September is ending! (Where did it go???? Feels like it just started …)

But as we stare down the barrel of October, the onward slog of time means something a little different if you’re, say, a state legislator.

In most states, you’re not in full session any more, but you’re doing committee meetings and working on drawing your new (likely GOP-gerrymandered) legislative and/or congressional maps.

In other states, you’re still in your legislative session, doing the people’s business, but also still probably drawing new legislative and congressional district maps.

And in Virginia, you’re likely to be in the home stretch of your (re-)election, since all 100 members of the House of Delegates and the governor, LG, and attorney general are all on the ballot in November.

(If you really want, you can watch/listen to me talk about Virginia with a couple of tremendous organizers on this week’s episode of The Brief. But only if you, like, really want.)

Campaign Action

Wake Me Up When September Ends: The end of September is a major fundraising deadline in politics generally (as your email inbox can no doubt confirm), but it’s a super crucial one in a place with major elections happening in about a month.

(Virginia. It’s Virginia.)

This is also right around the time major GOP organizations like the Republican State Leadership Committee starts dumping epic amounts of cash into these down-ballot races, but more on that in coming weeks as the money begins to flow.

While Virginia Democrats absolutely have some extremely challenging work cut out for them in keeping their 55-45 majority in the state House, Republicans are looking a little desperate, which may explain a recent antisemitic mailer from one GOP campaign.

Democratic Del. Dan Helmer (who earned a place in my heart when he made <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/dan-helmer-helmer-zone--campaign-2018/2017/09/18/9c0c163c-9cac-11e7-b2a7-bc70b6f98089_video.html">an adorably cringey video spoofing a certain classic movie about military pilot</a>s) is both a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and a descendant of Holocaust survivors, which makes the Republican-candidate-approved-and-state-party-paid-for mail piece just a little extra jacked up.


    The <em>Washington Post</em> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/29/antisemitic-mailer-virginia-legislative-race-follows-recent-gop-pattern/">helpfully pointed ou</a>t that this awful mailer is actually part of a broader pattern of antisemitism among Virginia Republicans running for the House of Delegates this fall:

It’s a playbook almost as tired as it is shitty, and here’s hoping Virginia voters don’t reward the jerks behind it with a House majority.

Wake Up Call: It just wouldn’t be a day that ends in Y if Republicans in Wisconsin weren’t coming up with creative new ways to lock in their own power in perpetuity at the expense of actual Badger State voters.

GOP lawmakers’ latest stratagem?

    Stealing <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2021/09/29/wisconsin-republican-lawmakers-want-superintendent-treasurer-secretary-state-appointed-not-elected/5914924001/">the power to elect the state superintendent, state treasurer, and secretary of state</a> from Wisconsinites.
    GOP lawmakers want to instead allow governors to appoint those positions.

Wait! you may be saying, The governor of Wisconsin is a Democrat! Is this really that bad?

Yes, yes, it is.

Here’s why.

Item 1: Taking power to select policymakers away from voters is undemocratic and bad.
Item 2: Republicans’ proposal would make these appointed cabinet positions, which means that anyone a future Democratic governor may appoint to these positions will be subject to Senate confirmation.

    … make that <em>GOP-controlled</em> Senate confirmation.
	
        Because with a new round of gerrymandering under way, it’s almost impossible to see how Democrats flip the upper chamber of the Wisconsin legislature within this decade.
	
	


This drastic change to state government would require amending the state constitution, which makes this one of those pesky matters we’ll have to keep an eye on in the longer term, since such a change requires this undemocratic proposal to

    Pass the full legislature in two consecutive legislative sessions, and then
    Be approved by voters at the ballot box.

Yeah, I’ll call Wisconsin Republicans lots of things, but I’ll never call them uncreative.

Wake Up Alone: It finally happened, y’all.

The Cyber Ninjas put on their fancy black footie pajamas, busted out the Nerf katana, and presented their “report” on the Maricopa County election “audit” to the Arizona state Senate.

We know the firm—which, as a reminder, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/24/politics/arizona-election-review-results/index.html">has zero experience with election auditing</a>—was really really proud of its findings because its CEO Doug Logan (and a few other assorted jokers) presented them on a Friday evening.

And as a beautiful, successful, eligible woman, I … had nothing better to do last Friday night than watch the final act of this stupid, democracy-undermining circus.

sigh

But who needs expensive jewelry when you can watch a farce that cost Arizona taxpayers and private donors almost $6 million play out in real time?

Democracy is sexy, but Friday’s presentation was most assuredly … not.

Logan and Cyber Ninjas subcontractors used their time before the state Senate (and the … tens of us who were watching on C-SPAN) to misleadingly characterize some of the ballots they hand-counted as shady or questionable (they weren’t) and Maricopa’s election-related cybersecurity as inadequate (it wasn’t).

    As an example, here’s one (easily and thoroughly debunked) <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/24/politics/arizona-election-review-results/index.html">lie Logan pushed</a>:

	
        He claimed that Maricopa County had received and counted more than 74,000 mail-in ballots "where there is no clear record of them being sent" to voters.
        In fact, those 74,000 ballots were actually early votes cast in-person.

Stupidity rising from general ineptitude in reviewing election procedures and mechanics?

Maybe.

But Logan himself has a history of promoting wild election conspiracy theories, so it’s difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt here.

But circus sideshow aside, the Maricopa County election “audit” failed to do what many Arizona Republicans had hoped: Demonstrate that Joe Biden had not won the county (or the state) in November 2020.

    In fact … this farce somehow managed to find <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/09/the-arizona-election-audit-reveals-more-votes-for-biden-no-evidence-of-fraud.html">an additional 360 votes</a> for Biden out of the almost 2.1 million cast.

whoops

Oh, but did you think this was over?

As an erudite consumer of this missive, you probably know better.

Of course, we already know that Arizona-style fraudits are kicking off in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and … <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/texas-republicans-join-parade-unneeded-election-audits-n1280019">Texas, for some reason</a>?


    Well, it’s because Joe Biden carried a three of the four being targeted for “auditing,” and also because this whole campaign by the GOP is ultimately about undermining Americans’ faith in our electoral system, but still.


And bonus: some right-wing conspiracy theorists have turned their, ah, creative talents to explaining why <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/10fBpC6XBc0NM8P8BW8l_myXQL7azitj7/view">Cyber Ninjas’ report</a> failed to yield the Trump upset they were hoping for.

    Because it’s not the “real” report.
    Because the “deep state” somehow found the “real” report, hid it, and replaced it with one that found 360 more votes for Biden.
	
        No, seriously: Some far-right media personalities have even begun <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/now-election-deniers-are-circulating-a-fake-arizona-audit-report-to-attack-2020-results">circulating a fictitious “real” report</a>, a fairytale that advises Arizona lawmakers not to certify the 2020 presidential election results.
		
            … except <a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-donald-trump-arizona-elections-doug-ducey-e2b8b0de5b809efcc9b1ad5d279023f4">the GOP governor already did</a>, like, last year.

Yeah, this is definitely going to get weirder before it gets better.

Welp! That’s a wrap for this week!

… and maybe for a little while! Next week I’ll be up to my eyeballs in Netroots Nation 2021 (are you coming? You should! I’m on two wicked cool panels: One with a bunch of amazing Democratic secretaries of state and another with those wicked smart folks at Daily Kos Elections I talk about in this space so often!), and then I’ll be [REDACTED] in [REDACTED] for [REDACTED].

I’ll miss you, though.

And until I return, I have just one thing to ask of you:

Take care of yourself.

You’re important.

We need you.