Another Unforced Error for the Midterms

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

As both political parties scramble for votes ahead of the upcoming midterm elections, even racing to do some last-minute redistricting, someone in the Trump Administration just committed an unforced error that could cost the GOP crucial men’s votes. On May 7, a “spokesperson” announced that the U.S. State Department would begin to revoke the passports of thousands of American citizens subject to child support orders from a family court.

Anyone whose passport is revoked while traveling abroad becomes unable to travel through international airports. The passport is the only official document proving that someone is an American citizen, and a birth certificate alone does not prove citizenship as demonstrated by the ongoing debate over birthright citizenship.

Soldiers and sailors, thousands of whom have child support obligations, could be hard hit by this new policy. While they can travel on official duty with a military ID, their dependents cannot, and thus our servicemembers need active passports to travel with their families.

In 1996, Congress inserted into the massive welfare reform bill a politically correct provision authorizing revocation of passports based on unpaid child support obligations, but administrations of both parties have wisely chosen not to enforce that law because it inflicts far more harm than good.

The State Department said it would initially revoke passports of men whose unpaid child support exceeds $100,000, which is impossible for most to pay, but subsequent revocations could be triggered by a debt of only $2,500. To restore their passports, the debts would have to be paid in full, and attorneys would be needed to clear the judgments in both the state and federal systems, a process that could take many weeks to accomplish.

In the meantime, the American men could be stranded abroad and subject to arrest by a hostile foreign government as unlawful residents. While much-needed deportations of illegal aliens appear to have dried up in the U.S., the State Department’s new policy could turn law-abiding Americans into criminals in foreign countries.

When an American citizen is accused of a crime in a foreign country, even murder, he can show his passport to the American embassy there and obtain support. Even if convicted, neither his American citizenship nor his passport is revoked, and a child support judgment is merely a financial obligation, and not a crime that justifies revoking American citizenship.

Men are the key demographic that Republicans need to attract to have a chance in the upcoming midterm elections, which makes the unexpected announcement of this new policy particularly senseless. It sounds like something Kamala Harris would have done if she were elected president, to pander to her feminist base.

Over 20 years ago the Bush Administration abruptly revoked the passport of the famed chess champion Bobby Fischer for having played a chess match in Yugoslavia, which violated a federal law that had never been enforced like that against anyone else. Fischer was then stranded with an invalid passport at Japan’s Narita airport as he tried to travel to the Philippines, and was detained for 9 months by Japanese immigration authorities.

As an American celebrity, Bobby Fischer was ultimately granted asylum in Iceland, where he had won the world chess championship against Boris Spassky in 1972. But no country is likely to grant asylum to many thousands of American men soon to be affected by this new passport policy.

Despite its misleading name, child support orders are not based on the actual needs of any child, do not have to be spent on a child, and often go to a welfare agency rather than the mom. The more that the father is denied custody and visitation, the higher his child support obligation is, and it can include above-market interest rates and attorney’s fees, non-dischargeable in bankruptcy.

States already have the means to try to enforce child support orders, such as imprisonment or denying occupational licenses or gun permits, but often decline to use such draconian tools because the father simply does not have the money. Moreover, unpaid child support obligations can result from denying the father visitation rights for his own children.

Roughly 70% of divorces are initiated by women, and among college-educated women the percentage is as high as 90%. Large child support obligations result from raising children in a fatherless home.

Revoking passports puts American citizens at risk of harm abroad. Without a passport enabling them to travel, these Americans can then be held and used as bargaining chips for a prisoner swap, as Russia did when it imprisoned a woman basketball player for alleged drug possession.

President Trump’s stated policy is to defend American citizens who are overseas. Putting American citizens at risk of being arrested in foreign countries, and held in foreign prisons, due to an arbitrary revocation of their passports is inconsistent with the goals of MAGA.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Time Is Running Out

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

We’re only six months from the midterm Election Day, and only four months from the start of early voting in September. In between are the slow summer months of June, July and August.

Time is running out for Republicans to hold on to control in Congress. In a half-dozen special congressional elections, voter support for the GOP candidate has declined by 6 to 10 points compared with 2024.

A loss by Republicans of the U.S. Senate, which is considered to be roughly 50% likely, would mean the inability to confirm a conservative nominee to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court. Every one of the 47 Democrats in the current Senate votes lockstep with liberals on social issues like abortion, and a net gain of 4 seats would give them control over new federal judges.

Up for grabs in November are five Senate seats currently held by Republicans: Democrats are predicted to win Republican-held seats in Maine and North Carolina and have an edge in Ohio and Alaska, while Texas is a toss-up. The Republican candidate for Senate in Ohio is handicapped by the unpopular Vivek Ramaswamy at the top of the ticket for governor.

Gasoline prices have risen to a national average of $4.46 per gallon, and traditionally voters have rejected the party in power when gas is above $4 per gallon. The cost of gas is up 30 cents per gallon in just the last week, so the impact of this on political polling is still to come.

At the state level, twice as many Republican-controlled legislative chambers are at risk of flipping to Democratic control, as vice versa. The legislative chambers most vulnerable to flipping are the Republican-held House and Senate in the swing states of Arizona and Wisconsin, and the House chamber in Michigan, all of which Republicans won in 2024 by promising peace.

Delivering a high-level indictment for the wrongful weaponization of the federal government against Trump could be a watershed moment for MAGA voters. By now MAGA expected indictments of Jack Smith and his ilk, after U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon found that Smith was unlawfully appointed to prosecute Trump.

Trump has tried to deport Haitians and other migrants, but it appears that the promise of mass deportations on which Trump was elected has been shut down by non-MAGA White House advisers. They've also blocked RFK Jr. from picking new members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which sets vaccine policy, or firing the members of the Preventive Services Task Force, which imposed costly health care mandates.

More attention to the needs of young men, who unexpectedly swung to the Republicans in 2024, is long overdue. An initiative to improve fathers’ rights in custody disputes, for example, would send a helpful message to the voters who could re-elect Republicans.

Young women, on the other hand, are the demographic that elected the socialist Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of New York City, and they are not voting Republican for the foreseeable future. There is a widening gender gap between young men and women, with Democrats consolidating their support from unmarried women while Republicans seem to be kicking away the young men who voted for them in 2024.

According to a recent poll published on Monday by Politico, “Just 58 percent of young Republicans say they’ll vote GOP — with nearly a third selecting ‘neither’ or ‘won’t vote.’” In contrast, 85% of young Democrats – who are mostly women – plan to vote for their party this fall.

Much of this is the result of an economy that is not doing well for Gen Z. College graduates face the toughest job market in a decade, with their unemployment higher than the national average and underemployment at an astronomic 42.5%.

Young men have been pulled into the pandemic of gambling on their cell phones, and a crackdown on the predatory practices of online casinos would be welcomed relief. Sports gambling has corrupted college and professional sports, and prosecuting the few who are caught neither solves the problem nor satisfies anyone.

When asked about the prosecution of an American special forces soldier for profiting from wagers based on inside information about the raid and capture of the Venezuelan dictator Maduro, Trump said “I’m not happy with any of that stuff” and “the whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino.”

It would be helpful to see some Teddy Roosevelt-style action against corporate cronyism that is alienating young voters who struggle with low wages, high debt, and housing prices that are out of reach. Trump should take on Big Tech and tap into the groundswell of fury by voters against the monstrous data centers that are popping up all over the country, often overloading the electric and water utilities that Americans rely upon.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

SAVE Act Lifted by Paxton-Cornyn Race

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The tight GOP primary for U.S. Senate in Texas has suddenly cast the SAVE Act into the spotlight, and Trump vows not to sign any other legislation into law until this passes. The SAVE Act is short for Save America Act, and its longer name before that was the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act.

The SAVE Act would require U.S. citizenship to register to vote, and presentation of photo ID in order to cast a ballot. The House narrowly passed the SAVE Act in early February: Republicans unanimously voted for it, plus one Democrat from Texas (Henry Cuellar).

Last Tuesday, Ken Paxton came within 2 percentage points of incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), despite how Cornyn’s candidacy was propped up with $70 million in spending. They proceed next to a runoff on May 26 where traditionally the more conservative candidate, who is Paxton, would prevail.

Senate Republicans, favoring their own, have been lobbying Trump to endorse Cornyn. Trump said that the candidate he declines to endorse should exit the race.

But Paxton then pulled a rabbit out of his hat last week by promising to withdraw only if the Senate Republicans pass the SAVE Act, which they can do by ending or modifying the traditional filibuster. Paxton was right in expecting Trump to make the SAVE Act more important than the Texas race.

Trump subsequently stated not only that he wants the SAVE Act enacted, but that he wants more provisions added to it. He wants the law to prohibit transgender surgeries on children, and to ban participation in women’s sports by men who say they are transgender women.

Trump also properly demands an end to mail-in ballots, with reasonable exceptions for illness, disability, service in the military, and travel. Mail-in balloting is particularly vulnerable to fraud, as found by the 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform, which was co-chaired by former Democrat President Jimmy Carter.

Republican congressmen rarely lose in their own primary, and senators even less so. The only Republican incumbent congressman defeated last week in his own primary was Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), who had falsely accused Trump of contributing to the death of a Capitol Police officer on January 6, 2021.

A combat veteran who lost an eye serving our country, Crenshaw had posed as an independent-minded Republican like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) a generation ago. Crenshaw even appeared once on Saturday Night Live, and was considered by many to be unbeatable.

Yet the more conservative state legislator Steve Toth defeated Crenshaw last Tuesday by a stunning 15-point upset, in what he said was a battle for the future of the Republican Party. President Trump stayed out of the race and did not endorse either candidate.

Trump racked up a perfect 124-0 record last week when he did endorse, of which he reminded House members at their meeting in Doral, Florida. Trump does not want to endorse a candidate who is likely to be defeated, or who is not strongly MAGA.

Cornyn’s lackluster performance after spending more than $100 per vote – and more than ten times what Paxton spent – may be weighing on Trump’s decision. A selling point for choosing Cornyn over Paxton is that Cornyn would supposedly fare better against the Democrat nominee this fall, but recent polling is not showing Cornyn with any significant advantage.

Indeed, a Newsweek poll released on Tuesday showed Paxton leading Cornyn by 44-43% in the runoff, even if Trump endorses Cornyn. A Texas Politics Project poll last month showed that Paxton has a stronger net favorability among GOP-registered voters than Cornyn has.

For an incumbent to fare so poorly in his own primary is reminiscent of President Lyndon B. Johnson barely winning the first 1968 Democrat presidential primary in New Hampshire, and then pulling out of the race as a result. Given that the immense power of incumbency and an enormous monetary advantage were unable to make Cornyn a clear winner in his own primary, his candidacy has weaknesses.

Frustration with Congress is growing. Senate Republicans have refused to move on the SAVE Act because of the filibuster rule that requires 60 votes in order to end debate and enact it.

The U.S. Senate has been called the world’s most exclusive club, and collegiality among the 100 senators is legendary as they allow a single member to block nominations, and merely 41 senators can prevent a vote on legislation. Senators also favor their own as nominees to other offices.

Senate Republicans persuaded Trump to appoint fellow Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) to become the new Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, in replacement of Kristi Noem. Days have gone by without any comment by conservative Tom Homan, who is in charge of deportations, on the selection of Mullin as his new colleague.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Dems Try to Thwart Republican Redistricting

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Republican redistricting is sweeping the nation, from North Carolina through Texas. Districts are typically redrawn every ten years following the census, but they can also be revised by a state legislature at any time.

Control of the House of Representatives hangs in the balance, where the majority is determined by a margin of only a few seats. Whichever side controls the House gets to decide what is voted on, and if Democrats regain power there they will surely try to impeach President Trump yet again.

The redistricting movement can allow Republicans to pick up as many as ten seats, thereby enhancing their current margin of control. The Indiana legislature is debating a plan that would yield a net GOP gain of two seats in that small state alone.

The Supreme Court gave a green light to this effort last month when it stayed a lower court decision in Texas that had blocked the redistricting effort there, which could give Republicans up to 5 more seats in that state alone. Several entrenched Democrat incumbents, including Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), announced their retirement earlier this month rather than seek reelection against a younger Democrat in a newly drawn district.

Texas holds a very early primary, which is less than three months away, so the Supreme Court had to act fast to allow the redrawn lines to take effect. The High Court has not rendered a full ruling in the challenge to this, but in another case appealed from Louisiana the Court is expected to weaken a provision of the Voting Rights Act that Democrats have used to thwart Republican redistricting.

The Missouri legislature recently redrew its congressional districts, as many Democrat-controlled legislatures such as next-door Illinois have already done in the past to maximize their representation in Congress. But Democrats just submitted 300,000 signatures on petitions seeking to overturn the Missouri legislature through a vote of the people at an upcoming election.

The initiative process is allowed in roughly 20 states, and Democrats have been using it in Ohio, Missouri, and many other states to advance abortion, gambling, and marijuana. These measures enable dark money-funded groups to bypass state legislatures entirely, and that is particularly improper for redistricting, which is exclusively for state legislatures to decide.

On Monday, a Trump-appointed federal judge dismissed as premature a lawsuit by Republicans in Missouri to preserve the authority of legislative redistricting from being overturned by a ballot measure. U.S. District Judge Zachary M. Bluestone punted the issue to the Missouri Secretary of State, saying that he “has a tool at his disposal that almost no other litigant could boast — the power to declare the petition unconstitutional himself.”

While the Missouri redistricting would achieve a gain of just one GOP seat, unless it is reversed by a ballot initiative, a similar type of redistricting in Florida could net three to five new GOP seats. Currently 20 out of the 28 congressmen from deep red Florida are Republican.

Florida holds a late primary, nearly half a year later than Texas’s, on August 18 of next year. So there is plenty of time for Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-controlled legislature there to do this right.

Florida, too, has a ballot initiative process that bypasses the legislature, but fortunately it requires a 60% threshold for passage while Missouri and other states require only a simple majority. In Ohio a ballot initiative attempted to establish a more Democrat-favorable process for redistricting but it was defeated last November as Trump won that state by a landslide.

Ohio has a redistricting plan expected to swing two seats to the Republican side, but a stronger plan could do even better. A decade ago Ohio sent more Republicans to Congress than it does today, even though Ohio was less Republican then.

Redistricting in Pennsylvania in 2010 was what helped convert that former Democrat stronghold into a state that Republicans can win, as they have when Trump heads the ticket. But now Democrats control the Pennsylvania legislature and the state supreme court, so there is no prospect of a new redistricting effort there helping the GOP, even though Pennsylvania voter registration is on course to give Republicans a majority next year.

The Department of Justice has sued California over its ballot initiative that would add even more Democrat-majority congressional seats. But in that case the popular vote overturned a prior initiative, not the legislature, as Democrats are improperly doing in Missouri by seeking to block the Republicans’ legislative redistricting there.

It is overdue for courts to invalidate wide-ranging ballot initiatives that encroach on the legislative function, and Judge Bluestone erred in not swatting down the Democrats’ ballot measure in Missouri. There could soon be a swift appeal of his decision to the conservative Eighth Circuit.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

GOP Should Focus on Young Voters’ Hard Times

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Hard times have hit young Americans, who are a pivotal voting bloc. Jobs are scarce, housing is unaffordable, student debt is suffocating, and foreign labor has taken away opportunities from American workers.

A downturn in the hiring of college graduates leaves the class of 2026 victims facing the weakest job market in five years. A National Association of Colleges and Employers survey found that 51% of employers rate the job market for college grads as “poor” or merely “fair,” and only 2% said it is “excellent.”

This does not bode well on Election Day for the GOP. The landslide victory by socialist Zohran Mamdani for Mayor of New York City was propelled by young voters, despite warnings that electing him would be a big mistake.

Polling indicates that 75% of young voters in New York City cast their ballots for Mamdani, and there was a surge in youth turnout. The blowout victories by Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia were also propelled by sharp increases in turnout by young voters.

The redistricting ballot initiative in California to send more Democrats to Congress was enacted with 80% support by young voters, and a large turnout by them. While some of this is due to a superior get-out-the-vote operation by Leftist groups, young people are struggling financially today.

Young adults should not face astronomical costs for health insurance, as they are mostly healthy and typically need coverage against only catastrophic losses. They should be able to purchase low-cost health insurance that is not dependent on their employer, so that they do not lose it when they are laid off or switch jobs.

Young adults are vastly overpaying for health insurance, as they are required to fund costly care they typically never need. The current system of tying tax breaks to employer-based health insurance no longer works, as the record 14.8% of American-born, working-age men who lack a job has increased from 4.2% in 1960.

Young men today are additionally burdened by gambling debts, due to the explosion in sports gambling that is heavily promoted with advertising. One out of every four of these men is unable to pay a bill because of his gambling losses.

Only 44% of young voters aged 18-29 have any investments in the stock market, so news of Wall Street records does not help with that demographic. Most of those voters are in debt.

In an interview with Tucker Carlson weeks before he was assassinated, Charlie Kirk explained how debt has radicalized the young generation. Kirk explained that in the 1970s and 1980s, the price of a home was about three times the average income.

Today, the price of a home is as high as seven times the average income. The average age of a first-time homeowner has increased by ten years, from 30 to 40, and people are marrying later, perhaps likewise due to economic difficulties.

“Gen Z owes the most money in any generation in history,” warned Charlie Kirk in the interview. He added that young adults are not living beyond their means, but “most are actually doing this to meet their means.”

Verizon just announced its biggest layoff ever, cutting loose a breathtaking 15,000 jobs. Layoffs by large, typically profitable corporations just reached their highest level for an October in 22 years.

Ending the racket of allowing hundreds of thousands of foreigners to continue to take jobs away from American college graduates would help. For fiscal year 2025, the four highest exploiters of H-1B visas for foreigners are Amazon, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, and Google.

Private equity is a culprit in increasing costs and eliminating jobs, and Republicans are allowing Democrats like Mamdani to take the lead in scrutinizing predatory practices. Mamdani picked as co-chair of his transition team Lina Khan, the former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair who investigated private equity tactics.

Toys “R” Us was a well-liked retailer employing 31,000 people, until private equity acquired it in a leveraged buyout. Private equity typically loads its target with debt, and a company acquired in this way is 10 times more likely to go bankrupt as Toys “R” Us then did.

Other companies that spiraled downward into bankruptcy after being acquired by private equity include Red Lobster restaurants, Payless shoes, Party City, Sears, Envision Healthcare, and the multi-state hospital system Steward Health Care. Each time this happens, jobs and healthy competition are lost, and prices increase.

An estimated 40% of emergency rooms in our country are controlled by private equity firms, and deaths increased as a result. Billed charges for visiting an emergency room are far higher, even after adjusting for inflation, than a generation ago.

Republicans should address the economic hardship of young voters as a high priority to have any chance of electoral success.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

“Full, Complete” Pardons for 2020 Presidential Electors

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Fake news was working overtime on Monday by declaring, without authority, that the “full, complete” presidential pardons related to the 2020 presidential election cannot protect against bogus state charges arising from that election. The liberal media wrongly insisted that the Pardon Clause in the U.S. Constitution applies only to charges brought by federal prosecutors.

Not so. The Pardon Clause states that the President “shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” Every attempt in court to narrow the scope of the Pardon Clause has failed.

Our system of dual sovereigns, federal and state, is subject to the Supremacy Clause, which means that state sovereignty cannot limit the scope of the Pardon Clause. It was modeled on the vast, nearly unlimited pardon power of the King of England.

The newly pardoned 77 alternate electors, federal officials, attorneys and activists who objected to voter fraud in 2020 were acting in defense of the integrity of a presidential election, and thus in defense of the United States. Their conduct is fully pardonable by the President, which Trump has appropriately done.

Yet naysayers argue that the term “United States” in the Pardon Clause means only crimes prosecuted by the federal government. If that were true, then the Supreme Court would not have upheld in Ex parte Wells (1856) the last-minute commutation of a death penalty by President Millard Fillmore of a man convicted of murder in a District of Columbia court, as there were no federal common law crimes.

Federal law never denied women the right to vote, but New York prosecuted Susan B. Anthony for voting illegally in the 1872 presidential election, and prosecuted local officials for allowing her to vote. After his reelection as our 18th President, U.S. Grant pardoned the state officials for their violation of state law, and in 2020 President Trump pardoned Susan B. Anthony for casting an illegal vote.

Just last week an all-Democrat panel of the Second Circuit ruled in favor of Trump’s argument that the charges against him in the so-called hush money case that resulted in 34 felonies should have been heard in a federal court. The charges brought by the New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg accused Trump of violating campaign finance laws during his 2016 campaign for President of the United States.

If a case can be heard in federal court, as all Trump-related cases can be, then the charges are pardonable by the president. No one credibly doubted that President Ford’s pardon of President Nixon protected him against all potential charges relating to the Watergate scandal, including non-federal ones.

The tradition of complete pardons by the president, which began with President George Washington, has always precluded prosecution of the underlying conduct in state court. Those who doubt this broad scope of the pardon power cannot cite any example of a beneficiary of a presidential pardon being prosecuted in state court for the same conduct.

Even Democrat-dominated New York courts shut down an attempted prosecution of Paul Manafort after President Trump granted him a pardon. While the rationale for that decision was based on New York’s strong rule against double jeopardy, the result was to prohibit a first-of-its-kind state prosecution of conduct excused by a presidential pardon.

The ban on slavery in the 13th Amendment to the Constitution prohibits its use “within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” This is not a reference to the federal government but to all of the States and territories, as demonstrated by the plural pronoun for jurisdiction.

The U.S. Supreme Court emphatically held after the Civil War, in Ex parte Garland (1867), that the presidential pardon “is unlimited, with the exception” for cases of impeachment. “It extends to every offence known to the law,” not merely to federal crimes.

Alexander Hamilton, a Framer of our Constitution, wrote favorably of a broad pardon power in The Federalist No. 74. Hamilton explained, “The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel.”

The use of the term “United States” to mean only the federal government and only federal laws is a modern distortion of the elite in Washington, D.C., to puff themselves up. The national liberal media distorts this further by obsessively reporting on D.C. as if that enclave represented the entire United States.

As the Supreme Court recognized in Schick v. Reed (1974), the Framers of the Pardon Clause stated that this power is a “prerogative” of the President, which ought not be “fettered or embarrassed.” The presidential pardon power would be impermissibly undermined if federal charges could be refiled as state charges by an unscrupulous local prosecutor like Alvin Bragg.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

GOP Should Prioritize Ending Election Fraud

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Sandwiched between Trump’s high-powered meetings with foreign leaders, Trump took the time to prioritize ending fraud-prone mail-in voting. Slightly more than half of our country – 28 states – permit mail-in voting without any documented reason or excuse.

Earlier this month, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho began his decision in favor of a voter ID law in Texas by declaring, “Mail-in ballots are not secure.” The vast majority of the world agrees and has banned the permissive mail-in voting that is allowed here.

Our postal service was never intended to conduct elections – that is not its mission. The delivery standards of our postal service have been declining, such that postmarks are no longer consistently used and letters are no longer reliably received within 3 days of being mailed.

Like the designated hitter rule in baseball that many traditional fans oppose, a team needs to use what is allowed in order to win. Campaigns should encourage Republicans to vote early, including by mail, in states that allow it, while also seeking a return to Election Day-only voting for everyone to improve election integrity.

Federal law has long required that national elections be held on only one day, and our country would be better off with a return to that gold standard for everyone. As the Fifth Circuit explained on August 4 by quoting from a report by the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, “absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.”

Yet liberals are in a tizzy over Trump’s new push against mail-in voting, and stories about it have displaced news about Trump’s meetings with foreign leaders. The liberal media doubts that Trump can end mail-in voting by executive order, as Trump indicates he will do.

Democrats insist there is no evidence that mail-in voting is susceptible to fraud, but they have blocked attempts by Republicans to audit signatures on mail-in ballots to check for authenticity. Some have destroyed records concerning the flood of mail-in ballots used in 2020 to elect Biden.

The Republican-controlled Congress has failed to hold hearings on this important issue, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) has failed to investigate it. Instead, Republicans like Trump’s chief of staff in 2020, Mark Meadows, remain under indictment by a Democrat county prosecutor in Georgia for questioning the massive number of mail-in ballots counted in favor of Biden to surprisingly award him that state in 2020.

Since 2020, 19 states have enacted restrictions on mail-in voting. A surge of 33 million mail-in ballots in 2020 was used to elect Biden, and there has never been a real investigation as to the legitimacy of that massive spike, which was not seen again in 2024.

“REMEMBER, WITHOUT FAIR AND HONEST ELECTIONS, AND STRONG AND POWERFUL BORDERS, YOU DON’T HAVE EVEN A SEMBLANCE OF A COUNTRY,” Trump posted Monday morning prior to his high-profile meeting with European leaders. Trump is impressed by how other countries have long prohibited mail-in voting “because of the MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD ENCOUNTERED.”

As nearly half of our country limited mail-in ballots in the 2024 election, Kamala Harris received 6.3 million fewer votes than Biden did four years earlier. At the same time, Trump received 3 million more votes in 2024 than in 2020.

The Harris campaign spent $1.5 billion in 2024, which included paying for ballot harvesters, yet there is little explanation of what all that money funded. House Republicans and the DOJ should be investigating this, but have failed to.

“We, as a Republican Party, are going to do everything possible that we get rid of mail-in ballots,” Trump responded to reporters at the White House on Monday. “We’re going to start with an executive order that's being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots.”

DOJ has spent tens of millions of dollars investigating critics of the reported election outcome in 2020, and yet apparently not a dime has been spent by DOJ on investigating rampant ballot harvesting and drop-box ballot dumps in 2020. There has been no investigation to explain the 6.3 million votes for the Democrat presidential nominee that disappeared between 2020 and 2024.

Trump’s opponents say that Germany and a few other Western countries allow mail-in voting, but only with stricter rules than in the United States such as Germany’s requirement that ballots be received by Election Day to be counted. France banned mail-in voting due to fraud, and most other European, Middle Eastern, and Latin American nations also prohibit it.

In too many of our states, mail-in signatures are not verified and ballots are accepted until 14 days after Election Day. Paid political operatives continue to have far too much influence over the harvesting of ballots.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Governors Harbor Fugitive Texas Legislators

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The exodus of more than 50 Democrat members of the Texas House to block a quorum in Austin is bad enough. Even worse is how the Democrat Governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, has promised them safe harbor, appearing with them at a press conference on Tuesday while declaring “we’ll do everything we can to support” them as they violate Texas law.

Control of the U.S. House for the second half of the Trump Administration hangs in the balance, as the redistricting map to be voted on in Austin would give Republicans a good chance of winning 5 of the 13 Texas congressional seats now held by Democrats. Illinois already gerrymandered its House maps to help Democrats win 14 out of its 17 seats, so it is hypocritical for them to allege unfairness in Texas doing what Illinois did.

Perhaps Illinois was chosen because its Democrat governor owns the Chicago Hyatt hotel, which has offered rooms to these Texas Democrats while they violate Texas law. At a press conference near Chicago on Tuesday, Pritzker denied that he was writing them checks – yet.

Trump observed on Tuesday morning that “I got the highest vote in the history of Texas. And we are entitled to five more seats” in Congress from Texas.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott stated on Monday, “Any Democrat who ‘solicits, accepts or agrees to accept’ … funds to assist in the violation of legislative duties or for purposes of skipping a vote may have violated bribery laws.” Abbott added that any person who “offers, confers or agrees to confer” money to the Democrats who left could also be charged with a crime.

In 2021, Democrat House members likewise fled Austin to frustrate a quorum, in order to block passage of new voting integrity measures including voter ID. That blockade lasted through the first and into the second special session, when three Houston Democrats returned while giving the pandemic as their reason, a quorum was established, and the bill passed. A court struck it down, but on Monday the appeals court ruled that it easily complies with federal law.

In the Texas House a quorum requires the presence of two-thirds, or 100, of the 150 representatives. The legislative session on Monday fell eight votes short of a quorum.

Civil arrest warrants were then ordered under Texas law because of the dereliction of duty by Democrats, but these warrants are enforceable only in Texas. The governors of states where they can be located could approve an extradition request, but they all fled to states having Democrat governors vowing to protect them against extradition.

Democrat Texas Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer said, “We recognized when we got on the plane that we’re in this for the long haul.” Fellow Texas Democrat Rep. Gene Wu observed that he and his colleagues “will do whatever it takes.”

Congressional Democrats have encouraged this defiance of the Texas law requiring its legislators to be in Austin. Ironically, Texas has an enormous congressional delegation of 38 seats because Democrats insist on including illegal aliens in the census used to allocate seats among the states, and multiple Democrat congressmen from Texas will lose their seats next year under this redistricting plan.

If Gov. Abbott’s threat of prosecuting those who aid these fugitive Democrats is ignored, then they have the financial resources to stay away for many months, whereupon it would be too late to redistrict. Texas has an early primary scheduled for March 3, 2026.

Defiance by Democrat-controlled states of Republican ones is growing. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has separately opposed a request by Texas to record a Texas judgment against an abortion provider in New York, who was sued in Texas for prescribing the abortion drug illegally for someone in Texas.

Gov. Hochul welcomed the Texas legislators who fled to New York in violation of Texas law, and even held a press conference with them. She blamed this on the same person that New York Democrats repeatedly try to scapegoat: Donald Trump.

There are 30-day limits on special legislative sessions in Texas, such that the current one must end by August 20. Gov. Greg Abbott can call as many new special sessions as it takes.

U.S. Marshals, the federal equivalent of sheriffs, typically handle federal warrants but also help in capturing and returning fugitives. In the acclaimed movie “The Fugitive” (1993), Tommy Lee Jones won an Oscar for portraying a U.S. Marshal chasing after a state-crime fugitive played by Harrison Ford.

Gov. Abbott could request assistance by the U.S. Marshals to return the renegade Texas Democrats who skipped town. Gov. Abbott has not yet publicly made this request, perhaps because of the pride that Texas takes in its independence, but Attorney General Pam Bondi could lead by stating her willingness to help.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Election Integrity Gains at State Level

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

With many elections decided today by fewer than 1% of votes, election integrity has become more important than ever. Republican state legislatures should be taking decisive action to end opportunities for election fraud.

Wyoming leads the way by requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, as Trump seeks. Previously Kansas and Arizona enacted similar laws but those have been blocked or tied up in court, and Wyoming should prepare to provide evidence of election fraud in court when its new law is challenged.

On Thursday, Wyoming HB 156 became law to ensure that voters there have presented proof of their American citizenship and residency before casting a ballot. Wyoming’s Republican Gov. Mark Gordon feebly declined to add his signature to this legislation, which became law regardless.

But also on Thursday in Texas, a liberal federal judge tossed out an election integrity law enacted in 2021 to reduce fraud in connection with mail-in ballots. Voters over 65, which is a large percentage of the voting public, and those with disabilities are allowed to cast their votes by mail in Texas without giving a reason.

The Texas legislature added a requirement that voters include an ID number to ensure that the ballots were legitimately mailed in by the person listed on it. The good law also required anyone assisting the voter to sign an oath under penalty of perjury to ensure its integrity.

In states having Republican trifectas, where Republicans control both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s office, a total of 66 election-related laws have been enacted. Nearly three times that many are working their way through the legislatures this spring.

In addition to Wyoming, other states leading on this issue are Arkansas, Utah, Mississippi, and South Dakota. The Arkansas Senate deserves particular credit for recently passing bills to improve the integrity of the process for putting an issue on the ballot for voter approval to become a law.

The Arkansas Secretary of State observed that out-of-state groups having lots of money “are able to get almost any issue on Arkansas ballots.” Nearly half the states continue to be vulnerable to the misuse of their ballot initiative process by out-of-state and even foreign billionaires to enact laws.

On the fundamental issues of abortion, marijuana, and gambling, liberals are enacting their agenda in predominantly conservative states by using hired petition gatherers to obtain signatures to qualify for the ballot. Then liberals outspend conservatives by 10-to-1 or more to pass these measures as new laws with a flood of television and internet advertising.

The conservative states need to reform this process, which is a relic from the Progressive Era early in the 20th century when state legislatures were overly influenced by corporate interests. The ballot initiative process was supposed to be a counterweight for the people to push back against corporate spending to enact laws in the legislatures.

Today, ballot measures have become the opposite, whereby big money by liberals is buying the laws they want and lining their own pockets by legalizing gambling and other bad behavior. Online sports gambling was legalized in Missouri last November by a margin of less than 3,000 votes, based on $43 million spent in support and only $9 million in opposition.

Arkansas Senate Bill 207 requires petition signature-gathering canvassers to inform, verbally or in writing, potential signatories that petition fraud is a Class A misdemeanor. This would help reduce the fraudulent collection of signatures to place a proposed law on the ballot.

Arkansas SB 208 requires that petition signers show a photo ID, which the canvassers must use to verify a signatory’s identity. Otherwise, signatures may not be gathered and included toward the minimum amount needed to place the measure on the ballot.

Arkansas SB 209 commands that the Secretary of State not recognize and count signatures on a petition for which there is a preponderance of evidence that the canvasser violated any law in collecting signatures. SB 210 requires that signatories read or have the title read to them, before signing a petition.

Finally, Arkansas SB 211 requires the canvasser to submit a sworn statement indicating compliance with all the signature-gathering laws. Without the sworn statement, the Secretary of State is ordered not to count the signatures gathered by that canvasser.

The Republican supermajorities in the legislatures in Ohio, Missouri, and elsewhere should follow this lead taken by the Arkansas Senate. Marijuana was recently legalized by ballot initiatives in Ohio and Missouri over objection by the elected representatives of the people, but the legislatures and courts in conservative states could end this misuse of the initiative process.

The Arkansas Supreme Court set the example last fall concerning harmful ballot initiatives. It properly excluded from the ballot both the marijuana and abortion-on-demand ballot initiatives that Missouri and Ohio allowed.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.