THE GOP HOLDS EVERY statewide elective office in Texas, from railroad commissioner to comptroller to governor. The party has controlled the state senate for a quarter-century and its house for 19 years. In November, its voters backed Donald Trump over Joe Biden by nearly six percentage points while sending an overwhelmingly Republican delegation to Congress. And yet the Texas GOP is waging war on the democracy it dominates.
Republicans have pushed anti-democratic election “reforms” in states across the country, but Senate Bill 7 lends credence to the claim that everything is bigger in Texas—even partisan attacks on free elections. The bill (which Democrats have stalled for now) doesn’t just feature all of the GOP’s latest innovations in voter suppression (like restrictions on early, absentee, and drive-through voting). It also contains a variety of measures that abet election subversion. The law would make it easier for state officials to throw out voters’ ballots on the basis of signature mismatches, a demonstrably unreliable means of identity verification. It would make it a criminal offense for a local official to provide an absentee-ballot application to a voter who has not requested one, punishable by prison time, while imposing no similar penalty on officials who deny eligible voters a chance to cast a ballot, thereby incentivizing administrators to err on the side of disenfranchisement. The most troubling part of the legislation is its apparent attempt to lay the groundwork for the invalidation of ballots en masse.
This story is from the June 7 - 20, 2021 edition of New York magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the June 7 - 20, 2021 edition of New York magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
THE BEST ART SHOWS OF THE YEAR
IN NOVEMBER, Sotheby's made history when it sold for a million bucks a painting made by artificial intelligence. Ai-Da, \"the first humanoid robot artist to have an artwork auctioned by a major auction house,\" created a portrait of Alan Turing that resembles nothing more than a bad Francis Bacon rip-off. Still, the auction house described the sale as \"a new frontier in the global art market.\"
THE BIGGEST PODCAST MOMENTS OF THE YEAR
A STRANGE THING happened with podcasts in 2024: The industry was repeatedly thrust into the spotlight owing to a preponderance of head-turning events and a presidential-election cycle that radically foregrounded the medium's consequential nature. To reflect this, we've carved out a list of ten big moments from the year as refracted through podcasting.
THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
THE YEAR IN CULTURE - BEST BOOKS
THE BEST THEATER OF THE YEAR
IT'S BEEN a year of successful straight plays, even measured by a metric at which they usually do poorly: ticket sales. Partially that's owed to Hollywood stars: Jeremy Strong, Jim Parsons, Rachel Zegler, Rachel McAdams (to my mind, the most compelling).
THE BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
2024 WAS one big stress test that presented artists with a choice: Face uncomfortable realities or serve distractions to the audience. Pop music turned inward while hip-hop weathered court cases and incalculable losses. Country struggled to reconcile conservative interests with a much wider base of artists. But the year's best music offered a reprieve.
THE BEST TELEVISION OF THE YEAR
IT WAS SURPRISING how much 2024 felt like an uneventful wake for the Peak TV era. There was still great television, but there was much more mid or meh television and far fewer moments when a critical mass of viewers seemed equally excited about the same series.
THE BEST COMEDY SPECIALS OF THE YEAR
THE YEAR IN CULTURE - COMEDY SPECIALS
THE BEST MOVIES OF THE YEAR
PEOPLE LOVED Megalopolis, hated it, puzzled over it, clipped it into memes, and tried to astroturf it into a camp classic, but, most important, they cared about it even though it featured none of the qualities you'd expect of a breakthrough work in these noisy times.
A Truly Great Time
This was the year our city's new restaurants loosened up.
The Art of the Well-Stuffed Stocking
THE CHRISTMAS ENTHUSIASTS on the Strategist team gathered to discuss the oversize socks they drape on their couches and what they put inside them.
