Opinion | Ukraine Needs a Roadmap to NATO Membership ASAP

The following open letter was signed by 46 foreign policy experts whose names and affiliations are listed below.

The upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius that begins July 11 will take place at a time of danger and opportunity. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s revisionist ambition to remake the security order in Europe has foundered in Ukraine and exposed cracks in the foundation of his regime. But Putin has yet to abandon his goal of establishing control of Ukraine or his belief that he can outlast Kyiv and the West. Leaving Ukraine in a gray zone of ambiguity invites Russian aggression.

The alliance will convene in Vilnius as Kyiv’s counteroffensive enters its second month. It now seems that most NATO allies, not just the Central and East European states that have long understood the dangers of the Kremlin’s revisionist policies, lean toward a more ambitious agenda for Vilnius. We present these ideas to help the administration and NATO allies move toward a successful summit, one that brings us closer to restoring a stable and secure Europe.

nb This means taking steps to ensure that Ukraine 1) wins this war and reestablishes full control over its internationally recognized 1991 borders; and 2) is fully anchored in the security and economic arrangements that from 1945 until 2014 made Europe a continent of peace, prosperity and cooperation. The transatlantic community can only be stable and secure if Ukraine is secure. Ukraine’s entry into NATO, fulfilling the promise made at the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, would achieve that.

In Vilnius, NATO heads of state and government should offer an unequivocal statement of alliance support for Ukraine and for Kyiv’s aim of regaining sovereignty and territorial integrity within its 1991 borders. They should further underscore their readiness to supply Ukraine weapons — including longer-range missiles such as ATACMS, Western fighter planes and tanks — in sufficient quantities to prevail on the battlefield. This will demonstrate the allies’ unequivocal commitment to Ukrainian victory and send a clear message to Moscow that its military situation in Ukraine will only grow worse the longer the conflict continues.

In Vilnius, the alliance should launch a roadmap that will lead clearly to Ukraine’s membership in NATO at the earliest achievable date. As with Finland and Sweden, the process can bypass the Membership Action Plan in light of the close and ongoing interactions between NATO and Ukraine. NATO heads of state and government should task the Council in permanent session to develop recommendations on the timing and modalities of an accession process for Ukraine for decision at the next NATO summit in Washington in 2024.

To enhance Ukraine’s security until it joins NATO, NATO and Ukraine at Vilnius should establish a deterrence and defense partnership under which:

· the allies will provide all necessary arms, training, equipment, and intelligence and other support to deter or defeat ongoing and new aggression by Russia; and

· Ukraine will continue to carry out essential steps to expedite its integration into the alliance and its command structures.

At the Vilnius summit, the allies and Ukraine should upgrade the NATO-Ukraine Commission to a NATO-Ukraine Council. The Council will oversee the deterrence and defense partnership and serve as a crisis consultation mechanism — in the spirit of Article 4 of the Washington Treaty — in the event of a threat to the territorial integrity, sovereignty, or security of Ukraine or any of the NATO member states.

In Vilnius, the allies should reaffirm their commitment to enhance coordinated measures to meet Ukraine’s urgent needs for military and defense equipment, focusing directly on air defense systems, long-range missiles and necessary ammunition, tanks and advanced combat aircraft.

To expand practical assistance to Ukraine, the allies should invite Ukraine to assign additional liaison officers at NATO headquarters and commands to support the launch of a joint process of developing a Ukrainian long-term national security strategy, national defense strategy, and national defense posture compatible with NATO standards and planning.

The allies should also approve the updated Comprehensive Assistance Package to facilitate Ukraine attaining full interoperability with NATO forces and making a comprehensive transition to NATO standards. The focus should be on the transition to Western weapons systems; creation of a modern, NATO-compatible air and missile defense system; creation of a medical rehabilitation system for wounded soldiers, as well as a system for soldier reintegration into civilian life and a comprehensive demining effort.

Vilnius can be a historic NATO summit. The above steps would bring closer NATO membership for Ukraine and, with it, the elimination of gray zones and ambiguous security situations that have proven to be an invitation to aggression. The result would be a more stable, secure, and prosperous transatlantic community.

Signed:

Stephen E. Biegun
Former U.S. deputy secretary of state

Hans Binnendijk
Former director for defense policy and arms control at the National Security Council; distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council

Stephen Blank
Senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute

Gen. Philip Breedlove (ret.)
U.S. Air Force, 17th Supreme Allied Commander Europe; distinguished professor at the Sam Nunn School, Georgia Institute of Technology

Ian Brzezinski
Former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO Policy; senior fellow at the Atlantic Council

Dora Chomiak
Chief executive officer at Razom for Ukraine

Gen. Wesley Clark (ret.)
U.S. Army, 12th Supreme Allied Commander, Europe; senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center

Luke Coffey
Senior fellow at the Hudson Institute

Andrew D’Anieri
Assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center

Larry Diamond
Senior fellow at the Hoover Institution; senior fellow at Stanford University

Amb. Paula Dobriansky
Former under secretary of state for global affairs

Amb. Eric S. Edelman
Former under secretary of defense for policy 2005-2009

Evelyn Farkas
Executive director of the McCain Institute; former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia

Daniel Fata
Former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO; senior advisor, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Amb. Daniel Fried
Former assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia; former U.S. ambassador to Poland

Francis Fukuyama
Senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University

Melinda Haring
Nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center

Amb. John Herbst
Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine; senior director at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center

Maj. General William C. Hix (ret.)
U.S. Army

Lieut. Gen. Ben Hodges (ret.)
Former commanding general, U.S. Army Europe

Donald N. Jensen
Adjunct professor at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Johns Hopkins University

Andrea Kendall-Taylor
Former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia

Amb. John Kornblum
Former U.S. ambassador to Germany

David Kramer
Former U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor; executive director at the George W. Bush Institute

Franklin Kramer
Distinguished fellow and board director at the Atlantic Council; former assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs

Matthew Kroenig
Vice president and senior director at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Jan M. Lodal
Distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council

Lieut. Gen. Doug Lute (ret.)
Former U.S. Army; former U.S. ambassador to NATO 2013-17

Jane Holl Lute
Former deputy secretary of homeland security

Shelby Magid
Deputy director at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center

Tom Malinowski
Former U.S. member of Congress; senior fellow at the McCain Institute

Nadia McConnell
President of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation

Robert McConnell
Co-founder of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation; director of external relations at the Friends of Ukraine Network

Amb. Michael McFaul
Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia; director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University

Amb. P. Michael McKinley
Former U.S. ambassador to Peru, Colombia, Afghanistan, and Brazil

Amb. Carlos Pascual
Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine

Amb. Steven Pifer
Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine

Amb. Stephen Sestanovich
Former U.S. ambassador-at-large for the former Soviet Union 1997-2001; senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations; professor at Columbia University

Amb. Andras Simonyi
Former Hungarian ambassador to NATO; nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council

Angela Stent
Nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution

Amb. William B. Taylor
Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine

Amb. Alexander Vershbow
Distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council; former NATO deputy secretary general; former U.S. ambassador to Russia and South Korea

Amb. Melanne Verveer
Former U.S. ambassador-at-large for Global Women’s Issues; executive director at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security

Alexander Vindman
Lieutenant Colonel (ret.), U.S. Army

Amb. Kurt Volker
Former U.S. ambassador to NATO; former U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations

Amb. Marie Yovanovitch
Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine

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Illinois Republican Darren Bailey challenges Rep. Mike Bost

CHICAGO — Darren Bailey, the former Illinois Republican state senator who lost a bid last year for governor to Democratic incumbent JB Pritzker, is now running for Congress.

He filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday to run against five-term incumbent Republican Rep. Mike Bost. Bailey is set to make a formal announcement at a Fourth of July event with 500 guests at his home in Xenia.

The downstate Illinois contest is set to be the most watched in Illinois in 2024 as it pits two far-right Republicans against each other.

Bailey is a southern Illinois farmer whose run for governor was endorsed by former President Donald Trump, and Bost is a five-term congressman and U.S. Marine Corps veteran who was also endorsed by Trump. The former president called Bost a “terrific representative” for the 12th District.

This is the first real contest for Bost, whose last primary challenge was in 2018. Bost has consistently won his district by double digits against Democrats, including in 2022 when he won by 50 points. Bost has more than $648,000 on hand, according to FEC records.

A Trump endorsement would be huge in the high-profile contest.

A person familiar with the Trump campaign said House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has told the former president that he supports the reliably conservative Bost, who also endorsed McCarthy’s election for the top House job.

Bailey’s team would also like an endorsement, though short of that would want Trump to remain neutral.

Trump likes to back winners, and he could be miffed that Bailey lost by double digits to Pritzker.

The governor’s race drew national headlines when Pritzker and the Democratic Governors Association spent $35 million on ads during the Republican primary to define Bailey as a far-right conservative against a more moderate candidate. That fueled the Republican base to get out the vote and secure Bailey’s place in the general election — and eased the way for Pritzker’s victory.

The ads also helped build Bailey’s image as a MAGA Republican. He has assembled a strong grassroots following and is seen in Illinois Republican circles as a formidable candidate against Bost.

Bailey was possibly angling for Bost’s seat even before last year’s governor’s race was wrapped up. Flyers were distributed in the deeply conservative 12th District promoting Bailey even though it’s an area that Bailey had easily sewn up for the governor’s contest.

Bailey’s real challenge in the governor’s race was winning over the Democratic stronghold of Chicago, where the bulk of the state’s population lives.

The 12th District, meanwhile, voted for Trump 56 percent to 41 percent in 2020, and 55 percent to 40 percent in 2016.

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Judge limits Biden administration contact with social media firms

A federal judge in Louisiana ruled Tuesday that the Biden administration likely violated the First Amendment by censoring unfavorable views on social media over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, calling the efforts “Orwellian.”

U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty also issueda sweeping preliminary injunction barring numerous federal officials and agencies — including Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and all employees of the Justice Department and FBI — from having any contact with social media firms for the purpose of discouraging or removing First Amendment-protected speech.

The ruling and order from Doughty, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, are the latest developments in a long-running lawsuit spearheaded by Republican-led states alleging that the administration pressured social media companies to remove posts containing purported misinformation about the coronavirus, election security and other issues.

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth,’” Doughty wrote in his 155-page opinion, which was released as most federal courts were closed for the Independence Day holiday.

Doughty’s ruling appears to take effect immediately, but it isn’t a final decision on the suit and can be appealed by the Biden administration to the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Justice Department declined to comment on the ruling Tuesday. A spokesperson for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The judge’s decision cites a wide range of topics that he says “all were suppressed” on social media at the urging of administration officials, including opposition to Covid vaccines, masking, lockdowns and the lab-leak theory; opposition to the validity of the 2020 election; opposition to President Joe Biden’s and other officials’ policies; and statements claiming that the story surrounding a laptop belonging to Biden’s son Hunter Biden was true.

Each topic “suppressed” was a conservative view, which “is quite telling,” Doughty declared.

“This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech,” he continued. “American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country … the evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario.”

However, the judge also pointed to past efforts to delete or suppress content from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist who in April announced he is challenging Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination.

The Justice Department has argued in the case that federal officials engaging with social media companies were simply encouraging them to police their platforms and that the officials’ speech in doing so was protected by the First Amendment. Federal officials have denied engaging in threats or coercion to force the companies to de-platform certain speech or speakers, although top officials sometimes denounced the companies in stark terms.

“They’re killing people,” Biden said in July 2021, after being asked about the presence of anti-vaccine content on Facebook and other sites. “The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and they’re killing people.”

Doughty has been overseeing the suit the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana filed last year claiming that the administration’s pressure on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube was so intense that it amounted to censorship. In a rebuke to Doughty in January, the 5th Circuit blocked efforts to force former White House press secretary Jen Psaki to testify in the case.

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Opinion | How Progressives Can Learn to Celebrate the Fourth of July

The Fourth of July is, nearly universally, a day of relaxed celebration and ritual, from enjoying grilled hot dogs, potato chips and ice cream — hey, it’s a special occasion! — to gathering with neighbors to watch fireworks. But for progressives like myself, the holiday’s star-spangled flag-waving and patriotic songs and speeches extolling America’s greatness can feel hokey or even hostile. In an increasingly polarized nation, overt declarations of national pride often morph into displays of aggressive nationalism tinged with xenophobia and jingoism. In today’s political climate, a crowd of Americans chanting “USA!” can sound more like a threat than an invitation.

Independence Day brings an uneasy political divide into focus: We are a nation split between those who believe America is a nation that requires a reckoning and those demanding only celebration.

On the latter side, consider former president Donald Trump’s proposal of a yearlong celebration of America’s 250th anniversary in 2026. In giving America’s founding “the incredible anniversary it truly deserves,” he calls for assigning a White House task force responsibility for throwing the “most spectacular birthday party.” To promote “pride in our history,” the 12-month “Salute to America 250” would gather teens to the capital for a national sporting contest, stage a “Great American State Fair” to showcase each state, and revive Trump’s moribund “National Garden of American Heroes.”

This sweeping, nationwide mandated celebration would offer no space for nuance, much less dissent. Trump’s patriotism is simplistic and restrictive, rejecting the notion that citizens under his leadership might feel alienation and anger toward a country to which they also feel passionately attached. For Trump, the nation is made up of “freedom-loving Americans” who support his vision and “thugs, misfits and Marxists” who seek to undermine that vision.

The insistence that true patriotism means pure adoration and celebration is evident in Republican attacks on any teaching that dares to acknowledge the existence of history that might taint a triumphalist account of inexorable American progress. Many conservatives see education about Native dispossession, chattel slavery and other forms of past and present discrimination as “indoctrination,” dividing Americans and mandating that white students feel bad about themselves and their place in U.S. history.

For progressives, such panic under the umbrella of critical race theory — or, in the workplace, DEI — is the real indoctrination, an effort to whitewash public life and erase from history the movements and populations they oppose. This feeling that discrimination is not only being ignored but actively endorsed was confirmed this past week when the Supreme Court ruled to dilute legal protections for LGBTQ Americans and to abolish affirmative action.

But if conservatives are uncomfortable confronting our violent and complicated past, we progressives struggle with how to celebrate this place we also love. Indeed, such political speech makes many of us skittish: How can we express civic pride in an era of right-wing backlash? How can we speak love of country when that country was built by stolen labor on stolen land? Uncomfortable with self-congratulatory and idealized depictions, progressives are more at ease with criticism than praise, more comfortable highlighting hypocrisy than extolling the aspects of American life that make us proud.

But highlighting the hypocrisy and violence is also incomplete. For one, it makes it easier for the right to caricature our beliefs and commitments. But more importantly, failing to articulate our complex feelings of grief and belonging is also an injustice to the reality of how much we feel and care about the future of this land. And while many of us may be uncomfortable with flag-waving nationalism, we do live the values and civic ideals that embody love of country. We are tied to this place we call home. And while many of us also have diasporic and transnational ties to other people and places we love, belong to, and care about, this does not diminish our sense of connection and love that we feel to this place — to local communities and even to nation.

I contend that our complicated feelings about America — our commitment, our heartbreak, our hopes, our fears — offer a way out of aggressive patriotism and into a better, more just and beautiful vision of civic life and belonging open to all of us.

We have an underutilized civic legacy to inspire us. We have Frederick Douglass’ 1852 speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” in which Douglass labels America’s republicanism under slavery “a sham” while also claiming the Constitution as “a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT.” We have the 1848 Seneca Falls Declaration, a document patterned after the Declaration of Independence calling for voting rights and other political rights for women. We have the 1966 Black Panther Party Ten-Point Program, a document that concludes its demands for Black liberation by quoting the Declaration of Independence. We have Juneteenth marking the end of slavery, and LGBTQ+ pride festivals commemorating the Stonewall uprising.

These holidays and manifestos are also acts of America’s founding. Moreover, they are all civic events that make room for all our feelings — of joy, grief, desire, delight and rage. None of them are perfect, but they all remind us that the choice is not between reckoning or celebration.

We need something richer than patriotism — and something more than righteous indignation and anxious disavowal. As a people, we need reckoning and celebration.

So this Fourth of July, remember that this day is ours to claim. Celebrate what you love and mourn what’s been lost. And don’t forget to enjoy the fireworks.

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Biden brings in Sperling to calm looming Detroit showdown

President Joe Biden is putting long-time Democratic adviser Gene Sperling in charge of helping smooth the upcoming labor contract talks between the auto workers’ union and Big Three automakers, a White House official confirmed Monday — a looming potential economic headache facing the president’s reelection effort.

In tapping Sperling, Biden is putting an economic power player and long-time manufacturing advocate in a position to win over a union that is openly skeptical about the White House’s push for electric vehicles. The effort could also shore up support for the president in Michigan — the state where Sperling was born and which played a crucial role in Biden’s election in 2020.

“As a White House point person on key issues related to the UAW and Big Three, Sperling will help ensure Administration-wide coordination across interested parties and among White House policymakers,” a White House official said in a statement to POLITICO. “Gene will work hand-in-glove with acting [Labor] Secretary Julie Su on all labor-related issues.”

The official was granted anonymity to discuss a matter not yet officially announced.

The United Auto Workers and its new leadership have chastised Biden for steering hundreds of billions of dollars toward incentives for electric vehicles, a policy that the union worries threatens its members’ jobs. Biden’s top Republican rival for the White House, former President Donald Trump, has preyed on those anxieties to court support from auto workers.

That leaves Sperling with a full plate. UAW’s collective bargaining agreement with Detroit’s major car companies ends Sept. 14. Should the talks turn acrimonious, a strike could damage the economy and give Republicans fresh ammunition in the 2024 campaign.

Sperling has spent months advising the White House, including overseeing implementation of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. He has recently begun incorporating engagement with auto companies and the UAW into his daily role.

Sperling, 64, was the national economic council director and national economic adviser to former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, and a member of the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry from 2009 to 2010.

While auto companies received a taxpayer-funded bailout in 2009, UAW leadership contends workers made huge sacrifices to help the industry recover from the recession. That legacy colors much of what is animating UAW President Shawn Fain, who has taken the labor organization in a more aggressive direction since winning a runoff election in March.

The UAW cited its concerns about the jobs implications of electric vehicles when it said in May that it was not yet ready to endorse Biden. It represents a blemish for Biden, a self-proclaimed car guy who has fashioned himself the most labor-friendly president in modern U.S. history.

Biden has pledged to make half of new vehicle sales electric by 2030. But the UAW has pushed Biden to attach more strings to federal investment to ensure companies that receive taxpayer-backed subsidies provide sustaining wages and better working conditions. The fledgling U.S. battery manufacturing industry key to making electric vehicles — and to which the Biden administration has steered tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies — has little relationship with organized labor.

The UAW has often referenced a 2018 study it conducted that suggested moving away from internal combustion engines, which have more parts and require more workers, would cost its members 35,000 jobs. Fain last month slammed the Biden administration for issuing a $9.2 billion loan to Ford to build three battery factories in Kentucky and Tennessee, where labor organizing is more difficult.

“They’re just raising an alarm,” Reem Rayef, senior policy advisor with BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor unions and environmental groups, said in an interview about UAW’s recent public comments. “That’s all great to put these jobs here. I think what we are hearing from UAW is, ‘That is great, but it’s not enough.’”

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Federal judge halts new Florida law he calls 'latest assault' on voting

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A federal judge on Monday blocked a new Florida election law pushed by Republicans that puts restrictions on voter registration groups, calling it “Florida’s latest assault on the right to vote.”

U.S. Chief District Judge Mark Walker granted a preliminary injunction against the law just days after it went into effect. Walker is an appointee of former President Barack Obama who has repeatedly ruled against the state in past legal challenges to election measures put in place by the GOP-controlled Legislature.

“When state government power threatens to spread beyond constitutional bounds and reduce individual rights to ashes, the federal judiciary stands as a firewall,” Walker wrote in his 58-page order that included a subtle jab at Gov. Ron DeSantis by invoking a catch phrase he often uses. “The free state of Florida is simply not free to exceed the bounds of the United States Constitution.”

The law, passed this spring by GOP legislators and signed into law by DeSantis, was a comprehensive measure that included a provision that cleared the way for the governor to run for president without having to resign his current position.

The legal challenges, however, came from several groups that register voters, including organizations that focus on registering Black and Hispanic voters. The new law includes restrictions on who could handle voter registration applications — blocking, for example, non-citizens even if they were legally allowed to work in the U.S. The new measure, which subjects the groups to steep fines, also barred organizations from retaining information about the new registrants. It also requires them to give a receipt when someone fills out a voter registration application.

Republicans and state officials argued the new restrictions were designed to crack down on groups that routinely turn in applications late and were needed to ensure non-citizens weren’t voting.

Walker, in his ruling, didn’t accept the logic of the state, nor did he agree to hold off on issuing his ruling while state election officials draw up more specific rules designed to implement the new law. The judge stated that Florida officials — while offering up proof that applications have been turned into late — did not demonstrate why the ban on non-U.S. citizens handling voter registration forms was needed.

“The state of Florida is correct to seek integrity in our electoral system,” Walker wrote. “Sound election laws ensure the people are heard without distortion from negligent and bad faith actors. Here, however, Florida’s solutions for preserving election integrity are too far removed from the problems it has put forward as justifications.”

Democrats who voted against the law, as well as the groups that challenged it, hailed the decision.

“Today’s ruling confirms what we knew from the very beginning: Florida’s latest voter registration law was unconstitutional and served no other purpose than to silence our communities,” said Frankie Miranda, CEO and president of the Hispanic Federation, one of the groups that challenged the law. “This ruling is a win for all Floridians — especially for underrepresented communities who rely on nonpartisan organizations like us to help make their voices heard. We applaud this ruling, and will not rest until everyone’s right to participate in our democracy is protected.”

DeSantis’ office, as well as legislative leaders and Secretary of State Cord Byrd, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But in the past, state officials have usually been fairly consistent about appealing decisions by Walker, who has a mixed track record of success with the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court this past April reversed a Walker ruling against a 2021 voting law that had placed restrictions on drop boxes.

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Actor Hill Harper poised to challenge Slotkin in Michigan Senate primary

Democratic leaders hoped Elissa Slotkin would clear the field in the Senate primary in Michigan, giving the battle-tested candidate extra time and money to prepare for the general election. Instead, a handful of Democrats have already jumped into the race — and one more is likely on the way.

Actor Hill Harper is finalizing plans to launch his Senate campaign in the coming weeks. The Democrat is preparing for his kickoff event, according to a person close to Harper’s team. He has also shot his announcement video and ordered campaign T-shirts.

The Win Company, the Democratic firm that produced ads for now-Sen. John Fetterman in 2022, made Harper’s launch video, a second source told POLITICO.

Harper, an actor on “The Good Doctor,” has never run for office before. He is expected to run to the left of Slotkin, a moderate, three-term Democratic House member who represents a swing district. His allies believe Harper, who is African American, will be able to build a coalition that includes progressive and Black voters. They also point to his history serving on President Barack Obama’s cancer panel and his ties to well-heeled potential donors in Hollywood.

“I think Hill getting in the race would be a really good thing for Michigan Democrats,” said Washtenaw County Sheriff Jerry Clayton. “In my experience, coronations tend to hurt the party, while robust and competitive primaries with a healthy and respectful debate over the real issues tends to help.”

Some Democrats cautioned that Harper’s bid isn’t a sure thing until he announces he’s running. He had initially prepared for an April kickoff.

If Harper pulls the trigger, he will face an uphill climb. Slotkin had $2.3 million on hand at the end of March, according to campaign finance reports. And she is expected to win the support of much of the Democratic Party statewide and nationally. EMILY’s List, VoteVets, End Citizens United, Rep. Haley Stevens and the Michigan Building Trades Council have endorsed her.

Many of Slotkin’s would-be Democratic competitors have already opted against a Senate campaign, including Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. Retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who Slotkin is running to replace, helped narrow the field.

Harper will also have to take on several other Democrats who have jumped into the Senate race, including Michigan State Board of Education President Pamela Pugh, former state Rep. Leslie Love, businessperson Nasser Beydoun and attorney Zack Burns.

On the GOP side, State Board of Education member Nikki Snyder, former Berrien County Commissioner Ezra Scott, businessperson Michael Hoover and attorney Alexandria Taylor are among those vying for the job.

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