Dec 26 (Reuters) – Arizona’s Democratic Governor-elect Katie Hobbs asked a court on Monday to sanction defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake over her failed effort to overturn the state’s election results.
An Arizona judge on Saturday rejected Lake’s lawsuit that challenged the counting and certification of the November electoral contest in a bid to be declared the winner despite a lack of evidence of voter fraud.
Hobbs joined a motion by Maricopa County for sanctions on Lake and her attorneys in which the county’s deputy attorney Thomas P. Liddy wrote Lake filed a “groundless” lawsuit for a “frivolous pursuit,” court documents showed.
“Enough really is enough,” Liddy wrote in the motion filed on Monday. “It is past time to end unfounded attacks on elections and unwarranted accusations against elections officials.”
Maricopa County’s motion had “no basis in law or fact,” Lake’s lawyers wrote in a response filed Monday evening, asking the court to deny the request for sanctions.
“Trust in the election process is not furthered by punishing those who bring legitimate claims as plaintiff did here,” the court document filed by Lake’s lawyers said. “In fact, sanctioning plaintiff would have the opposite effect.”
The sanctions would be in the form of a financial penalty imposed by a judge for violation of a court rule or misconduct.
Lake’s lawsuit had targeted Hobbs, who is currently Arizona’s secretary of state and becomes governor next week, along with top officials in Maricopa County. Her suit claimed “hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots infected the election” in Maricopa, the state’s most populous county.
In a separate court filing, Hobbs also asked the Superior Court in Maricopa County to award her over $600,000 to compensate for fees and expenses accrued in defending against Lake’s lawsuit.
Lake, a former television news anchor, was one of the most high-profile Republican candidates in the midterm elections to embrace former Republican President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud in 2020.
She lost the governor’s race to Hobbs but refused to concede and continued making unconfirmed claims about election improprieties on her Twitter feed.
Lake was one of the most prominent of the Trump-aligned Republican candidates who lost battleground state races in the midterm elections.
Reporting by Ismail Shakil in Ottawa; Editing by Mary Milliken and Alistair Bell
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
PHOENIX, Nov 12 (Reuters) – Democrats on Saturday were one seat away from majority control of the U.S. Senate next year, as vote-counting in deeply divided Nevada continued following Tuesday’s midterm elections and campaigning kicked off for a Dec. 6 runoff in Georgia.
If incumbent Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto manages to fend off Republican Adam Laxalt in Nevada, her party would then control 50 of the Senate’s 100 seats.
A Democratic victory in Georgia next month would then give the party outright majority control of a 51-49 Senate. A Democratic loss in Georgia and a win in Nevada would still put Democrats in charge of a 50-50 Senate, as Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris can break tie votes.
The Senate currently is split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans. The newly-elected Senate will be sworn in on Jan. 3.
With nearly 97% of the vote counted in the Nevada Senate race, Laxalt was leading by around 800 votes. However, uncounted votes from Cortez Masto strongholds could vault her to victory.
Suspense over control of the Senate came as it also was still unknown which party will hold the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives for the next two years. Republicans continued to have an edge, but returns were still flowing in for several races, including many in liberal-leaning California.
It could take at least a few more days before the outcome of enough House races are known to determine party control of that 435-seat chamber.
Democrats got an important boost late on Friday when Democratic Senator Mark Kelly was projected to hold onto his seat in Arizona, defeating Republican Blake Masters, who has not yet conceded the race.
Kelly, a former Navy combat pilot and astronaut, delivered a short victory speech to his supporters in Phoenix on Saturday with his wife, former Democratic Representative Gabby Giffords, at his side. His remarks focused on working in Congress in a bipartisan manner.
Kelly did not mention Masters, but said: “We’ve seen the consequences that come when leaders refuse to accept the truth and focus more on conspiracies of the past than solving the challenges that we face today.”
Tuesday’s midterm elections saw many Republican candidates, including Masters, echo former President Donald Trump’s false contention that he lost the 2020 election to Biden because of massive voter fraud.
No winner was projected yet in the race for Arizona governor, where Democrat Katie Hobbs holds a narrow lead over Republican Kari Lake.
(Live election results from around the country are here)
JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS AT STAKE
A Democratic-controlled Senate would provide insurance to President Joe Biden that his nominees to fill dozens of federal judgeships would win confirmation under the guidance of Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
That would be particularly crucial to Democrats if a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, which now has a 6-3 conservative bent, were to open up in the final two years of Biden’s term.
When the outgoing Senate returns on Monday for a post-election work session that could run through late December, Schumer aims to immediately confirm two more federal judges awaiting final votes.
However, if Cortez Masto fails to outpace Laxalt and Democrats also lose in Georgia, Schumer will have to spend far more time pushing through judicial nominations before relinquishing power on Jan. 3, after which Senate Republicans would have the ability either to reject or slow-walk confirmation of Biden nominees.
Hovering over the 2022 midterm elections all year has been Trump, who used his continued popularity among hard-right conservatives to influence the candidates the Republican Party nominated for congressional, gubernatorial and local races.
With Republicans’ lackluster performance on Tuesday — even if they do win narrow majority control of either the Senate or House — Trump has been blamed for boosting candidates who were unable to appeal to a broad enough electorate.
Both Laxalt and Herschel Walker, the Republican running to unseat Senator Raphael Warnock in Georgia, won Trump’s backing. Republican losses in either of these two races could further dampen Trump’s popularity as advisers say he considers announcing a third run for the presidency in 2024.House Republicans, if they manage to pull out a victory, have pledged to try to roll back Biden victories on battling climate change and want to make permanent a series of 2017 tax cuts that will expire. They also have planned investigations into Biden administration activities and probes of the president’s son, who has had business dealings with Ukraine and China.
Reporting by Tim Reid and Richard Cowan; Editing by Daniel Wallis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
WASHINGTON, Nov 10 (Reuters) – Republicans were edging closer to securing a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives early on Thursday, while control of the Senate hung in the balance, two days after Democrats staved off a Republican “red wave” in midterm elections.
Republicans had captured at least 210 House seats, Edison Research projected, eight short of the 218 needed to wrest the House away from Democrats and effectively halt President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda.
While Republicans remain favored, there were 33 House contests yet to be decided – including 21 of the 53 most competitive races, based on a Reuters analysis of the leading nonpartisan forecasters – likely ensuring the final outcome will not be determined for some time.
(Live election results from around the country are here.)
The fate of the Senate was far less certain. Either party could seize control by sweeping too-close-to-call races in Nevada and Arizona, where officials are methodically tallying thousands of uncounted ballots.
A split would mean the Senate majority would come down to a runoff election in Georgia for the second time in two years. Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker both failed to reach 50% on Tuesday, forcing them into a one-on-one battle on Dec. 6.
Even a slim House majority would allow Republicans to shape the rest of Biden’s term, blocking priorities such as abortion rights and launching investigations into his administration and family.
Biden acknowledged that reality on Wednesday, saying he was prepared to work with Republicans. A White House official said Biden spoke by phone with Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy, who announced earlier in the day his intention to run for speaker of the House if Republicans control the chamber.
“The American people have made clear, I think, that they expect Republicans to be prepared to work with me as well,” Biden said at a White House news conference.
If McCarthy is the next House speaker, he may find it challenging to hold together his fractious caucus, with a hard-right wing that has little interest in compromise.
Republicans are expected to demand spending cuts in exchange for raising the nation’s borrowing limit next year, a showdown that could spook financial markets.
Control of the Senate, meanwhile, would give Republicans the power to block Biden’s nominees for judicial and administrative posts.
MIXED RESULTS
The party in power historically suffers heavy casualties in a president’s first midterm election, and Biden has struggled with low approval ratings. But Democrats were able to avoid the sweeping defeat that Republicans had anticipated.
Tuesday’s results suggested voters were punishing Biden for the steepest inflation in 40 years, while also lashing out against Republican efforts to ban abortion and cast doubt on the nation’s vote-counting process.
Biden had framed the election as a test of U.S. democracy at a time when hundreds of Republican candidates embraced Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
A number of election deniers won on Tuesday, but many who sought positions to oversee elections at the state level were defeated.
“It was a good day, I think, for democracy,” Biden said.
Trump, who took an active role in recruiting Republican candidates, had mixed results.
He notched a victory in Ohio, where “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance won a Senate seat to keep it in Republican hands. But several other Trump-backed candidates suffered defeats, such as retired celebrity surgeon Mehmet Oz, who lost a crucial Senate race in Pennsylvania to Democrat John Fetterman.
Meanwhile, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who could challenge Trump in 2024, won re-election by nearly 20 percentage points, adding to his growing national profile.
Reporting by Joseph Ax, Andy Sullivan, Makini Brice, Susan Heavey, Richard Cowan, Steve Holland, Jeff Mason and Doina Chiacu in Washington, Gabriella Borter in Birmingham, Michigan, Nathan Layne in Alpharetta, Georgia, Tim Reid in Phoenix and Ned Parker in Reno, Nevada; Writing by Joseph Ax; Editing by Tom Hogue
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Aug 16 (Reuters) – The U.S. government spared seven Western states from mandatory Colorado River water cutbacks for now but warned on Tuesday that drastic conservation was needed to protect dwindling reservoirs from overuse and severe drought exacerbated by climate change.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in June had given the states 60 days, until mid-August, to negotiate their own reductions or possibly face mandatory cutbacks enforced by the federal government. Federal officials asked for a reduced usage of 2 million to 4 million acre-feet of water per year, an unprecedented reduction of 15% to 30% in the coming year.
But bureau and Department of Interior officials told a news conference they would give the states more time to reach a deal affecting the water supply of 40 million people.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
They instead fell back on previously negotiated cuts that for the second year in a row will impose reductions on Nevada, Arizona and the country of Mexico, which also receives a Colorado River allotment.
Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Beaudreau said federal officials would continue working with the seven Colorado River states on reaching a deal: Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming.
“That said, we stand firm in the need to protect the system,” Beaudreau said, adding he was encouraged by the talks so far and by new federal money for water management.
Even so, federal officials said more cuts were needed, both under terms already negotiated in the 100-year-old Colorado River compact and the 21st century reality of human-influenced climate change resulting in hotter temperatures and drier soils.
A 24-month forecast released on Tuesday showed falling levels of the two largest reservoirs on the river, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, will trigger the previously negotiated cuts.
An aerial view of Lake Powell is seen, where water levels have declined dramatically to lows not seen since it was filled in the 1960s as growing demand for water and climate change shrink the Colorado River and create challenges for business owners and recreation in Page, Arizona, U.S., April 20, 2022. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs/Files
Arizona, Nevada and Mexico will have supplies reduced for a second straight year: 21% for Arizona, 8% for Nevada and 7% for Mexico.
They are the first to be subject to cutbacks under the Colorado River compact. Last year, they got hit with 18%, 7% and 5% reductions, respectively, for the first time ever.
Negotiations over further reductions is creating tension among the states, especially as California, the largest user, has so far avoided cuts triggered by low reservoir levels.
Lake Mead and Lake Powell are barely above one-quarter of their capacity. If they fall much lower, they will be unable to generate hydroelectric power for millions in the West.
“It is unacceptable for Arizona to continue to carry a disproportionate burden of reductions for the benefit of others who have not contributed,” Ted Cooke, general manager of the Central Arizona Project, said in a statement.
John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said he had hoped for more urgency from the bureau on Tuesday.
“It is possible for us to make the larger necessary cuts, but I think it is going to take everyone at the table realizing that everyone needs to suffer a commensurate level of pain to get there,” Entsminger said.
The 23-year megadrought, the worst on record in at least 1,200 years, is testing the strength of the compact, which a century ago assumed the river could provide 20 million acre-feet of water each year. The river’s actual flow the past two decades has averaged 12.5 million acre-feet, leaving state water managers with more rights on paper than water that exists in the river.
“As we have emphasized since taking office, the circumstances we face will require swift action and increased water conservation in every state, from every sector,” said Tanya Trujillo, the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for water and science.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
Reporting by Daniel Trotta and Caitlin Ochs; Editing by Donna Bryson and Josie Kao
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
NEW YORK, Aug 5 (Reuters) – Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, said on Friday he has started to send buses carrying migrants to New York City in an effort to push responsibility for border crossers to Democratic mayors and U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
The first bus arrived early on Friday at the city’s Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan carrying around 50 migrants from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras and Venezuela. Volunteers were helping to steer people who had no relatives in town to city resources.
“Most of them don’t have anybody to help. They don’t know where to go, so we’re taking them to shelters,” said one volunteer at the bus station, Evelin Zapata, from a group called Grannies Respond.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
One family of four from Colombia, who ended up at a homeless intake center in the Bronx, were unsure of where they would spend the night. Byron and Leidy, both 28, said they left the country’s capital Bogota because they were having trouble finding work. They did not provide their last name.
“It’s a little easier to enter the country now, before it was very hard to come here with children,” said Leidy, who traveled with her kids Mariana, 7, and Nicolas, 13. She said the family had hoped someone they knew in New York would take them in, but that plan did not work out. “We came here because they said they would help us find a place to sleep to not have to stay in the street,” Leidy said.
Abbott, who is running for a third term as governor in November elections, has already sent more than 6,000 migrants to Washington since April in a broader effort to combat illegal immigration and call out Biden for his more welcoming policies. read more
Biden came into office in January 2021 pledging to reverse many of the hardline immigration policies of his Republican predecessor, former President Donald Trump, but some efforts have been blocked in court.
Abbott said New York City Mayor Eric Adams could provide services and housing for the new arrivals.
“I hope he follows through on his promise of welcoming all migrants with open arms so that our overrun and overwhelmed border towns can find relief,” Abbott said in a statement.
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, another Republican, has followed Abbott’s lead and bused another 1,000 to Washington.
U.S. border authorities have made record numbers of arrests under Biden although many are repeat crossers. Some migrants who are not able to be expelled quickly to Mexico or their home countries under a COVID-era policy are allowed into the United States, often to pursue asylum claims in U.S. immigration court.
‘POLITICAL PAWNS’
Texas Governor Greg Abbott holds a news conference with state agencies and local officials at Uvalde High School, three days after a gunman killed nineteen children and two adults in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, in Uvalde, Texas, U.S. May 27, 2022. REUTERS/Marco Bello
Read More
Adams’ office has in recent weeks criticized the busing efforts to Washington, saying some migrants were making their way to New York City and overwhelming its homeless shelter system.
On Friday the mayor’s press secretary Fabien Levy said Abbott was using “human beings as political pawns,” calling it “a disgusting, and an embarrassing stain on the state of Texas.”
Levy said New York would continue to “welcome asylum seekers with open arms, as we always have, but we are asking for resources to help do so,” calling for support from federal officials.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Friday called the Texas initiative “shameful” and an unnecessary burden on taxpayers in that state.
Costs for the effort amounted to $1.6 million in April and May, a local NBC News affiliate reported in June, more than $1,400 per rider.
Texas officials declined to provide the cost when asked by Reuters.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser has also said her city’s shelter system has been strained by migrant arrivals and last month called on the Biden administration to deploy military troops to assist with receiving the migrants, a request that has frustrated White House officials. read more
A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had declined a request for D.C. National Guard to help with the transportation and reception of migrants in the city because it would hurt the troops’ readiness.
Bowser suggested on Friday that she would submit a more targeted troop request, reiterating her stance that the federal government should handle what she called a “growing humanitarian crisis.”
“If the federal government’s not going to do it, they need to at least get out of our way and give us the resources that we need,” she told reporters.
Many migrants are arriving after long and difficult journeys through South America.
Venezuelan migrant Jose Gregorio Forero said before traveling more than a day by bus from Texas he had crossed through eight countries. “It’s taken 31 days to get here, on foot and asking for rides,” he said, saying he was glad to be in New York where he thought there would be more job opportunities.
New York City, he said, “is very beautiful. I love it.”
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
Reporting by Sofia Ahmed in New York and Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali and Jeff Mason in Washington, Roselle Chen and Dan Fastenberg in New York; Editing by Mica Rosenberg and Daniel Wallis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
April 20 (Reuters) – A wind-driven Arizona wildfire almost tripled in area on Wednesday after burning dozens of structures and forcing thousands to flee their homes in a drought-hit rural area.
The blaze, dubbed the Tunnel Fire, swept northeast over largely unpopulated hills and valleys 14 miles (23 km) north of Flagstaff, Arizona, according to a U.S. Forest Service statement.
Flames burned 16,625 acres, an area larger than Manhattan, moving through the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument which has a visitor center and hiking trails, the release said.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
Smoke drifts from the Tunnel Fire north of Flagstaff, Arizona April 20, 2022. Mark Henle/USA Today Network via REUTERS
Driven by traditional gusty spring winds, the blaze forced more than 2,000 residents from their homes, the Coconino county Board of Supervisors said.
At least 25 structures were burned after the fire moved through parts of the Wupatki Trails and Timberline Estates communities, which are built in pine forest, the county sheriff’s office said.
The area is part of a swathe of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado caught in more than two decades of largely unrelenting drought after average temperatures in the area rose about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century, according to data from the Desert Research Institute and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Around 360 miles to the east, an elderly couple died in their in Ruidoso, New Mexico, home last week when a wildfire destroyed hundreds of houses and forced thousands to flee the mountain town. read more
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico;
Editing by Gareth Jones, Nick Macfie and Aurora Ellis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
The logo of Samsung is seen on a building during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain February 25, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman
Sept 6 (Reuters) – The city of Taylor, Texas – one of two locations in the state under consideration by Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) for a $17 billion chip plant – plans to offer extensive property tax breaks if it is chosen by the South Korean tech giant.
Taylor is competing with Austin, Texas to land the plant which is expected to create about 1,800 new jobs. Samsung has also said it is looking at other potential sites in Arizona and New York.
Other potential sites have yet to disclose planned tax breaks.
A proposed resolution posted on the city’s website shows that for the land Samsung will use, it is set to be offered a grant equivalent to 92.5% of assessed property tax for 10 years, 90% for the following 10 years and then 85% in the 10 years after that.
Other measures include a 92.5% tax waiver on new property built on the site for 10 years and the repayment of development review costs.
The proposed resolution will be considered on Wednesday by the Taylor City Council and Williamson County Commissioners.
The Taylor site is located about 25 miles (40 kilometres) from Austin. It is about 1,187.5 acres (4.81 square kilometres)in size, much bigger than the Austin site. Samsung last year purchased more than 250 acres in Austin, which is in addition to 350 acres it owns that includes its sole U.S. chip factory.
If Samsung decides on Taylor, it plans to break ground by the first quarter of next year with production due to start by end-2024, a document previously filed with Texas state officials has said. [nL4N2OS0M5
Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Edwina Gibbs
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.