John Merrill defends tweets from personal account after criticism
Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill is drawing criticism after reposting what critics are calling insensitive content on his personal Twitter page. More than 20 groups and individuals wrote him a letter expressing their disapproval, stating his tweets were racially insensitive and promoted violence. Merrill recently retweeted one item that criticized “Black Lives Matter’s war on whites.” A second post said, “when patriots decide it’s time to fight back it’s gonna be ugly.” The groups who have criticized him asked him to appear at a Tuesday news conference in Montgomery to answer for his actions. Camille Bennett, Project Say Something Founder, told WHNT-TV the posts were racially insensitive and irresponsible. “We understood how we were going to be affected by tweets like that, so we found it necessary to come together quickly and come up with a statement and work together to make sure we push it out to the public,” Bennett commented. “It was not only one-sided, but it was really irresponsible. If you’re going to post something like that, talking about a war on whites, you really need to show the entire picture,” Bennett added. Merrill defended his actions, stating, “The people that have a concern about my social media engagement or activity should not follow me on social media if they have a concern about that. If they want to follow the Office of the Secretary of State, they’re certainly welcome to do that.” Today, Merrill posted the following on his Twitter page, “Today I expressed to @MikeCasonAL of @aldotcom my profound appreciation for the personal freedoms granted to us as American citizens. We are blessed to live in the greatest country in the world. We should always respect others opinions and concerns!” Today I expressed to @MikeCasonAL of @aldotcom my profound appreciation for the personal freedoms granted to us as American citizens. We are blessed to live in the greatest country in the world. We should always respect others opinions and concerns!#NotOnMySocialMediaPlatforms pic.twitter.com/URcdI5CkJ8 — John Merrill (@JohnHMerrill) November 24, 2020 The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Del Marsh stepping down as Senate pro tempore, Greg Reed nominated
Longtime Senate President Pro Tempore Del Marsh is stepping down from his leadership position, saying he wants to devote his final two years in Montgomery to education issues. Senate Republicans on Monday nominated Sen. Greg Reed of Jasper to replace Marsh as president pro tempore. Senators are expected to approve the choice when lawmakers convene for the session in February. Republicans hold a firm majority in the Senate. Marsh had announced earlier that he would not seek reelection in 2022. In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, the senator said Tuesday that he wants to concentrate his energy on education legislation, including broadband and possibly sweeping legislation that could address issues ranging from teacher pay to increased school choice. “This is my last quadrennium. I want to focus this session specifically on that, and I can do it better as a senator than as a pro tem,” Marsh said. Marsh said the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw students finishing the school year from home, spotlighted the need for increased broadband access in the state. The Anniston Republican said he is also working on an education package, which would go before voters for approval. While he is still working on specifics, he said it might address issues ranging from increasing teacher pay, tenure changes, and increased school choice opportunities. Marsh said he is conducting polls to see what the public would support. “The goal is to put together an education package that can achieve bipartisan support,” Marsh said. Marsh was the architect of the 2014 Alabama Accountability Act that provides tax credits for donations to scholarship programs to help low-income students attend private schools. The law also provides criteria to designate public schools with the lowest test scores as failing. Marsh has said the scholarships provide a lifeline to students stuck in underperforming schools. Critics say the tax credits divert money from public education. The legislation was passed during a chaotic floor fight with Democrats after the scholarship bill was substituted for a different bill. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Bradley Byrne: A national compact
Four hundred years ago this month, a group of just over 100 people arrived off the shores of Cape Cod after a two-month sail from England. They were dissenters from the Church of England like the Puritans but went further by formally separating from the established church they considered to be corrupt beyond repair. We call them “Pilgrims,” although there is only one instance when any one of them used that word to describe themselves. That person was William Bradford, the longtime governor of the Plymouth Colony, who borrowed the word from the 11th Chapter of the Book of Hebrews. Their arrival that November was not the occasion of the first Thanksgiving. That came the next year when they had built their homes and brought in their first harvest. In fact, they spent their first few months in a harsh winter still on their ship, the Mayflower, while their settlement was built. Their original destination wasn’t Plymouth but the mouth of the Hudson River where New York City is today, then the northern part of the Virginia Colony, but they were weary after a long journey, running low on provisions and determined to begin the long work of establishing their new home. That meant they weren’t on land covered by Virginia’s royal charter and so there were no colonial government or laws. Some on the ship weren’t separatists like the Pilgrims, remaining true to the Church of England, and talked about “using their own liberty.” These “Strangers,” as the Pilgrims called them, thus threatened the order of the new community. So, before they landed, all of the adult male settlers on the ships, Pilgrim and Stranger, reached an agreement we know as the Mayflower Compact under which they organized themselves as a “Civil Body Politic” by which they could “frame such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Offices from time to time, as shall be thought meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony.” They weren’t declaring independence from England but laid out a basis for people to govern themselves in America. Their example was an inspiration for those who 150 years later would indeed seek independence to form a new American nation with a government based on the consent of the people. The Compact was also firmly based on the settlers’ religious beliefs. It begins with the words “In the Name of God, Amen”, and states frankly that their voyage to America was “undertaken for the Glory of God, and the Advancement of the Christian Faith.” Yet, as they differed on exactly what their faith meant, they established not a theocracy but a civil government based on the laws made by the settlers themselves. Their settlement was risky, and their path filled with hard work, privation, and danger, but their faith sustained them. That faith would indeed inspire them to hold a three-day time of thanksgiving a year later after a successful harvest. Perhaps, in this time of political polarization, we should renew our compact with each other as members of a great nation. Understanding our differences, we can yet agree to work with each other through those differences and achieve a successful consensus based upon shared principles and the value of sacrifice and hard work. As President Abraham Lincoln observed, we are the last best hope of earth, a nation founded by and beholden to the people. We should, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, “pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” In the Name of God, Amen. Congressman Bradley Byrne currently represents Alabama’s 1st congressional district.
Will Sellers: The enduring legacy of Margaret Thatcher
Thirty years ago, this week, the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century resigned. Margaret Thatcher, having governed since 1979, saw her leadership challenged, but rather than continue to fight, she was gaslighted into believing she was losing her grip on her party and would lose her office in an embarrassing vote. None of that was true. In fact, the very men who rode to leadership positions on her coattails and hid behind her skirts during controversy allowed their greed for power to debase their loyalty to the Iron Lady. Dejected, she resigned and thus, quietly exited British politics. Prior to Thatcher’s leadership, Britain was in decline and, by all economic measures, sliding into second rate status. Rather than control its financial destiny, the International Monetary Fund was needed to help the Empire shore up her accounts. Socialism dominated with anti-capitalist trade unions and nationalized industries weighing down any real economic growth. But in the winter of British discontent, Thatcher emerged to lead the minority Conservative Party into the majority. For more than a decade thereafter, she was the face of the party, and even when she left the scene, the imprint of “Thatcherism” would remain a dominant political ideology. Thatcher’s political program relied upon a simple appeal to the British sensibilities. She believed in limited government, liberty of the individual, and the rule of law. But rather than relying solely on rhetoric, she acted on her beliefs and ushered in a golden age that changed not only Britain, but the entire world. Indeed, the world she inherited in 1979 stood in stark contrast to the world in 1990. She caused the contrast. Unlike many political leaders who espouse high minded principles, she pursued hers with what some considered reckless abandon. Thatcher took significant steps to push back the suffocating hand of state control and return the economy to a true free market. Government intervention was replaced with individual responsibility and human action. There are five significant events revealing what Thatcher believed by how she acted. And the impact of her actions had ramifications that still affect both British and international politics. Thatcher organized her government to firmly oppose state-sponsored terrorism and declined to allow the cloak of diplomatic immunity to cover subversive activities. When the Libyan Embassy in London was used to harbor snipers to shoot protestors and ended up killing British policewoman Yvonne Fletcher, the prime minister terminated diplomatic relations and used special forces to clear the embassy and send the terrorists masquerading as diplomats packing. She would similarly send a large contingent of Russians home when it was clear their embassy was a cover for supporting domestic terrorists and spying on military and industrial targets. These actions rankled some in the diplomatic community who wanted her to be more deferential, but by sending a message of British resolve, she earned the respect of the world community. Perhaps the one thing cementing Britain‘s return to power was the Falkland Island campaign. While it was only a small British outpost near Argentina, Thatcher recognized that the Argentine invasion was not simply a threat to the islanders but also a challenge to international British interests. Unwilling to concede anything, she ordered the unequivocal liberation of the islands and effectively threw down a marker that she would defend and protect British subjects and interests anywhere at any cost. Accepting the Argentine invasion would have been the easy course, but while some in Britain were embarrassed at her saber-rattling and projection of military power, the vast majority saw her actions as patriotic and a reminder of the former greatness of the empire. After the Falkland’s victory, Thatcher’s popularity soared, and when a general election was called, she achieved a landslide victory establishing a conservative majority that lasted until 1997. On the domestic front, Thatcher knew from the beginning of her administration that she had a dead reckoning with trade unionism, whose power had grown so strong and influential that strikes could paralyze the country. But rather than take them on directly, the wily strategist first worked to pass laws that prevented union corruption and inappropriate strikes. Once those laws were in place, she realized that the first challenge would be with the coal miners’ union. At that time, coal miners in Britain were a larger part of a socialist network that had grown in influence because coal was so critical to energy and the economy. But a minority of the unions were not part of this network and Thatcher allied herself with them, stockpiling coal to outlast the socialists. So, when the coal miners decided to strike, she was prepared. First with lawsuits that prevented sympathy strikes from other unions by exacting fines and then with resources to close unprofitable mines and wait until the unions were unable to hold out. The coal miners were the first step, but gradually she reduced the unions’ economic stranglehold and began to privatize state-owned industries, which made the British economy more dynamic and competitive. With an established Church, the parameters for separation of church and state are not debated in Parliament. In fact, the prime minister was involved in approving ecclesiastical promotion. Unlike other politicians who rarely addressed religious issues directly, Thatcher had no such reticence. When she became alarmed at the liberal bent of the established Church, she found an opportunity to explain to the professional clergy exactly how she viewed their role in society. Addressing the General Assembly of Scotland, she boldly stated, “Christianity is about spiritual redemption, not social reform.” She chastised church leaders for failing to appreciate capitalism and the spiritual benefits it provided. It is hard to imagine a political leader who would have the intestinal fortitude to attend a denominational gathering, articulate a theology, and take ministers to task for in essence failing in their mission. Her speech, known derisively as “The Epistle to the Caledonians” is readily available
Texts: US census manager told counters to use fake answers
The texts from an Alabama census supervisor had an urgent tone. “THIS JUST IN …,” one of them began. It then laid out how census takers should fake data to mark households as having only one resident even if they had no idea how many people actually lived there. The goal of the texts from October, obtained by The Associated Press, was to check off as many households as possible on the list of homes census takers were supposed to visit because residents never had filled out census questionnaires. The supervisor wanted the census takers to finalize cases — without interviewing households — as the Trump administration waged a legal battle to end the once-a-decade headcount early. The texts are the latest evidence suggesting census accuracy was sacrificed for speed as census takers and supervisors rushed to complete a headcount last month. Critics contend the schedule was shortened by two weeks so the Trump administration could enforce a presidential order excluding people in the country illegally from the numbers used for apportionment of congressional districts. The texted instructions said that if two failed attempts were made to interview members of the households, along with two unsuccessful tries to interview landlords or neighbors about the homes’ residents, then the census takers should mark that a single person lived there. “You are to clear the case indicating occupied by 1,” said the text from the census supervisor in the small city of Dothan, Alabama. The texts were shared with the AP by a census taker from Florida who traveled to Alabama among groups of enumerators dispatched to areas lagging behind in the count. The existence of the texts suggests that falsification of census data may be more widespread than previously known. The census taker who provided the texts asked for anonymity because of privacy concerns and said she refused to follow the texted guidance because she felt doing so would falsify data. She declined to name the supervisor, who was identified only by her first name in screenshots of the texts seen by the AP. The U.S. Census Bureau has denied any attempts to systemically falsify information during the 2020 census, which is vital to determining the allocation of congressional seats and federal spending. But the AP has chronicled similar instructions sent to census takers in other U.S. regions. Census Bureau spokesman Michael Cook said the agency is investigating the Alabama case and has not identified any data irregularities. When there appear to be problems with data collection, the bureau can take steps such as revisiting households to improve accuracy, he said. “We take falsification allegations very seriously,” Cook said. More than two dozen census takers and supervisors have contacted the AP since the beginning of the month, telling similar stories about corners cut in the rush to close cases as the Trump administration sought to end the census before the Oct. 31 deadline set in response to the pandemic. The most recent cases also include a census supervisor in Baltimore who said that thousands of addresses were manually marked completed without evidence that residents had been interviewed. The Alabama supervisor in her text included a photo of her hand-written instructions listing the 15 steps she said would allow the census takers to mark in their bureau-issued iPhones that only one person lived in a home without interviewing anyone about the household’s demographic makeup or the number of people living there. The supervisor also recommended performing the steps two to three hours after trying to interview members of a household to avoid arousing suspicions from higher-ups who could track where census takers had been through their iPhones. The instructions for the census takers in Alabama were sent a week before the Supreme Court made a ruling that allowed the Trump administration to end field operations for the 2020 census on Oct. 15 instead of Oct 31. The Census Bureau has said it compiled information for about 99.9% of U.S. households in the U.S. during field operations. At the height of the door-knocking phase of the census in mid-August, there were more than 285,000 temporary census takers on the bureau’s payroll. In Baltimore, census supervisor Amanda Colianni said she believes 5,300 cases in neighborhoods she managed were closed prematurely and removed from the door-knocking effort after only one attempt by census takers to interview members of households in mid-to-late September. The Census Bureau was working toward what officials believed at the time would be an Oct. 5 early finish for the count. Colianni said she does not know why the cases were removed or how they were resolved, though she says it’s possible that government administrative records were used to fill in the information gaps when detailed records from the IRS, the Social Security Administration, or other agencies existed for the households. An outside census advisory group warned this month that filling in large numbers of households with administrative data late in the census process suggests no high-quality data existed for the addresses. If that had been the case, the group said, it would have been used earlier to save census takers time. “I know the management level in Baltimore was trying to push, push, push to get everything done,” Colianni said. “There was no possible way we could have any semblance of a reasonable completion rate by Oct. 5.” Colianni filed statements with the Commerce Department’s Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, and a coalition of local governments and advocacy groups that have sued the Trump administration over its attempts to shorten the 2020 census schedule. The coalition’s case led to the Supreme Court decision allowing the Trump administration to end the headcount. The coalition’s lawsuit in San Jose, California said the deadline for finishing the count was changed from the end of October to the end of September to ensure that number-crunching for the census would take place while President Donald Trump was still in office, no matter the outcome of the presidential race. That could guarantee the enforcement of an order
Alabama certifies election results, record absentee voting
Alabama officials on Monday certified results of the Nov. 3 election that saw a record number of absentee ballots cast during the COVID-19 pandemic. The State Canvassing Board, which consists of Secretary of State John Merrill and representatives for the governor and attorney general, met briefly to certify the returns. President Donald Trump easily won Alabama, capturing 62% of the votes. Republican Tommy Tuberville defeated incumbent Sen. Doug Jones, winning about 60% of the vote. “The numbers broke specifically the way you would have expected them to, based on returns you saw in 2014, 2016, 2018, and now 2020— approximately 60-40 Republican to Democrat split,” Merrill said. “People in our state seemed to vote for three purposes. Number one, they voted for the president. Number two, they voted against the president and number three, they voted for Senator Jones,” Merrill said. Merrill said 318,000 absentee ballots were cast this year, shattering the previous record of 89,000. The surge in absentee ballot voting came after rules were loosened during the pandemic. Normally, to vote absentee, people must swear that they are out of town or ill or working during polling hours. Merrill said this year people could vote by absentee ballot if they are concerned about the risk of COVID-19 at the polls. Some Alabama lawmakers have said they will push to allow more early and absentee voting in the state, but the outlook for the legislation is unclear in the GOP-controlled Alabama Legislature. A record number of 2.3 million Alabamians voted in the Nov. 3 election after increases in voter registration. However, the number was short of initial projections that estimated that more than 2.5 million people might vote and short of the 2008 record for the percentage of registered voters coming to the polls. About 62% of registered voters voted in the election. More than 70% of registered voters cast ballots in 2008 and 2012, according to state records. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Biden adds Obama administration veterans to top staff
President-elect Joe Biden is adding four Obama-Biden administration veterans to his top ranks as he continues to build out his White House team. Cathy Russell, who was Jill Biden’s chief of staff during the Obama administration, will serve as director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, evaluating applicants for administration roles. Louisa Terrell, who served as a legislative adviser to the president in the Obama administration and worked as deputy chief of staff for Biden in the Senate, will be director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs. Terrell has already been engaged in Capitol Hill outreach as part of Biden’s transition team. Carlos Elizondo, who was social secretary for Jill Biden during the Obama administration, will reprise his role and serve as social secretary for the incoming first lady. And Mala Adiga will serve as her policy director. Her role hints at what Biden may focus on as first lady — Adiga previously worked as a director for higher education and military families at the Biden Foundation and also advised Jill Biden on policy during the Obama administration. The announcements come just a few days after Biden unveiled his first major round of top White House staff, including the appointment of his current campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, to serve as deputy chief of staff, and campaign co-chair Rep. Cedric Richmond as director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. Late last week, he announced that longtime aide Ron Klain will serve as his chief of staff. While the new hires give a sense of the White House that Biden is beginning to build, he has yet to appoint someone to fill the role of COVID-19 coordinator, which Klain announced this week, or name individuals for key communications roles. His team has thousands more staff-level roles to fill when it takes over the administration in January, and they’re currently reviewing applications and reaching out to potential candidates for key roles. Biden has indicated he plans to make and announce some of his Cabinet picks around Thanksgiving, and he said Thursday he’s already made his decision for treasury secretary. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Joe Biden’s transition gets green light as Donald Trump at last relents
The federal government recognized President-elect Joe Biden as the “apparent winner” of the Nov. 3 election on Monday, formally starting the transition of power after President Donald Trump spent weeks testing the boundaries of American democracy. He relented after suffering yet more legal and procedural defeats in his seemingly futile effort to overturn the election with baseless claims of fraud. Trump still refused to concede and vowed to continue to fight in court after General Services Administrator Emily Murphy gave the green light for Biden to coordinate with federal agencies ahead of his Jan. 20 inauguration. But Trump did tweet that he was directing his team to cooperate on the transition. Monday’s fast-moving series of events seemed to let much of the air out of Trump’s frantic efforts to undermine the will of the people in what has amounted to a weekslong stress test for American democracy. But Trump’s attempts to foment a crisis of confidence in the political system and the fairness of U.S. elections haven’t ended and are likely to persist well beyond his lame-duck presidency. Murphy, explaining her decision, cited “recent developments involving legal challenges and certifications of election results.” She acted after Michigan on Monday certified Biden’s victory in the battleground state, and a federal judge in Pennsylvania tossed a Trump campaign lawsuit on Saturday seeking to prevent certification in that state. It also comes as an increasing number of Republicans were publicly acknowledging Biden’s victory, after weeks of tolerating Trump’s baseless claims of fraud. The president had grown increasingly frustrated with the flailing tactics of his legal team. “With Michigan’s certifying (its) results, Joe Biden has over 270 electoral college votes,” tweeted Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy. “President Trump’s legal team has not presented evidence of the massive fraud which would have had to be present to overturn the election. I voted for President Trump, but Joe Biden won.” Yohannes Abraham, executive director of the Biden transition, said in a statement that the decision “is a needed step to begin tackling the challenges facing our nation, including getting the pandemic under control and our economy back on track.” He added: “In the days ahead, transition officials will begin meeting with federal officials to discuss the pandemic response, have a full accounting of our national security interests, and gain complete understanding of the Trump administration’s efforts to hollow out government agencies.” Murphy, a Trump appointee, has faced bipartisan criticism for failing to begin the transition process sooner, preventing Biden’s team from working with career agency officials on plans for his administration. The delay denied Biden access to receive highly classified national security briefings and hindered his team’s ability to begin drawing up its own plans to respond to the raging coronavirus pandemic. Murphy insisted she acted on her own. “Please know that I came to my decision independently, based on the law and available facts. I was never directly or indirectly pressured by any Executive Branch official—including those who work at the White House or GSA—with regard to the substance or timing of my decision,” she wrote in a letter to Biden. Trump tweeted moments after Murphy’s decision: “We will keep up the good fight and I believe we will prevail! Nevertheless, in the best interest of our Country, I am recommending that Emily and her team do what needs to be done with regard to initial protocols, and have told my team to do the same.” Max Stier, president and CEO of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service criticized the delay but said Biden’s team would be able to overcome it. “Unfortunately, every day lost to the delayed ascertainment was a missed opportunity for the outgoing administration to help President-elect Joe Biden prepare to meet our country’s greatest challenges,” he said. “The good news is that the president-elect and his team are the most prepared and best equipped of any incoming administration in recent memory.” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the GSA action “is probably the closest thing to a concession that President Trump could issue.″ Noting that the nation “faces multiple crises that demand an orderly transition,″ Schumer urged Democrats and Republicans to “unite together for a smooth and peaceful transition that will benefit America.″. Murphy’s action came just 90 minutes after Michigan election officials certified Biden’s 154,000-vote victory in the state. The Board of State Canvassers, which has two Republicans and two Democrats, confirmed the results on a 3-0 vote with one GOP abstention. Trump and his allies had hoped to block the vote to allow time for an audit of ballots in Wayne County, where Trump has claimed without evidence that he was the victim of fraud. Biden crushed the president by more than 330,000 votes there. Under Michigan law, Biden claims all 16 electoral votes. Biden won by 2.8 percentage points — a larger margin than in other states where Trump is contesting the results like Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Some Trump allies had expressed hope that state lawmakers could intervene in selecting Republican electors in states that do not certify. That long-shot bid is no longer possible in Michigan. “The people of Michigan have spoken. President-elect Biden won the State of Michigan by more than 154,000 votes, and he will be our next president on January 20th,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said in a statement, saying it’s “time to put this election behind us.” The Trump legal team dismissed the certification as “simply a procedural step” and insisted it would continue to mount legal challenges. Trump’s efforts to stave off the inevitable — formal recognition of his defeat — have faced increasingly stiff resistance from the courts and fellow Republicans with just three weeks to go until the Electoral College meets to certify Biden’s victory. Time and again, Trump’s baseless allegations of widespread conspiracy and fraud have been met with rejection as states move forward with confirming their results. Trump was increasingly frustrated by his legal team, led by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani,
