GOP lawmaker to resign from House

WASHINGTON — Representative Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who has spearheaded House pushback against the Chinese government, said Friday he would resign from the House, leaving House Republicans with the thinnest of majorities.

Gallagher, 40, announced he would resign his position on April 19. It will leave Republicans with a 217-213 majority in the House, meaning that they cannot afford to lose more than one vote on a party-line vote. The thin majority has already proved to be a challenge for Republican leadership and forced House Speaker Mike Johnson to work with Democrats to pass practically any legislation.

Gallagher had already announced he would not seek reelection.

A former Marine who grew up in Green Bay, he has represented northeastern Wisconsin in Congress since 2017. He spent last year leading a new House committee dedicated to countering China. During the committee’s first hearing, he framed the competition between the United States and China as “an existential struggle over what life will look like in the

21st century.”

There also won’t be a special election for Gallagher’s seat. His resignation will happen within a window in Wisconsin law that dictates the seat be filled in the general election.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Republicans taking tougher stance on elections

When Donald Trump installed a new chairman of the Republican Party this month, he explained privately and publicly what he wanted from the GOP: a bigger focus on election-related lawsuits, a more aggressive operation to monitor voting, and a vow to make “election integrity” the party’s No. 1 priority.

The party is now striking a more aggressive tone as it recruits poll observers to keep an eye on in-person voting and boasts of positioning thousands of lawyers to challenge ballots and bring lawsuits. The strategy — an outgrowth of the one it used both before the 2020 election and after, when Trump sought to overturn the result — is meant to please Trump, electrify the base, and persuade judges to tighten voting rules.

“It’s an extremely high priority for the president,” said the new Republican National Committee chairman, Michael Whatley, referring to Trump.

But the reality of what Republicans can achieve may not match Trump’s desires. Democrats have raised huge sums to fight Republican efforts, even as the GOP remains cash-strapped.

And the legal terrain is more settled now than it was four years ago, when courts had to weigh in on how to conduct voting during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. That leaves fewer opportunities to change the rules through the courts.

Legal fights over voting rules took off after the Supreme Court narrowly decided the 2000 presidential election and have escalated since. In 2020, election officials across the country changed election deadlines and expanded mail voting in response to the pandemic, leading to fast-moving litigation and rulings close to Election Day. Another wave of suits came when Trump and his allies fruitlessly challenged his loss, with at least 86 judges, including both Democratic and Republican appointees, turning down attempts to challenge or overturn the vote.

WASHINGTON POST

Trump rhetoric dividing Jewish community in US

Since the start of his political career, Donald Trump has played on stereotypes about Jews and politics.

He told the Republican Jewish Coalition in 2015 that “you want to control your politicians” and suggested the audience used money to exert control. In the White House, he said Jews who vote for Democrats are “very disloyal to Israel.”

Two years ago, the former president hosted two dinner guests at his Florida residence who were known to make virulent antisemitic comments.

And this week, Trump charged that Jewish Democrats were being disloyal to their faith and to Israel. That had many American Jews taking up positions behind now-familiar political lines. Trump opponents accused him of promoting antisemitic tropes while his defenders suggested he was making a fair political point in his own way.

Jonathan Sarna, American Jewish history professor at Brandeis University, said Trump is capitalizing on tensions within the Jewish community.

“For people who hate Donald Trump in the Jewish community, certainly this statement will reinforce their sense that they don’t want to have anything to do with him,” he said. “For people who like Donald Trump in the Jewish community, they probably nod in agreement.”

Trump’s comments followed a speech by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the country’s highest-ranking Jewish official. Schumer, a Democrat, last week sharply criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s handling of the war in Gaza. Schumer called for new elections in Israel and warned the civilian toll was damaging Israel’s global standing.

“Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion,” Trump retorted Monday on a talk show. “They hate everything about Israel.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS