Democracy in America

IT WAS a “big win” tweeted Donald Trump on April 25th, as he congratulated the Republican winner of a special congressional election in Arizona’s eighth district. And yet, he complained: “Press is so silent”. Neither of these claims was true. The media has been poring over the outcome of a race, in a staunchly conservative district on the edge of Phoenix, that would normally deliver a boringly predictable Republican win. That is because the Republican victory there was much narrower than usual.

ORAL arguments at the Supreme Court often make for excellent theatre: an hour of well-prepared lawyers clashing over an issue fundamental to American democracy, lashed by questions from merciless justices sitting a few feet away. That is what visitors to the Supreme Court are likely to see on April 25th, when the court convenes to hear Trump v Hawaii, the final case of the nine-month term. The justices will consider an uncommonly fraught matter of presidential power: whether the third version of Donald Trump’s restrictions on travel from primarily Muslim countries is consistent with the law and the constitution.

THE Democratic wave that propelled the party to surprise victories in special elections in Alabama and Pennsylvania seems unlikely to reach Arizona’s eighth congressional district. In a special election on April 24th, voters will choose a successor to Trent Franks, who resigned in December following revelations that he had discussed surrogacy with two female staffers. This week, a poll by Emerson College showed the candidates neck-and-neck. But early voting, by which a majority of votes in this election will be cast, suggests a much higher turnout among Republicans than Democrats.  

IN A televised interview on April 15th, James Comey tore into the president who sacked him as FBI director last year. Donald Trump, he said, in an appearance intended to publicise his forthcoming book, “lies constantly”, runs his administration like a mob boss, treats and speaks of women like they are “pieces of meat” and is, for these and other reasons, “morally unfit” to be president.

ONE year ago, Neil Gorsuch took the oath of office as America’s 113th Supreme Court justice. Donald Trump’s nominee to replace the late Antonin Scalia was confirmed in the Senate by a historically slim 54-45 margin more than a year after Republicans refused to even consider Merrick Garland, Barack Obama’s nominee. When Justice Gorsuch took his seat on the bench on April 10th 2017, the Supreme Court had only dozen cases left to be heard that term. Today, as Justice Neil Gorsuch nears the end of his first full term, he faces some difficult votes. He and his eight colleagues have considered a smaller caseload than usual.

AMONG the many things that divide Democrats from Republicans is climate change. Fully 73% of Democratic voters say they are worried about global warming, compared with 32% of Republicans. Yet last month Elise Stefanik, a Republican congresswoman from New York (pictured above), co-authored a letter with a Democratic colleague urging President Donald Trump to reconsider his decision to purge climate change from the list of threats in the National Security Strategy. Another ten Republicans signed it (as did 94 Democrats). Many are members of the Climate Solutions Caucus in the House of Representatives. 

The caucus is as atypical as a climate-friendly Republican.

RALPH NORTHAM, Virginia’s new Democratic governor, soundly beat his Republican rival, Ed Gillespie, by harnessing antipathy for Donald Trump. Virginia was the only Southern state that the president lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016. But Mr Northam's landslide win in November was also due to his promise to bring 300,000 uninsured Virginians under the umbrella of Medicaid, a federal health-care programme for the poor and disabled.

The governor's young administration now has a problem: there is no consensus in the Republican-controlled legislature for his chief policy goal.