Ohio Statehouse Republican politicians are 1.) refusing to put the sitting President of the United States on the ballot in Ohio, 2.) proposing to make teachers and librarians felons under a vague obscenity law, and 3.) Advocating suffocating prisoners to death with a method veterinarians wont use on animals.

To take the last of these first, a bipartisan majority of Ohioans support repealing the death penalty, and as much as Ive kept out a sharp and discerning eye, Ive seen no large-scale popular movement encouraging the state to find creative new ways to execute people.

Meanwhile, Ohio teachers are facing massive layoffs and funding cuts while watching our state government redirect $1 billion worth of public resources to serve 10% of students at private schools. Also, Ohio libraries and librarians are facing funding cuts of their own, and cutting back library hours.

But instead of trying to help Ohio teachers and librarians succeed and thrive, Ohio lawmakers are exploring their options in manifesting a culture of fear and paranoia in our centers of learning, perpetuating a national right-wing extremist propaganda campaign against educators of all types.

It began with critical race theory hysteria, then became anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-trans hysteria, then became anti-DEI hysteria and anti-university hysteria. And now its just a bubbling cauldron of seething, frothing resentment, scapegoating, lying, gaslighting, fear-mongering, and victim-blaming in all directions.

Nobody else can ever be a victim, you see, because they are always the real victims.

Allowing LGBTQ+ people equal citizenship and civil and health care rights? Thats, somehow, an attack on them, they cry.

Being honest about the rampant racism thats motivated vast swaths of American history, and reverberates in the wildly disparate public outcomes of systemic racism today? Thats reverse racism against them, they shriek.

Acknowledging the facts of empirical data and reality and expertise? Thats woke mind virus, they pull their hair and fall on knees wailing.

But worse than being content to soak in the dirty bathwater of their own ignorance, they seek to force the rest of us into it as well.

They design to use the hammer of law to attack teachers, universities, libraries, unions, and minority communities. They maneuver to create a chilling effect on free speech and expression that flies against everything for which America has traditionally stood.

They appear to live in fear of knowledge and loathing for the beauty in humankinds diversity, and for that I pity them: What a small and narrow worldview they freely cage their own minds in.

Unfortunately, discontent to sit by themselves in their self-made cages, they seek to compel the public at-large to be forced to sit in their cages as well.

The number of public school book bans across the country increased by 33% in the 2022-23 school year compared to the 2021-22 school year, according to a September PEN America report. Since PEN America started tracking public school book bans in July 2021, the organization has recorded nearly 6,000 instances of banned books.

Even more immediately dangerous than their disdain and antipathy toward expertise and acquired knowledge and freedom of thought and expression, however, is their open resentment of representative democracy.

In Ohio, Republican politicians ignored seven anti-gerrymandering rulings from a bipartisan Ohio Supreme Court, thereby forcing Ohioans to participate in more gerrymandered elections in 2022, awarding them the continued supermajorities in which they now sit.

They enacted one of the most restrictive anti-voters laws in the country, and they made a national disgrace of themselves last August trying to attack the constitutional power of Ohio voters.

And in their latest flourish, Ohios unconstitutionally gerrymandered Republican supermajority General Assembly is abdicating their responsibility to perform the simplest duties of good governance, spitting in the face of 2.6 million Ohio voters who cast ballots for Biden in 2020 by refusing to put him on the ballot for reelection. Even Alabama was able to quickly address and fix their similar situation. Not Ohio.

Gerrymandered Ohio lawmakers apparently only know how to operate under an ethos of political extortion and quid pro quo corruption.

The idea of public service and good governance for its own sake whether in promotion of free and fair elections or even the noble pursuit of promoting the peoples best interests appears to baffle and confound them.

All of this is interconnected: The extremism, the irresponsibility, the misrepresentation and abuse of the public, the wanton corruption, the arrogance and expectation of never being held accountable.

As I have said many times, gerrymandering poisons everything.

It pushes politicians to extremes, denies voters their voice, opens the door to corruption, perpetuates misrepresentation, radicalizes discourse, kills compromise, and disintegrates democracy.

So, to answer our paraphrased Cicero, how long is this madness still to mock us?

Until we say, Enough.

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Ohio Statehouse Republicans stand determined to prove how toxic gerrymandering is Ohio Capital Journal - Ohio Capital Journal

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As testimony ended in Donald Trumps hush money trial on Tuesday, a trio of Texas Republicans Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, along with U.S. Reps. Troy Nehls and Ronny Jackson were there outside the New York courthouse, ready to step into the role of champions for the former president.

They want Donald Trump to disappear, Patrick told reporters outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse late Tuesday after the defense rested its case without their clients testimony. They want to send him to jail. They want to take him off the main stage because they know hes their biggest danger to taking the ruling class down.

Patrick, Nehls and Jackson were among a steady stream of VIP spectators who had flown in to watch the proceeding. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a longtime Trump supporter who is a contender for attorney general in Trumps administration if he wins, came to New York to watch the trial last month. Paxton launched an unsuccessful legal challenge in four battleground states over Trumps 2020 election loss, and was a featured speaker at the Washington rally preceding the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol.

Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records over his 2016 $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels. While he could face imprisonment if convicted, it is an unlikely sentence for someone convicted of a non-violent crime.

Nehls wearing a tie with photographs of Trump holding an American flag called the trial election interference, and Jackson, who was once physician to President Barack Obama and to Trump, called the trials judge and prosecutors corrupt and puppets of the Biden Administration and Biden DOJ.

Closing arguments in Trumps trial are scheduled for next Tuesday, May 28. Jurors are expected to begin deliberations once those are complete. The criminal proceeding is taking place six months before Trump faces President Joe Biden in the 2024 general election. The trial, which began on April 15, has seen countless GOP allies flocking to court to show their support for Trump.

Nehls called for Trump to be U.S. House speaker after Kevin McCarthy was ousted and most recently sported a T-shirt with Trumps mugshot to Bidens State of the Union address in March. Patrick is also a staunch Trump supporter, having chaired Trump's campaigns in Texas in 2016 and 2020.

Paxton, as well as Jackson and Patrick, are all recipients of Trump endorsements during their respective political campaigns. And those endorsements translate well in a state where support for the former president is strong among GOP voters.

Trumps backing particularly paid off for Paxtons heated 2022 primary. Trump also claimed credit for Paxtons acquittal at his impeachment trial last year; he denounced the impeachment proceedings soon before they began. And Trumps support is credited with helping Jackson in his 2020 primary runoff.

While the former president stayed out of Nehls heated 2020 primary runoff against Kathaleen Wall, another Trump supporter, Nehls, Jackson and Paxton have all endorsed Trumps reelection bid.

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Texas Republicans speak on Trumps behalf following trial testimony - The Texas Tribune