Deregulator: Alive since '85!

Municipal elections in a  host of N.C. cities  probably will be pushed back several months, thanks to an … unconventional … gesture by former President Trump. Trump wanted the 2020 census,  for the first time in U.S. history , to include a question about the citizenship status of everyone in the survey. Trump and those around him started considering the prospect before the 2016 election. Trump officials said they wanted the information to make sure the Voting Rights Act’s one person, one vote standard was upheld. But reporting from NPR, backed by emails obtained from lawsuits challenging the administration’s efforts, revealed something worse on both legal and policy grounds: The Trump White House wanted the 2020 congressional maps to  exclude illegal immigrants and other non-citizens . Legally, this is a nonstarter. In June 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump  couldn’t include  a question on citizenship status on census forms. Just before the president...

Three-term U.S. Sen. Richard Burr was one of seven Republican senators to vote for the conviction of Donald Trump at the ex-president’s second impeachment trial. For that, Burr joined another club: The Censured GOP Senators. As I write this, Burr and colleague Bill Cassidy of Louisiana have been censured by their state parties for the guilty vote. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska  may  become a member any day now. Maine Republicans are trying to decide whether to rebuke Susan Collins, as is the Pennsylvania GOP with Pat Toomey.   A censure resolution is circulating across Alaska  targeting  Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the only senator voting to convict who’s standing for re-election in 2022. My guess is she’s not too concerned, since in 2010 she won her  second term as a write-in candidate , beating a Republican, a Democrat, and a Libertarian. Sasse had some  tough love(?)  for his party. Burr may be more disappointed than anything from Republicans’ actio...