The Supreme Court just sent a dark signal for voting rights

View in browser   July 1, 2021 Happy Thursday. We've got some major developments out from both Donald Trump's business empire and the Supreme Court. Early this morning, Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization's longtime chief financial officer, surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney's office ahead of expected charges against Donald Trump's business. It's still unclear what the exact charges are—the indictments are reportedly dropping this afternoon—but our DC bureau has some key details: New York prosecutors have been pressing Weisselberg to cooperate for months, investigating both him and his son, Barry, who also worked for the Trump Organization, running the Central Park ice skating rink the company manages. Investigators focused on the lavish benefits the Weisselbergs received from Trump on top of their salaried compensation, including luxury car leases, apartments, and $500,000 in tuition payments for Weisselberg's grandchildren at a tony Manhattan private school once attended by Trump's son, Barron. Reportedly, neither Weisselberg nor his son have cooperated. While giving employees perks is not illegal, there are complex rules governing how these benefits must be valued and taxed. Meanwhile, Ari Berman reports on the Supreme Court's decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, where the high court's conservative majority ruled in favor of Arizona's voter suppression laws: The court gave its blessing to two laws passed by Arizona's GOP-controlled legislature—one preventing anyone but a voter's family member or caregiver from returning a mail-in ballot and another one throwing out votes cast in the wrong precinct—that had been struck down by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in January 2020 for discriminating against Native American, Latino, and Black voters. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for a 6-3 conservative majority in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, argued that disparate impact among racial or ethnic groups isn't enough to make voting laws illegal. "The mere fact that there is some disparity in impact does not necessarily mean that a system is not equally open or that it does not give everyone an equal opportunity to vote," he wrote in upholding the Arizona restrictions. The decision, of course, doesn't bode well for voting rights advocates, as it comes amid a national push by Republicans to enact strict voting restrictions across the country. Democrats have already filed a series of lawsuits in response to those moves, setting up a major legal battle that could very well end up at the high court. Not great! —Inae Oh Advertisement   Supreme Court Gives Green Light to GOP Voter Suppression Laws The ruling in favor of Arizona voting restrictions has national reverberations. BY ARI BERMAN SPONSORED POST   How to Beat an Invisible Enemy: Indoor Air Pollution Very few people consider the dangers of contaminants inside our homes and offices. THIS CONTENT WAS PAID FOR AND SPONSORED BY AVOCADO MATTRESS.   Dark money is about to get much darker BY RUSS CHOMA Donald Trump's top financial lieutenant surrenders to Manhattan DA BY DANIEL SCHULMAN AND RUSS CHOMA Robinhood was just hit with a $70 million fine, the largest ever by this federal regulator BY HANNAH LEVINTOVA Nikole Hannah-Jones finally has been granted tenure. But the damage is already done. BY IAN GORDON Advertisement   Old People in Prison Were Left to Die From COVID. It Didn't Have to Be That Way. Now the vaccine could offer states an excuse not to release anyone. BY PIPER MCDANIEL   We have a $350,000 fundraising goal by July 17 and we're running behind where we need to be. Please read more about what's on the line and support our team's nonprofit journalism with a donation today if you can. Donate SOME GOOD NEWS, FOR ONCE To Know George Washington Is Not Necessarily to Love Him. Just Ask Historian Alexis Coe. I admittedly wouldn’t call this a typical summer beach read, but I’ll say this: The book to read this summer when you need a break from all that new social interaction is about George Washington. But! I promise it’s not a typical Washington tome. Rather, it’s the one for the moment. When historian Alexis Coe and I caught up earlier this year, when her irreverent but thoroughly researched biography of the first president, You Never Forget Your First, was coming out in paperback, she told me, “On almost every page, there’s something about slavery.”  The issue, at least in part, is the people who have written that history, the vast majority of whom are white and male. “The way they all talked about women was odd,” Coe told me of the many (many, many) men who have written presidential biographies of Washington. “When I would look at the citations, sometimes there weren’t any, which is really curious. And other times, they’d be citing [Ron] Chernow or each other or Chernow often cites himself.” For better or worse, there’s been a bit of a spoonful-of-sugar reaction to the book’s coverage—as if Coe has a personality and way of writing that balance out the real stuff somehow. It’s true, Coe’s humor is irresistible—I will never forget the phrase “the thigh men of dad history” as long as I am on this earth—but the power of her book lies in her dogged pursuit of the stories that belong to those who surrounded our first president, those who historically have been either portrayed using racist and sexist cliches or ignored altogether.  For instance, descriptions of Mary Washington, George’s mother, were particularly grating: The words “crusty” and “shrewish” were used by Chernow in his famous biography of the first president, without evidence to support those characterizations. Mary is also alleged to be illiterate by some of these male historians, which Coe’s research proves is completely incorrect; she devoutly read her Bible, making notes in the margins, and she wrote letters to her son.  What further sets the book apart is how Coe delves into Washington’s slaveholder status and examines Mount Vernon as a forced labor camp, intentionally keeping that context threaded through the book. “Washington became an enslaver at the age of 11; that was his longest-held title. We think of him as the general and president, but we also have to think of him as master,” she says. “When I look at what his days were, we know, whether [slaves are] mentioned or not in every single letter, in every single diary, or ledger, we know they’re there.” Without them, Washington’s legendary status would not exist, and still, they are the people who are erased from his history. In the end, Coe does not attempt to gloss over the gaps in knowledge about the women in Washington’s life, or the enslaved people who made his life possible. Rather, she uses the lack of information to drive home how their humanity was ignored. I talked to Coe about this way of reading between the lines, how she portrays Washington, the entire person, and how we need to more fully understand the power dynamics of race, sex, and class in Washington’s personal life and as a component in the founding of this country. Read our Q&A here. —Becca Andrews Did you enjoy this newsletter? Help us out by forwarding it to a friend or sharing it on Facebook and Twitter. Donate Subscribe This message was sent to franchmaverickk.secretwords123@blogger.com. To change the messages you receive from us, you can edit your email preferences or unsubscribe from all mailings. For advertising opportunities see our online media kit. Were you forwarded this email? 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