The Washington Post - USA (2022-04-25)

MONDAY, APRIL 25 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A

Politics & the Nation

BY TONY ROMM

With inflation on the rise and
coronavirus cases once again
climbing, lawmakers are set to
return to Washington this week
and confront pitched fights over
the financial and physical health
of the country.
For Democratic leaders, the list
includes a need to confirm a slate
of nominees for the Federal Re-
serve, finalize about $10 billion in
stalled pandemic aid and refash-
ion the White House signature
social spending initiative, which
has stalled for over a year.
Each of the debates promises to
train attention on the vexing state
of the economy. Unemployment is
low, yet labor needs remain high.
Wages have grown while prices
are on a steep incline. National
gauges for inflation alone reached
their highest levels in four dec-
ades last month, a spike that left
lawmakers hearing an earful from
voters in their states and districts
during the recess.
“They’re concerned about the
rising costs of living, and that’s
everything from the rising costs of
gas to groceries,” said Rep. Stepha-
nie Murphy (D-Fla.).
Much of the economic tumult
stems from a pandemic that re-
mains impossible to predict and
the evolving aftermath of the Rus-
sian invasion of Ukraine. The dy-
namic nonetheless offers fertile
ground for fresh political squab-
bles between Democrats and Re-
publicans, just over six months
before Americans head to the
polls in the 2022 midterm elec-
tions.
“My sense is this is a make or
break moment,” Sen. Chris Van
Hollen (D-Md.) said about the fate
of the Democratic spending agen-
da. “This will be the moment peo-
ple have to look at each other,
eyeball to eyeball, and make a
determination of whether we’ll
move forward.”
Setting the stage for the week,
Democrats and Republicans took
to the airwaves on Sunday, squar-
ing off on competing news shows
about the extent of inflation and
the role Washington should play
in combating it.
On CNN’s “State of the Union,”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)
stressed that it “is the responsibil-
ity of Congress, of the president, to

get out there and make the changes we need to make to bring down those prices for families.” She accused Republicans of fo- cusing their time on trying to “fight the culture wars,” even as she warned Democrats about the consequences if they fail to advance their own economic agenda. “If we don’t get up and deliver,” Warren said, “then I believe that Democrats are going to lose.” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), meanwhile, said rising prices will be a key driver for Republicans reclaiming the House in Novem- ber. “I predict we’re going to get probably at least 40 seats because this president has been so unpop- ular when it comes to inflation” and other issues, McCaul said on “Fox News Sunday.” For now, the immediate task in the Senate involves the future composition of the central bank. The chamber is set to vote as soon as this week on four nominees for the Federal Reserve: current Chair Jerome H. Powell, Davidson College professor Philip Jefferson,

board governor Lael Brainard and Michigan State University professor Lisa Cook, who would become the first African American woman on the board. All four nominees are expected to prevail, thanks to the tiebreak- ing majority held by Democrats. The process is likely to begin “starting Monday night,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who leads the Banking Committee, adding that the exact timing would depend on “how much” Republicans try to slow down de- bate. Still, the votes are likely to touch off another round of spar- ring over the White House economic policies and the Federal Reserve commitment to raising interest rates as a means of cur- tailing inflation. Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) said the central bank and the Biden administration this month “failed to act fast enough,” as he called for “more aggressive action by a Federal Reserve that waited too long to act.”

Republicans, meanwhile, are readying their own rhetorical bar- rage. While they support Powell and Jefferson, and lack the power to block Brainard and Cook, the upcoming votes offer an opportunity for them to swipe again at the Biden administration for the pace at which costs are rising. “Inflation has risen steadily since the day Biden took office, and it’s taxing working families the hardest,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said in a tweet Friday. “It seems like the very people Biden administration’s policies claim to help are paying the highest price.” Along with the Federal Reserve, Senate Democrats also are scram- bling to approve a $10 billion package that would replenish key coronavirus aid programs. The measure passed the House but has remained stuck in the Senate, where partisan warfare continues to cut deeply into government efforts to provide Americans ac- cess to vaccines and treatments. The stalemate stems from a political broadside in an unrelat-

ed fight over immigration. Repub- lican lawmakers sharply disagree with recent White House plans to lift an order that had curtailed the ability of migrants to seek asylum in the United States. In response, Senate Republi- cans sought to use the coronavirus aid as leverage. They thwarted swift passage of the money to try to force Senate Democrats to hold an uncomfortable vote on an amendment targeting the White House border policies. That es- sentially scuttled hopes to approve the pandemic relief package in the short time before they departed on their holiday recess. Two weeks later, the fight is messier, as Democrats increasingly come to disagree with President Biden themselves. Some of the dissenting voices, including Sens. Mark Kelly (Ariz.) and Raphael G. Warnock (Ga.), also count among the most vulnerable in the party ahead of the election. Meanwhile, the White House has sounded increasingly dire notes about the ability to respond to the pandemic, especially as case counts again trend upward. Even the $10 billion compro- mise that lawmakers failed to approve marked a significant depar- ture from the roughly $22 billion the administration initially sought, a request that Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, described at the time as a down payment for what the government ultimately would need. Separately, a White House official added in a statement that the Biden administration “will be fo- cused on working with lawmakers” to secure adoption of the pandemic aid as well as an additional tranche of funds to assist Ukraine. Biden previewed the request with reporters last week, noting that the intensifying conflict had cut deeply into the roughly $14 billion that Congress adopted in emer- gency support earlier this spring. Some lawmakers have additional priorities on the agenda, including a bipartisan effort in the Senate to try to lower the price of insulin, which Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has pledged to bring to the floor in the weeks ahead. Another crop of members is working on a measure to boost

science and technology. The chamber is set to take its next steps on the bill, which includes about $50 billion to help produce more powerful computer chips in the United States, later this week. “The chip shortage is enough to tell you we need to start making investments in the United States to catch up,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), one of its chief authors. For Democrats, the mounting workload means they must bal- ance matters of routine govern- ance with their broader political aspirations. Central to their task is a renewed attempt to pass a sprawling overhaul to health care, education, climate and tax law, a package of spending once known as Build Back Better. Top White House aides have revived discussions with Man- chin, whose prior opposition to the size and scope of the roughly $2 trillion plan scuttled it last year. His demands jeopardized hopes for Democrats to lower drug costs, rethink the tax code, expand health insurance, invest anew in child care and boost other social safety nets, all promises that helped the party take control of Congress in the first place. Democrats now aim to finalize their work on a new version of the stalled measure by July 4. Man- chin has called for a lower price tag and more deficit reduction in exchange for his critical vote. But Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), a leading voice for the climate provisions, said she has been in conversations in which lawmakers acknowledge they have far less time than it appears, and they need instead to broker a deal around Memorial Day, which marks the end of the upcoming work period. “It doesn’t get easier the longer we wait,” she said. For now, the uncertainty has stoked fresh speculation that Manchin might once again upend the political ambitions of his own party. And it has unnerved fellow Democrats at a time when anxiet- ies are high that voters could pe- nalize lawmakers if they fail to deliver before the election. “I think there’s more we need to do to earn their vote in Novem- ber,” said Rep. Katie Porter (D-Ca- lif.), a senior member of the Con- gressional Progressive Caucus.

Congress returns to spending fights while inflation looms

JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called on her party to advance its economic agenda.

BY HANNAH KNOWLES

As false claims of a stolen elec-
tion took root in 2020, Arizona’s
attorney general — a Republican
— spoke out on national televi-
sion. President Donald Trump
was projected to lose the swing
state, he said on Nov. 11, and “no
facts” suggested that would
change.
This month Mark Brnovich
called into a far-right podcast
with a different message: His
investigation into the vote was
turning up “serious concerns.”
“It’s frustrating for all of us,
because I think we all know what
happened in 2020,” the attorney
general told the host, former
Trump adviser Stephen K. Ban-
non, without explaining what he
meant. The podcast titled the
segment “AZ AG On Interim Re-
port On Stealing The 2020 Elec-
tion.”
Many GOP candidates have
embraced the former president’s
false election claims while seek-
ing a coveted endorsement in
their 2022 primary races. But
Brnovich, now running for the
Senate, stands out for his shift
over the past year and a half. His
Senate campaign has highlighted
his ongoing review of the 2020
vote, launched last year in re-
sponse to a widely ridiculed audit
commissioned by state GOP law-
makers.
Critics say Brnovich has caved
to promoters of disinformation
for political gain in the Republi-
can primary. Calculated choices
to keep fanning Trump’s griev-
ances mean more misinformed
voters, more distractions for elec-
tion workers and more questions
about who will stick up for de-
mocracy in the future, said Tam-
my Patrick, a former elections
official in Arizona’s biggest battle-
ground, Maricopa County.
“If no one is held responsible
for lying ... or undermining confi-
dence based on their own greed
and, you know, desire for power
to either be elected or be reelected
— if no one is held accountable for
those actions, then we are in real
trouble right now,” said Patrick,
who now works with the nonpar-
tisan group Democracy Fund.
Brnovich’s comments on the
election are hardly the most ex-
treme among Arizona’s midterm

candidates. He has not called to decertify results or end the state’s long tradition of mail-in voting, like prominent GOP contenders for governor and secretary of state. But coming from Arizona’s top legal officer, Brnovich’s words hold particular weight. In a campaign email last week, Brnovich said his office found nearly a fifth of early ballots in Maricopa County were “trans- ported outside the chain of cus- tody”; in fact, his report found missing information on paper- work but offered no evidence that ballots left the proper hands. On Bannon’s podcast, he claimed the county uses artificial intelligence to verify ballot signatures; in fact, every signature is verified by election staff. “As his investigators could have told him if he asked,” tweeted Stephen Richer, a top elections official for Maricopa County and a Republican. “Unreal.” Democrat Adrian Fontes — who held Rich- er’s office in 2020 — said in an interview that Brnovich was em- blematic of the GOP and that “political cowardice doesn’t sur- prise me anymore.” The attorney general’s office referred most questions to Brnovich’s campaign, which did not respond to requests for comment. “From his days prosecuting gang and public integrity cases, to his current tenure as Attorney General, Mark Brnovich’s record of upholding the rule of law is beyond reproach,” said Katie Con- ner, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, in a statement. “Our Office remains dedi- cated to the integrity of the investigation, not with responding to political or social media chatter.” She did not respond to a question about whether Brnovich be- lieves Biden fairly won the election. Brnovich announced his campaign for Senate last June, as Arizona’s partisan audit was in full swing. “I understand there are a lot of people who are frus- trated and have questioned the results of the last election, and to me, that speaks to the need for confidence in the system and the need for election integrity measures,” he told the Phoenix-area news radio station KTAR in July.

The five-month spectacle — which election experts called deeply flawed — affirmed Biden’s win in Maricopa County but also provided new fuel for baseless theories. The GOP-led Arizona Senate enlisted a Florida-based company called Cyber Ninjas with no prior experience auditing elections and a chief executive who promoted claims the 2020 vote was tainted by fraud. The recount of more than 2 million ballots included UV lights and a hunt for traces of bamboo. When the state Senate shared an audit report in September, Brnovich said it raised “serious questions” and began his own review. This month — under growing pressure from the right to show results — he released an interim report that laid out voting “vulnerabilities” but described only isolated cases of fraud. Some of Trump’s most ardent supporters were unimpressed. “I don’t like letters,” tweeted far-right state Sen. Wendy Rogers (R). “I like arrests and prosecu- tions.” Trump weighed in scath- ingly Monday, saying the attorney general was choosing “non-co- ntroversy” and all but ruling him out for an endorsement. Soon Blake Masters, one of Brnovich’s opponents in the GOP Senate primary, was on “War Room,” the same podcast where Brnovich had promoted his election investigation. “I don’t think Brnovich’s heart was in it,” said Masters, a venture capitalist who was part of Trump’s presidential transition team. He asked why county leaders were not in handcuffs. Many Republican primary candidates have leaned into false claims about the 2020 election while banking on the support of the president and his loyal follow- ers. In Georgia, Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate David Perdue has amped up his rhetoric this year, falsely claiming that both his Senate race and the presidential race were “stolen.” Around the country, officials who helped run the 2020 election and certify its results have drawn challengers who repeat Trump’s falsehoods. Much rarer: GOP candidates

who went on the record affirming Biden’s win but have now back- tracked. When The Washington Post asked every Republican member of Congress who won the election in late 2020, most did not have a clear position. Zachery Henry, a former com- munications director for the Ari- zona Republican Party, said Brnovich had a strong conservative track record as attorney general and argued he would have been the clear front-runner to challenge Sen. Mark Kelly (D) if he had not come out early defend- ing the election. “I’m sure there are other Re- publicans who felt similarly to him and just were never asked publicly,” said Lorna Romero, a conservative political consultant. “And then now they’ve kind of changed their tune. ... I guarantee you there’s plenty of Republicans out there that saw that there was a massive groundswell and a good fundraising opportunity.” Brnovich’s election report from this month was critical of Marico- pa County’s voting processes, echoing Republican pushes around the country for “election integrity” measures that others call unnecessary. He suggested early-ballot signatures were pro- cessed too quickly; said hundreds of ballot transport forms were missing required information; and alleged that election depart- ments’ use of private grant money raised “serious concerns,” without providing details. In a statement, two Republican Maricopa County leaders said there was “no new evidence, nothing that would have changed the results, and nothing that should lead people to question the overall health of our electoral system.” Joining the “War Room” podcast on April 7, Brnovich added another criticism: He said the county had recently “admitted” to using artificial intelligence to au- thenticate signatures on early ballots. Local election officials had actually emphasized the op- posite in a February response to Brnovich’s office — “To clarify, all signatures are verified by a hu- man and not a computer or soft- ware.” “They’re now copping to, ‘It’s artificial intelligence and not hu- man,’ ” said the podcast host, Ban-

non. “Is that as big a deal as it seems, sir?” “I think it is, Steve,” Brnovich said. “I mean, I will let people draw their own conclusions.” Richer, the Maricopa County recorder, tweeted his outrage: “Omitting material information ... is not how prosecutorial ethics works,” he said. In an open letter last year to fellow Republicans, Richer had urged his party to move on from Trump’s 2020 grievances and named Brnovich as a GOP leader who agreed the election was not rigged. Asked whether Richer thought Brnovich should face a formal misconduct complaint, a spokes- man, Marcus Milam, said the recorder had no further comment. All lawyers are generally “required to avoid dishonesty,” but they are most often disciplined for their actions in court, said Keith Swisher, a legal ethics professor at the University of Ari- zona. Conner, the spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, de- clined to specify what technology Brnovich took issue with. “We have never said that signatures were verified exclusively by AI,” she said.

In an email, county officials had described a “scan” that cate- gorizes signatures as high or low confidence. But they said workers are trained to “analyze all [signatures] the same regardless.” Megan Gilbertson, a spokes- person for the Maricopa County Elections Department, told The Post that scanning technology is not used for verification but helps staff get unsigned envelopes to managers more quickly. Patrick, the adviser at Democ- racy Fund, is intimately familiar with the processes Brnovich criti- cized. Working Maricopa County elections for more than a decade, she said, she did thousands of signature reviews and audited the safeguards in place for mov- ing ballots. “And sometimes people forget to sign one portion of the form ... because elections are conducted by people, for people,” she said. “And people make mistakes.” Brnovich could have been a “lightning rod,” she argued, someone who took in the disinformation roiling the Arizona GOP and tried to neutralize it. Instead he veered toward con- spiracy theories, she said. “It kind of breaks my heart.”

After saying Trump lost, Arizona prosecutor changes message for Senate run

BOB CHRISTIE/ASSOCIATED PRESS Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R), left, i n 20 20.

The Washington Post - USA (2022-04-25)

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