Democrats’ 2020 defeats haunt them in voting rights fight

Democrats hoped to spend 2021 aggressively expanding voting access. Instead, they are scrapping to put up a fight due to an enduring problem: their failure to flip any state legislative chambers in the 2020 election.

The party’s struggles to stop Republicans from enacting new limits on voting procedures in state after state are the latest consequence of Democrats’ doomed drive to win more power in state governments last year. Key swing states where Democrats hoped to gain legislative footholds and break up unified GOP control, including Arizona, Florida and Georgia, have instead enacted new laws this year placing limits on mail voting and other election procedures.

Now, Texas — where Democrats targeted nine state House seats Beto O’Rourke carried in his near-miss Senate campaign but flipped none in 2020 — is set to follow suit once Democrats run out of procedural obstacles to throw up against a Republican-backed bill that would restrict voters’ access to the polls there, by further limiting mail voting and targeting new practices in the state’s largest county. The legislation was derailed by a dramatic Democratic walkout this weekend, but Republicans will almost assuredly take another pass at it again during a special session later this year.

"We're using the tools we have. But as the minority party, we can only do that so long," said Texas state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, an Austin-based lawmaker who helped lead the weekend walkout. "We need to ultimately flip this House to be able to stop this right-wing agenda and focus on the needs of Texans."

“Clearly, leadership was emboldened by the fact that Democrats didn’t flip those seats and find their majority in the House,” added state Sen. Beverly Powell, a Fort Worth-area Democrat.

Democrats’ ability to only derail, but not end, the push in Texas left party officials begging congressional Democrats to intervene by passing new federal voting rights legislation.

“These folks at the legislature have demonstrated that they’re willing to do what it takes, but we need backup,” said Lina Hidalgo, the Democratic chief executive of Houston’s Harris County. “For better or worse, that challenge stops at the foot of the U.S. Senate. Really, it’s a plea for help.”

Texas Republicans are expected to take up a version of their bill — which failed to pass Sunday after much of the state House Democratic caucus walked out and broke quorum — in a yet-to-be-called special session. The push to restrict voting rules has become a GOP priority in state governments across the country, as former President Donald Trump continues to lie and spread conspiracy theories about the election results.

GOP Gov. Greg Abbott called “election integrity” a “must-pass emergency” item in a statement.

“I expect legislators to have worked out their differences prior to arriving back at the Capitol so that they can hit the ground running to pass legislation,” Abbott said in his statement. Abbott also said he would veto the part of the budget that funds the legislative branch as retribution, tweeting that there is “no pay for those who abandon their responsibilities.”

An aide to Abbott said a decision on the timing of the special session was not imminent. Texas and other states are already planning special legislative sessions later this year to address redistricting after the Census Bureau releases local-level population data necessary to draw new political maps.

Republicans’ election bill took aim, in particular, at practices put in place by Harris County, the state’s largest county — and an increasing source of strength for Democrats.

The bill would have banned drive-through and 24-hour voting, which Harris County officials piloted during the 2020 election. The bill also added further restrictions to mail voting in Texas, on top of existing eligibility requirements that mean most Texas voters are not eligible to cast ballots that way. And it would have banned election authorities from allowing in-person early voting before 1 p.m. on Sundays, which was seen as an attempt to limit “Souls to the Polls” events popular among Black churches. (State Rep. Travis Clardy, a Republican involved in final negotiations of the bill, told NPR News on Tuesday the reduction of voting hours on Sunday was a “mistake” and wasn’t intended to be in the final bill.)

The legislation also included a provision allowing a court to “declare [an] election void” if it determined the number of “illegally cast” votes was “equal to or greater than the number of votes necessary to change the outcome of an election, without “attempting to determine how individual voters voted.”

Democratic lawmakers pledged to fight again in the special session over similar proposals. “If people want to be pragmatic and roll up sleeves and come up with a proposal, we know how to do that. If people want to fight, we know how to do that,” said state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, who represents a San Antonio-based district. “You tell me what Republicans show up [with] and I’ll tell you what kind of session we’re going to have.”

But Texas Democrats likely won’t be able to run out the clock forever. Instead, some are hoping their extraordinary delay over the weekend will spur Democrats in Washington to make their own voting rights push.

Two pieces of voting legislation are in the works but effectively stalled in the 50-50 Senate right now. One is a sweeping election and campaign finance reform bill, H.R. 1, that would institute federally mandated floors for state election procedures — like requiring no-excuse absentee voting and same-day voter registration. Another bill would require certain states and jurisdictions to have changes to election procedures approved by either the Justice Department or a federal court in Washington, restoring “preclearance” requirements in the 1965 Voting Rights Act that were stripped out by a 2013 Supreme Court decision.

In a statement over the weekend President Joe Biden called the Texas bill “an assault on democracy,” calling for Congress to pass the two proposals. He also tapped Vice President Kamala Harris as his point person on voting rights in a speech in Tulsa, Okla., on Tuesday.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised a vote on H.R. 1 during the final week of June. But the final fate of the bill remains uncertain. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) remains the only Senate Democrat who hasn’t signed onto the sweeping package. And Manchin and a handful of other Democratic senators have also resisted calls to scrap or modify the filibuster, which effectively requires 60 votes to move most legislation in the chamber.

The update to the Voting Rights Act has yet to be introduced in Congress.

Martinez Fischer, who also helped lead the weekend walkout, said he hoped their protest would “wake the nation up,” and called on the Senate to move on H.R. 1.

“It’s important for Leader Schumer and leaders in the Senate to understand just where we are — at a crossroads in America,” he said. “I recognize that there are certain senators that believe that eliminating the filibuster is tantamount to destroying our country. And my only response to that is that there are people who want to destroy our country state by state, and we have to recognize that and that there is a greater good.”

‘The need to compete everywhere’: New York mayoral candidates face new challenge

NEW YORK — They’re visiting shops along bustling thoroughfares in the Bronx, addressing parishioners at churches in Southeast Queens and lining up for pictures with children on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. But little ground has been so heavily trafficked as the area outside Brooklyn Borough Hall, where stores, government buildings and a transit hub converge in the heart of one of the city’s most voter-rich districts in its most populous

The Democratic primary candidates have been making stops outside Brooklyn Borough Hall: Andrew Yang received a Covid test at a mobile truck there in March. Scott Stringer, the city’s comptroller, and Shaun Donovan, an Obama administration official, kicked off petitioning there in March. Kathryn Garcia, a longtime city manager, handed out campaign literature during morning rush hour last week, departing one hour before Maya Wiley — a lawyer and former mayoral aide — arrived to greet commuters. And Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, needs only to walk outside his office.

It’s no wonder: The perimeter of Borough Hall lies in a state Assembly district where 46,517 people voted in four recent elections — more than in any other district across the city, according to an independent analysis conducted by consulting firm BerlinRosen.

“It’s the civic center of Brooklyn,” City Council Member Steve Levin said. “If you’re running for mayor, it’s kind of a perfect place.”

Candidates competing in the June 22 primary are banking on support in New York’s traditional battleground areas. But the advent of a ballot system allowing voters to rank up to five people in an eight-way field — with six first-time candidates who have no proven bases of support — has scrambled political conventions. Contenders are hitting low-turnout neighborhoods they would ordinarily bypass, while also trying to secure support on their opponents’ turf, with the hope of being ranked second or third.

Garcia and Wiley are trying to cut into Stringer’s base on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, while all three also compete in Brownstone Brooklyn. Adams expects to outperform his rivals in Central Brooklyn, though Wiley is refusing to cede that ground. Adams and Ray McGuire, a former finance executive, are dueling for support in the predominantly Black neighborhoods of Southeast Queens. And Yang, the former presidential candidate, is banking on piecing together a coalition of white moderates, Asians and Orthodox Jews — eating into voting blocs Adams had been counting on to expand his base.

And all are making a play for Latino voters, who are politically diverse, growing in numbers and have never had representation in the city’s highest elected office.

“The need to compete everywhere is magnified by ranked-choice voting,” Alex Navarro-McKay, who prepared the voter analysis for BerlinRosen, said. “In that respect, this election will look different than past multi-candidate primaries, where candidates focused on consolidating and mobilizing their bases.”

Further complicating candidates’ calculations is a shift in voting patterns since the last competitive mayoral election in 2013. A movement supporting far-left ideals has taken root in neighborhoods along the East River, though it remains to be seen whether their interest in national races translates into excitement for a municipal election without a candidate who has captured their devotion. Dianne Morales, who would seem a natural fit for those voters, has been dealing with a staff revolt over the past week.

New Yorkers of Hispanic and Asian descent are expected to be more consequential than in prior years, particularly since Yang, would make history as the city’s first Asian-American mayor.

Meanwhile, Stringer has been visiting churches in Southeast Queens — a predominantly Black area where voters generally favor moderate Democrats. It would seem like prime territory for Adams and McGuire — Black men with more centrist positions than Stringer, a white man who in 2019 backed a challenger to the local congressman’s pick for district attorney.

But Stringer, who has lost some support following contested allegations of sexual assault, sees an upside to campaigning in that area, which includes the two Assembly Districts that together accounted for 26,287 votes in the 2013 primary — making them the most civically active in the borough that year. The comptroller stopped by four churches in Jamaica, Queens on May 9, just as he was seeking to rehabilitate his candidacy from an accusation of sexual misconduct from 20 years ago.

“People in this community are raised to come out and vote,” Dennis Walcott, president of the Queens library and a lifelong resident of Southeast Queens, said recently, as he recounted the attention his neighborhood had been receiving from mayoral candidates.

Voters there appear split between Adams and McGuire, if endorsements and campaign cash are any indication.

Adams has received 424 donations totaling more than $80,000 in those two districts, according to a POLITICO analysis of data provided by the city Campaign Finance Board. That dwarfs financial support for his competitors in the area.

But McGuire has won endorsements from prominent Southeast Queens politicians, including Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), state Sen. Leroy Comrie and Assembly Member Vivian Cook. Perhaps more important, according to McGuire adviser Tyquana Henderson-Rivers, is support from civic organizations that drive people to the polls.

“We didn’t just go after grasstops and elected officials, and we certainly have our share out there. We’re holding our own with Eric,” Henderson-Rivers said in an interview. “We have the leadership of civic, tenant and block associations.”

“That’s what’s priceless,” she added. “I’ll take them anytime and twice on Sunday over some of these electeds.”

Another hotly-contested area is the Upper West Side of Manhattan — home to the 69th state Assembly District, which produced the largest vote total in the 2013 primary. Stringer grew up as a politician in that area and expects a strong showing, despite the recent allegation that cost him progressive endorsers.

In the days following the accusations that he groped a 2001 campaign volunteer against her will — a claim he has denied — several residents in the area told POLITICO they plan to vote for Stringer.

“I still support him. He’s a great candidate,” said 68-year-old Brent Saunders. “I always think of sexual harassment of someone using their power against someone. It’s becoming irritating for me because you’re hearing more and more of these stories, and it’s very irritating — the fact that almost anything is an issue.”

Others were dismissive of Wiley, who worked as City Hall attorney under outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio for two years and provided legal analysis on MSNBC. Wiley, a first-time candidate who would become the city’s first female mayor, is hoping to peel progressive voters from Stringer. But on the Upper West Side last month, one person referred to her as a “media personality” and another called her a “political dilettante.”

Nevertheless, Wiley has raked in nearly $92,000 from 1,171 donations in that Assembly District — more individual contributions than any candidate other than Stringer, who received $134,610 from 1,346 donors.

None of that was enough to move Assembly Member Daniel O’Donnell, who represents that district and endorsed Garcia — a first-time candidate who worked as de Blasio’s sanitation commissioner and go-to crisis manager.

Garcia has been gaining momentum since the endorsement of the New York Times, which holds sway among left-of-center white Democrats. Her poll numbers have been improving and her fundraising has picked up steam. As her standing improves, Garcia has been spending more time on the Upper West Side, and on Friday greeted students and parents at a public school on West 84th Street.

“This is a citywide campaign that is building a grassroots coalition of number one support from every borough. Kathryn is going everywhere and talking to everyone, which is why she has the highest percentage of donations from New York City — 84.7 percent,” campaign spokesperson Lindsey Green said. “We'll continue to be on the ground, citywide, through election day.”

Wiley’s team sees her path to victory as a mix of white liberals and Black voters, particularly those who reliably turn out in Central Brooklyn. The strategy mirrors de Blasio’s winning coalition and she has received some of the same endorsements he did in 2013 — most notably health care workers union 1199 SEIU.

At a recent campaign stop outside Brooklyn Borough Hall, Wiley told POLITICO she intends to campaign on the Upper West Side and in Central and Brownstone Brooklyn in the final weeks. “That’s where we have a lot of voters, but it also represents this broad coalition I’m pulling together which is Black, Latino, progressive and white, particularly white women,” she said.

Her staff has divided the city into three tiers based on demographics and past turnout. The team then determines how many first-, second- and third-place votes Wiley needs to win in each of those districts and focuses her time accordingly, according to a person involved in the strategy.

Wiley is hoping to steal support from Adams in his home base of Central Brooklyn, and capitalized on his weak relationships with high-profile politicians in that area to secure big-name endorsements like Reps. Hakeem Jeffries and Yvette Clarke. She planned to campaign with Jeffries Tuesday morning along Utica Avenue.

She has received 854 contributions totaling $52,842 in the 57th Assembly District, where a progressive upstart unseated an incumbent in a 2018 primary. Adams, by comparison, has $60,800 from 345 donors, according to POLITICO’s review.

“There’s some pretty striking commonality across neighborhoods. Eric’s traditional support in Central Brooklyn is definitely something that you see in Southeast Queens, but then also the very small but big-in-a-primary population on the North Shore [of Staten Island] and in the West Bronx,” Adams consultant Matt Rey said. “And the more people get to know him, the more they like him.”

In private, several people close to Adams have acknowledged Wiley’s potential to seize votes from him but believe she has been an underwhelming candidate.

Adams drew a lively crowd one recent Friday as he opened a campaign office in Crown Heights.

After the celebration, one supporter from East New York explained why he backs the former NYPD captain.

“As a Black man who has lived the majority of my 53 years on the planet in this city, and having been stopped, frisked and beaten several times by police officers in the city, I need, want and dream of change,” Derek Caldwell said.

Caldwell, who works in a homeless shelter, said he likes Wiley and appreciates “the sense of pride [Yang] has given Asian Americans” but does not like “his seeming lack of knowledge concerning police reform plans.”

He said he connects with Adams, who grew up in hardscrabble Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods. “His 20-some-odd years in law enforcement, his founding of the 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care and his experiencing of police abuse personally at 15 speaks volumes to me,” he said.

Adams has faced his share of setbacks this cycle at the hands of Yang, a former presidential candidate embarking on his first run for local office.

Yang, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, received the backing of prominent Asian politicians, including Rep. Grace Meng and state Sen. John Liu. Adams — recognizing the difficulty he may face as a moderate former cop appealing to white liberals — went into the race hoping to win over Asian-Americans, who have been voting in bigger numbers in recent years.

Yang also peeled away Orthodox Jewish leaders who bring the promise of a unified voting bloc in Brooklyn. Without Yang in his way, Adams had a much clearer shot at those endorsements.

And both are competing with Garcia for moderate white voters in lower-turnout areas like South Brooklyn and Staten Island. They are generally overlooked in Democratic primaries, but have become coveted in a muddled election with so many candidates and ranked-choice voting.

The entire borough of Staten Island, which has a healthy Republican population, produced just 23,219 votes in the 2013 Democratic primary for mayor — fewer than a single district on the Upper West Side.

“Staten Island doesn’t have a ton of votes, but one of the things we were trying to do from the beginning is start with a base of votes,” Yang co-campaign manager Chris Coffey said. “We’ll do really well with Jewish votes; we’ll do really well with Asian votes. And if you add Staten Island onto that, plus we expect to win Latinos, that’s a great place to start from.”

Adams has dominated the money race on Staten Island, receiving 454 donations that total $167,098, according to POLITICO’s analysis. Yang yielded $30,134 from 413 contributions.

The Bronx, which has a large Latino population and reliable voters in Riverdale, Norwood and Throgs Neck, has emerged as another battleground in the race. No candidate comes from the Bronx and all are hoping to claim its voters as their own.

Yang launched his campaign with the backing of Rep. Ritchie Torres, Wiley has been campaigning aggressively across the borough and Donovan has been frequenting Bronx mosques. Meanwhile Stringer is hoping to appeal to Latino voters with a general market ad focused on his Puerto Rican family ties.

Ruben Diaz Jr., the borough president who for years considered a run for mayor, believes the borough will deliver for Adams.

“Candidates have to play small ball. No one’s going to hit the big home run where one big community is going to come out in big numbers anymore. That’s not the way it works,” he said after a recent event with Adams outside City Hall. “So therefore the candidate that can put together the best diversity, the most diverse group of volunteers, supporters and validators I think wins the day. So far you see that out of Eric Adams.”

Jonathan Custodio, Amanda Eisenberg, and Jesse Naranjo contributed to this report.

Hundreds gather at historic Tulsa church's prayer wall

TULSA, Okla. — Hundreds gathered Monday for an interfaith service dedicating a prayer wall outside historic Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church in Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood on the centennial of the first day of one of the deadliest racist massacres in the nation.

National civil rights leaders, including the Revs. Jesse Jackson and William Barber, joined multiple local faith leaders offering prayers and remarks outside the church that was under construction and largely destroyed when a white mob descended on the prosperous Black neighborhood in 1921, burning, killing, looting and leveling a 35-square-block area. Estimates of the death toll range from dozens to 300.

Barber, a civil and economic rights activist, said he was “humbled even to stand on this holy ground.”

“You can kill the people but you cannot kill the voice of the blood.”

Although the church was nearly destroyed in the massacre, parishioners continued to meet in the basement, and it was rebuilt several years later, becoming a symbol of the resilience of Tulsa’s Black community. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.

As the ceremony came to an end, participants put their hands on the prayer wall along the side of the sanctuary while a soloist sung “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Traffic hummed on a nearby interstate that cuts through the Greenwood District, which was rebuilt after the massacre but slowly deteriorated 50 years later after homes were taken by eminent domain as part of urban renewal in the 1970s.

Monday’s slate of activities commemorating the massacre was supposed to culminate with a “Remember & Rise” headline event at nearby ONEOK Field, featuring Grammy-award-winning singer and songwriter John Legend and a keynote address from voting rights activist Stacey Abrams. But that event was scrapped late last week after an agreement couldn’t be reached over monetary payments to three survivors of the deadly attack, a situation that highlighted broader debates over reparations for racial injustice.

Disagreements among Black leaders in Tulsa over the handling of commemoration events and millions of dollars in donations have led to two different groups planning separate slates of events marking the massacre’s 100-year anniversary. In addition to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, the Black Wall Street Legacy Festival scheduled a series of separate events over the Memorial Day weekend.

In a statement tweeted Sunday, Legend didn’t specifically address the cancellation of the event, but said: “The road to restorative justice is crooked and rough — and there is space for reasonable people to disagree about the best way to heal the collective trauma of white supremacy. But one thing that is not up for debate — one fact we must hold with conviction — is that the path to reconciliation runs through truth and accountability.”

President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit Tulsa on Tuesday.

Netanyahu's opponents hashing out deal as deadline looms

JERUSALEM — A constellation of Israeli political parties seeking to unseat longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened Monday to hash out power-sharing agreements two days before a deadline.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid said at a meeting of his Yesh Atid party that “a great many obstacles” stood before a prospective government. But he said the various members of the anti-Netanyahu coalition are trying “to see if we can find in the coming days wise compromises for the sake of the big aim.”

Lapid was tasked by the country’s figurehead president with forming a government earlier this month after Netanyahu failed to do so in the aftermath of the March 23 elections, the fourth in two years.

On Sunday, Naftali Bennett, head of the small, hard-line nationalist Yamina party, said he would work with Lapid to form a broad unity government and “save the country from a tailspin and return Israel to its course.” Lapid has already secured the support of two smaller liberal parties and a secular ultranationalist faction.

Bennett and Lapid have until Wednesday to hammer out a deal in which the pair split the premiership — with Bennett serving the first two years and Lapid the following two.

No political party has ever won an outright majority in Israel’s 120-seat parliament, the Knesset, forcing smaller factions to band together to form a coalition with more than 61 seats.

If Lapid and his allies — which range from hard-line nationalists to liberal Zionists and a small Islamist party — can overcome their differences and seal a deal, it would spell the end of Netanyahu’s rule, for the time being.

Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, having held office since 2009, as well as a brief stint in the late 1990s. Despite his Likud party being the largest faction in the Knesset, he has become a divisive figure. Israel has held four parliamentary elections in the past two years, all seen as a referendum on his fitness to rule.

The long-serving prime minister has held onto power despite being indicted on charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in 2019. Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing and has refused to step down from office while on trial.

After Bennett announced his intention to join forces with Lapid, Netanyahu lashed out in a nationally televised speech, saying that such a government “is a danger to the security of Israel, and is also a danger to the future of the state.”

Lapid responded to Netanyahu’s remarks on Monday, saying they were “reckless and dangerous, that of a man who has lost the brakes.”

“If you want to know why we’re determined to [bring] a change of government in Israel, go listen to that speech by Netanyahu,” Lapid said, referring to Netanyahu’s claim that a government without him would be “dangerous” and growing calls to violence by some against the prime minister’s political opponents and others.

Lapid pointed to the security details assigned to the prime minister’s political rivals, reporters and state prosecutors in Netanyahu’s corruption trial.

On Sunday, the Knesset Guard approved assigning a personal bodyguard to senior Yamina party politician Ayelet Shaked amid increasing threats of physical violence. Protesters outside Shaked’s home held signs that read “Leftist traitors.” Bennett received a personal security detachment earlier this month.

Gideon Saar, a former member of Netanyahu’s Likud party who split away ahead of the March elections, said his New Hope was “doing everything in our power” to reach a compromise and form a government, but that such an outcome remained uncertain.

Saar railed against the “incitement” against politicians seeking to assemble a coalition without Netanyahu, saying the prime minister “and his people are engaging in wild de-legitimization of a government that has yet to arise.”

Phil Murphy took on New Jersey’s Democratic machine. Now he needs it to win.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy spent his first term delivering win after win for liberal activists. He raised taxes on millionaires. He secured drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants. And he went to war with much of the Democratic establishment, making an enemy of George Norcross, the state’s most feared political power broker.

Now, Murphy — seeking reelection to a second term — has broken with his progressive base as they’ve turned their attention to an institutional foe: That same boss-dominated power structure Murphy had shunned.

The governor has made peace with Norcross and is embracing New Jersey‘s unusual primary ballot system, which gives prominent placement to party-endorsed candidates awarded the party's "line" on the ballot, shunting go-it-alone challengers to far-flung positions.

Murphy will be the first name on the Democratic Party line in the June 8 primary, heading up machine-backed tickets and, in some cases, running directly opposite progressive-backed candidates pushed into “ballot Siberia.” The attorney general Murphy appointed, Gurbir Grewal, has sided against progressives in a lawsuit they filed this year seeking to eliminate that balloting system.

“If anything, this is a case study in why these machines should be weaker, because you have a governor who’s extraordinarily powerful who still feels a need to dance a certain way for their pleasure,” said Sue Altman, executive director of the progressive New Jersey Working Families Alliance and one of Murphy’s biggest supporters.

Those progressives may have had an early and powerful ally in the governor, but they're now experiencing first-hand how difficult it is to fundamentally alter a power structure with built-in advantages for incumbents, and where relatively few party bosses — mostly men, some elected and some not — exercise outsized influence over who has a realistic chance of getting elected.

The ballot system is one of the most obvious examples of how Murphy has taken positions that threaten to alienate the progressives who have supported him and who he’s relied on in his political battles with the Democratic bosses who tend to be far less liberal than the activist left whose influence grew during the Trump administration.

Though liberal, Murphy didn't become governor by working against the political machines. The former Goldman Sachs executive paved his way into office with hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to Democratic county parties around the state, beginning years before he actually ran. Many of those bosses had other candidates in mind for their first choice, but once Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop — favored by most North Jersey bosses — dropped his expected candidacy, Murphy exploited the deep divisions between North and South Jersey Democrats to become the favorite for the Democratic nomination.

Not long after taking office in 2018, Murphy went to war with the South Jersey Democratic machine, which had been a key ally of former Republican Gov. Chris Christie. Murphy’s nascent administration launched an investigation into the use of tens of millions of dollars in tax incentives by Norcross and his allies that resulted in state and federal investigations.

At the same time, the governor was backed by millions of dollars in donations from the New Jersey Education Association to a nonprofit called New Direction New Jersey that essentially acted as the governor’s political arm. Four years ago, NJEA battled with Senate President Steve Sweeney, a Norcross ally, and supported a Republican against him in a multimillion dollar state legislative race that was the costliest in New Jersey history.

Things have changed dramatically over the last year.

The investigations have gone silent. Norcross-linked companies, their tax incentives once put on hold, have gotten key approvals from the Economic Development Authority, the agency that administers the incentives, and a new law signed by Murphy could give businesses billions more in state-backed tax breaks. The NJEA, meanwhile, has pumped at least $1.25 million into a new super PAC controlled by Norcross.

“Liberals who feel betrayed by this should probably work on their expectations management, and I say that as someone who’s mismanaged my expectations many times,” said Jay Lassiter, a long-time progressive activist from South Jersey who called the fairly restrictive cannabis legalization law the governor signed earlier this year “dog shit.” “Hopefully when [Murphy] gets reelected, he’ll go back to [fighting with party bosses] because it was great watching him shake things up in a really meaningful way.”

Spokespersons for Murphy and Norcross declined to comment.

In the Legislature, Sweeney — a Norcross‘ friend and his strongest ally in the Statehouse — has eased up on Murphy. Early in the governor’s term, the Senate and Assembly held joint hearings into the administration’s decision to keep a former campaign worker on staff despite allegations of sexual assault by another staffer during Murphy’s 2017 campaign.

But last year, after Sweeney announced with Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr. that he would form a bipartisan committee to look into the administration’s handling of the pandemic and nursing homes, where thousands died, several Senate Democrats resisted and Sweeney reneged, sparing Murphy the political headache.

Now, the governor and Senate president are sharing a ticket on the June 8 ballot in South Jersey’s 3rd Legislative District. And in Camden — where local officials in 2019 held a press conference to tell Murphy to stay out of town because of his attacks on local Norcross-linked comapnies’ tax incentives — Murphy is sharing the county line with the machine-backed mayor, Vic Carstarphen, while three other mayoral candidates share a column in far off to the right.

“I suspect that Murphy’s personal feelings are that ‘the line‘ is not a good thing because that is really what undergirds the political machine in our state, but I think there’s also just the reality of politics,” said Julia Sass Rubin, a professor at Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy who advocates against the county line system. “If you are counting on parties to get the vote out for your election, is this the time you want to have that battle with them? I think we have to wait and see what he does after the election.”

Despite the apparent peace with the party bosses, residual fights remain that reflect a Democratic divide.

Murphy is pushing the Legislature to pass the Reproductive Freedom Act, which would expand access to abortions and contraception. But Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin have been hesitant to post it for a vote because it could inject a wedge issue into some some state legislative districts.

At the same time, Murphy’s fighting with Sweeney and state Sen. Nicholas Sacco (D-Hudson), himself a political boss in part of North Jersey, over a Sacco bill that would end mandatory minimum sentences for political corruption offenses while the son of Sacco’s longtime girlfriend faces some of those charges.

Murphy is also facing pressure from the party’s left flank.

Immigrant rights groups, often in lockstep with the governor, have been deeply frustrated with him. Groups like Make the Road New Jersey have aggressively lobbied for the state to provide cash relief for undocumented immigrants. Murphy recently allocated $40 million in what‘s left of eligible CARES Act money to help thousands of undocumented immigrants with one-time cash benefits of up to $2,000, an amount that advocates have called "peanuts."

A group of progressives is suing in state Superior Court to end the county line system. Among them is Hetty Rosenstein, the recently-retired head of the New Jersey Communications Workers of America — the state’s largest public workers union and a key ally of the governor. Now Rosenstein is working for Murphy’s campaign as an adviser for progressive coalitions an outreach.

“Many progressives believe that the New Jersey ballot design is undemocratic and puts the thumb on the scale in favor of candidates chosen by leaders of both parties, instead of by voters, and therefore needs to change,” Rosenstein said in a statement. “However, the Governor is running in an election that reflects the system that currently exists, not the system that we want to exist, and I do not see how that fact diminishes the tremendous progressive accomplishments we've achieved by working together.”

Despite their frustration with Murphy, progressives aren’t writing him off and are hoping the peace he’s made with the political bosses, though fragile, is one of convenience that will crash shortly after the November election.

“I remain hopeful that in his second term [Murphy] can continue to portray himself and be a reformer,” Altman said. “I think that if he has national ambitions beyond New jersey, and I don’t know if he does … being a reformer who cleans up New Jersey is a far more compelling message to a national audience than having New Jersey in fair but corrupt working order.”

Katherine Landergan contributed to this report.

Tulsa churches honor 'holy ground' 100 years after massacre

TULSA, Okla. — When white attackers destroyed the prosperous Black neighborhood of Greenwood 100 years ago this week, they bypassed the original sanctuary of the First Baptist Church of North Tulsa.

By the church’s own account, the attackers thought the brick veneer structure was too fine for a Black-owned church. The mob destroyed at least a half-dozen other churches while burning and leveling a 35-square-block neighborhood in one of the nation’s deadliest spasms of racist violence. Estimates of the death toll range from dozens to 300.

On Sunday, First Baptist’s current sanctuary throbbed with a high-decibel service as six congregations gathered to mark the centennial of the massacre and to honor the persistence of the Black church tradition in Greenwood, as shown in the pulsing worship, call-and-response preaching and heavy emphasis on social justice.

Greenwood is “holy ground,” said the Rev. John Faison of Nashville, Tenn., who preached at the service and is assistant to the bishop of social action for the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship.

He said the centennial both honors the victims of the massacre and “celebrates the resilience and the resurgence of an amazing people of God.”

Similar commemorations took place at many houses of worship throughout Tulsa and across Oklahoma on Sunday, a day ahead of the official centennial dates. More civic activities are planned for Monday and Tuesday, including a candlelight vigil and a visit by President Joe Biden.

The commission that organized the centennial designated Sunday as Unity Faith Day and provided a suggested worship guide that each congregation could adapt, including scriptures, prayers and the singing of “Amazing Grace.”

Particularly at historically Black churches, speakers emphasized a call for financial reparations — both for the few centenarian survivors of the massacre and for the wider, economically struggling North Tulsa area, where the city’s Black population is largely concentrated.

“The main problem is that our nation is always trying to have reconciliation without doing justice,” Faison said. “Until repentance and repair are seen as inseparable, any attempt to reconcile will fail miserably.”

The Rev. Robert Turner, pastor of nearby Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church, which also traces its roots to before the massacre, echoed that sentiment in an interview before his own church’s service.

“It’s not a tragedy that’s left in 1921. It’s a tragedy that continues to live each day that lacks justice,” said Turner, who protests weekly outside Tulsa City Hall, calling both for reparations and for a posthumous criminal investigation of the massacre’s perpetrators.

Some churches on Sunday recognized 13 still-active congregations that operated in Greenwood in 1921, including many that had to rebuild their destroyed sanctuaries. Lists of the 13, under the heading “Faith Still Standing,” are being distributed on posters and other merchandise.

“We don’t want it ever to happen again anywhere,” said the Rev. Donna Jackson, an organizer of the recognition.

Some historically white churches also observed the centennial.

Pastor Deron Spoo of First Baptist Church of Tulsa, a Southern Baptist church less than two miles from the similarly named North Tulsa church, told his congregation that the massacre has been “a scar” on the city.

The church has a prayer room with an exhibit on the massacre, accompanied by prayers against racism. It includes quotations from white pastors in 1921 who faulted the Black community rather than the white attackers for the devastation and declared racial inequality to be “divinely ordained.”

Spoo told congregants on Sunday: “While we don’t know what the pastor 100 years ago at First Baptist Tulsa said, I want to be very clear: Racism has no place in the life of a Jesus follower.”

Also recognizing the massacre was South Tulsa Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in a predominately white suburban part of Tulsa.

Pastor Eric Costanzo grew up in Tulsa but didn’t learn of the massacre until attending seminary out of state. When he later saw an exhibit on the massacre at the Greenwood Cultural Center, he recognized its enormity. He later got involved with centennial planning, arranging for presentations at the church about the massacre and visits by church members to Greenwood.

In an interview, he said he hoped that the “bridge we created between our communities” remains active after the centennial to confront “a lot of the hard topics our city and culture faces.”

The Rev. Zenobia Mayo, a retired educator and an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), is also working to continue those conversations after the centennial. She said her family never used to talk about the massacre, even though her great-great-uncle, renowned surgeon A.C. Jackson, was among its most prominent victims.

Elders in the family sought to protect their children from the trauma of racist violence, she said. “They felt not talking about it was the way to deal with it.”

But now Mayo hopes to host discussions on racism at her home with mixed groups of white and Black guests.

“If it’s going to be, let it begin with me,” she said.

Israeli opposition parties reach deal to replace Netanyahu

JERUSALEM — The leader of a small hard-line party says he will try to form a unity government with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents.

Sunday’s announcement by Yamina Party leader Naftali Bennett is a key step toward ending Netanyahu’s 12-year rule.

In a nationally televised news conference, Bennett said he would work to form a unity government with opposition Yair Lapid.

“It’s my intention to do my utmost in order to form a national unity government along with my friend Yair Lapid, so that, God willing, together we can save the country from a tailspin and return Israel to its course,” Bennett said.

He said he had made the decision to prevent the country from sliding into a fifth consecutive election in just over two years.

They have until a Wednesday deadline to finalize a deal.

In a statement Sunday, Netanyahu issued a desperate appeal for Bennett to avoid the temptation of joining his opponents.

He accused Bennett of deceiving his voters and abandoning his nationalistic principles “all in order to be prime minister at any price.”

In order to form a government, a party leader must secure the support of a 61-seat majority in parliament. Because no single party controls a majority on its own, coalitions are usually built with smaller partners.

As leader of the largest party, Netanyahu was given the first opportunity by the country’s figurehead president to form a coalition. But he was unable to secure a majority with his traditional religious and nationalist allies.

Netanyahu even attempted to court a small Islamist Arab party but was thwarted by a small ultranationalist party with a racist anti-Arab agenda. Although Arabs make up some 20% of Israel’s population, an Arab party has never before sat in an Israeli coalition government.

After Netanyahu’s failure to form a government, Lapid was then given four weeks to cobble together a coalition.

Lapid already faced a difficult challenge, given the broad range of parties in the anti-Netanyahu bloc that have little in common. They include dovish left-wing parties, a pair of right-wing nationalist parties, including Bennett’s Yamina, and most likely the Islamist United Arab List.

Lapid’s task was made even more difficult after war broke out with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip on May 10. His coalition talks were put on hold during the 11 days of fighting.