VOTERS

Final Oscar voting began yesterday. How many of the nominated movies have you seen? Are you doing your due diligence in all the categories before the March 15 ceremony or, given the summer weather outside your window, might the mountains be calling?

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. It’s never too early for flip-flops, is it?

Testing out a new mandate

To vote for the Oscars, you have to watch all the nominated movies.

This may seem obvious. But until this year, the motion picture academy operated entirely on the honor system, strongly encouraging members to see everything before voting.

Now voters have to show their work — up to a point.

This year, academy members are required to certify through the group’s screening room portal that they have viewed all nominated films in each category to be eligible to vote in that category. Since nominations were announced in January, the academy has been emailing voters with updates on their progress, indicating where they’re cleared to vote and where they still have work to do.

One wrinkle, and it’s not a small one: Members can simply check a box indicating that they’ve watched a movie outside the academy’s platform. Perhaps they saw it at a festival, on a streaming platform other than the portal or the place God intended films to be seen — a movie theater.

Whether they actually did watch the movies is left to the honesty of the voter. It’s still an honor system, and members do not need to show movie stubs, tickets or receipts.

Talking with academy members, there seems to be a little wiggle room when it comes to having a clear conscience.

Take the voter who loved Ethan Hawke‘s lead turn as legendary lyricist Lorenz Hart in “Blue Moon,” but hated “Marty Supreme,” turning it off 20 minutes after starting it. Since the academy’s screening room counts a movie as watched only if it’s viewed in its entirety, this voter told me they planned on restarting “Marty Supreme” one night and running it on mute so he could vote in the lead actor category.

“I’d seen enough,” he said. “Watching [Timothée] Chalamet play another pingpong tournament wouldn’t make me change my mind.”

Other academy members told me they were OK marking the “watched” box next to a movie they hadn’t seen, provided they had viewed four of the category’s other nominees. By and large though, they were the outliers. Most voters said they were happy to abstain from voting in a category in which they hadn’t watched all the nominated work. (As academy members may not publicly state voting decisions or preferences, voters spoke on the condition of anonymity.)

“I don’t need to see another ‘Avatar’ movie,” a producers branch member said. “So I’m fine not voting for visual effects or costume design this year. Life is short.”

“I like the idea that I can abstain from categories without any guilt,” an Oscar-nominated writer noted, adding that she thought the new system has been “helpful, reminding me to watch things.”

To that effect, academy members have been receiving a flurry of emails and texts that would give off Big Brother vibes if it didn’t simply boil down to an admonition to watch “Frankenstein” so they could vote in the nine categories where Guillermo del Toro’s monster movie is nominated.

It really isn’t that big an ask, as in recent years the Oscars have become increasingly dominated by a smaller number of movies vacuuming up a greater share of the nominations. This year, the five movies earning the most recognition — “Sinners,” “One Battle After Another,” “Marty Supreme,” “Frankenstein” and “Hamnet” — hauled in 56 nominations.

If an Oscar voter viewed the 10 best picture nominees, they’d be eligible to mark their ballots in best picture and eight other categories — supporting actor, adapted screenplay, casting, cinematography, film editing, production design and original score. Add Hawke’s “Blue Moon” and that opens up lead actor. Make it a double feature with “It Was Just an Accident” and original screenplay becomes available.

“You don’t really need to be much more than a casual moviegoer to knock out most of your ballot,” an actors branch member told me, “except for things like animation and documentaries and the shorts. I don’t know how many people watch all of those.”

Nobody does, save for the PricewaterhouseCoopers accountants counting the ballots. The question vexing both voters and the awards consultants paid to persuade them is how this new, formalized voting will affect the results. As Oscar winners are sometimes the movies that are the most-watched, might requiring voters to see all the nominated work boost less-publicized efforts?

“If ‘Sirât’ wins sound over ‘F1,’ then I think it’s a new ballgame,” one veteran campaigner said. “Right now, though, nobody knows.”

We will soon. In the meantime, with Oscar voting running through Thursday, some academy members tell me their weekend is booked.

“Three nights, three movies,” one voter said. “And then I’m watching ‘Bridgerton.’”

RICHMOND, Va. — Democrats passed a new congressional map through the Virginia legislature on Friday that aims to help their party win four more seats in the national redistricting battle. It’s a flex of state Democrats’ political power, however hurdles remain before they can benefit from friendlier U.S. House district boundaries in this year’s midterm elections.

A judge in Tazewell, a conservative area in Southwest Virginia, has effectively blocked a voter referendum on the redrawn maps from happening on April 21 by granting a temporary restraining order, issued Thursday.

Democrats are appealing that decision and another by the same judge, who ruled last month that Democrats illegally rushed the planned voter referendum on their constitutional amendment to allow the remapping. The state’s Supreme Court picked up the party’s appeal of the earlier ruling.

The judge’s order prohibits officials from preparing for the referendum through March 18. But early voting for it was slated to start March 6, meaning Democrats would have to get a favorable court ruling within two weeks to stick with that timeline.

If Democrats get to carry out a referendum, voters will choose whether to temporarily adopt new congressional districts and then return to Virginia’s standard process after the 2030 census. Democrats wanted to publish the new map ahead of the April vote.

President Trump launched an unusual mid-decade redistricting battle last year by pushing Republican officials in Texas to redraw districts to help his party win more seats. The goal was for the GOP to hold on to a narrow House majority in the face of political headwinds that typically favor the party out of power in midterms.

Instead, it created a burst of redistricting efforts nationwide. So far, Republicans believe they can win nine more House seats in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. Democrats think they can win six more seats in California and Utah, and are hoping to fully or partially make up the remaining three-seat margin in Virginia.

Democratic lawmakers in Virginia have sought to portray their redistricting push as a response to Trump’s overreach.

“The president of the United States, who apparently only one half of this chamber knows how to stand up to, basically directed states to grab power,” Virginia’s Democratic Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell said in February. “To basically maintain his power indefinitely — to rig the game, rig the system.”

Republicans have sounded aghast. House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore described the remap as a way for liberals in northern Virginia’s Arlington, Fairfax and Prince William counties to commandeer the rest of the state.

“In southwest Virginia, we have this saying … They say, ‘Terry, you do a good job up there, but you know, Virginia stops at Roanoke,” Kilgore previously said, referring to how some people across Virginia’s Appalachian region feel unrepresented in state politics. “That’s not going to be the same saying anymore, because Virginia is now going to stop just a little bit west of Prince William County.”

Virginia is currently represented in the U.S. House by six Democrats and five Republicans who ran in districts imposed by a court after a bipartisan legislative commission failed to agree on a map after the 2020 census.

Legislation that would put the Democrats’ more gerrymandered map into effect if voters approve the referendum now awaits the signature of Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who has indicated that she would support it.

“Virginia has the opportunity and responsibility to be responsive in the face of efforts across the country to change maps,” Spanberger said as she approved the referendum.

Democratic candidates are already lining up in anticipation. “Dopesick” author Beth Macy and former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello launched campaigns in red areas that would be moved into districts with more registered Democrats.

Virginia Del. Dan Helmer and former federal prosecutor J.P. Cooney, who helped investigate Trump and was fired by him, have launched campaigns in a formerly rural district that would now mostly include voters just outside the nation’s capital. And former Democratic congresswoman Elaine Luria is mounting a comeback against Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans, who ousted her in 2022, in a competitive district that the map has made slightly more favorable to Democrats.

Diaz writes for the Associated Press.

LONGMONT, COLO. — Dale Klotz’s business repairing power tools took a nose dive when foreclosure signs sprouted up on lawns across the northern suburbs of Denver here.

He’s looking for a second job, and he wishes he wasn’t saddled with a mortgage. But amid the hard times, he took some satisfaction Tuesday in the House’s vote to turn down President Bush’s $700-billion rescue package for the financial system.

“I don’t think we ought to bail out Wall Street,” Klotz, 45, said as he loaded groceries into his white Ford pickup at a shopping center. “I’m an average American, trying to make a living. I’ve got a home mortgage I’d like to unload, but I make my payments every month.”

Why, he asked, should his tax dollars go to save reckless Wall Street executives?

Sentiments like that fueled this week’s rebellion in the House, where members bucked party leaders and the Bush administration to block approval of the rescue package.

Election-year politics also played a role, analysts say. Klotz’s representative, Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.), is locked in a tight reelection battle and said she heeded the views of her constituents in voting against the bailout Monday.

“It’s not a moment at which people can put the national interest ahead of constituent interest,” said Robert Loevy, a political science professor at Colorado College.

According to one count, 30 of the 38 representatives in the most competitive Nov. 4 House races voted against the bill. Americans have bombarded members of Congress with calls and e-mails urging “no” votes, causing some computers on Capitol Hill to crash repeatedly over the last two days.

Organizations such as ACORN, or Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a national advocacy group for low-wage workers, organized rallies outside Federal Reserve offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other major cities.

“You look at an electoral battleground map and you are looking at Nevada, the foreclosure capital of the country, and Michigan and Ohio and Florida,” said Austin King, director of an ACORN center in New Orleans. “These swing states have tens or hundreds of thousands of foreclosures. Voters there want to see something done that helps them, not just Wall Street.”

On Monday, the opponents got their wish: The House rejected the plan. But stocks cratered, with the Dow Jones industrial average diving 777.68 points — a gut-wrenching experience for almost everyone with stocks, mutual funds or 401(k) retirement funds.

Stocks regained much of their losses Tuesday, but that wasn’t the only twist — as some congressional officials said they detected growing support for some kind of rescue plan.

Rep. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) said she voted against the bailout Monday after her office was swamped over the weekend with more than 1,000 calls on the plan, with just two of those in support.

But Tuesday, after attending a funeral at First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles, Watson said she was besieged by people demanding to know what she was going to do to get the economy back on track.

“These are teachers, nurses, regular working people, and they’re worried about their 401(k)s, their jobs, the whole economy because they don’t understand how this is all going to work,” Watson said.

Watson’s urban district bears little resemblance to Musgrave’s 4th Congressional District in the eastern part of Colorado, which is dotted with ranches and tiny agricultural settlements.

Most of that district’s population, however, is in the exurbs at the northern edge of the Denver metropolitan area. Some of those cities had the nation’s highest foreclosure rates before last year’s housing bust kicked rates even higher in parts of California and other states.

A former schoolteacher and small-business owner who was first elected to Congress in 2002, Musgrave is a staunch social and fiscal conservative who narrowly won reelection in 2006. She is considered one of the most vulnerable incumbent House members this year.

Floyd Ciruli, a Denver-based pollster, said the district is populated by people inherently unsympathetic to the proposed bailout.

“Fiscal conservatives; small-government, anti-government ideologues,” Ciruli said. Musgrave “has both a good sprinkling of those individuals in her district, and she has a personal philosophy like that.”

Even residents with starkly different politics were unenthusiastic about the bailout.

“If people who were being rescued are like you and me, working hard every day and struggling to make ends meet, that’s one thing,” said Roni Lavine, 61, a Longmont meeting planner with an Obama pin on her purse. “People are really angry that they’re losing their homes and they see these corporate executives walking out with millions of dollars.”

Still, some were unnerved at the package’s failure and eager for some action.

“There’s a perception out there it just relates to a bunch of people in New York, on Wall Street,” said Mike Preigh, a 42-year-old chemist. “But it all flows downhill. . . . Doing nothing is probably worse than doing something that’s not great.”

Musgrave announced her opposition to the bailout on Sept. 23, the day Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson presented the plan to Congress.

Her spokesman, Joe Brettell, said Musgrave was not moved by politics but by the people she represented. “The congresswoman looks at her district first, and she really feels she made the right decision,” he said.

On Tuesday, Musgrave said she was not concerned about the huge stock sell-off that followed Monday’s rejection of the bailout plan.

“We don’t answer to Wall Street,” she said in an interview on “Good Morning America.” “We answer to Main Street. We answer to our constituents.”

Later Tuesday, however, Musgrave was huddled in meetings as negotiators worked to craft revised legislation expected to go to a vote in the Senate tonight and in the House on Thursday. “It is important,” she said in a statement, “for people around the country to know that we are actively working toward a solution to this problem.”

—

nicholas.riccardi@latimes.com

william.heisel@latimes.com

Riccardi reported from Colorado and Heisel from California.

WASHINGTON — Before a Mt. Rushmore-like painting of seven revered and deceased black heroes, a tuxedoed Bill Clinton stood in a darkened hall recently to describe himself to an audience of black Americans.

The 10-minute speech by the Democratic presidential nominee to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Dinner in Washington expressed a simple, direct and unspoken–though clearly understood–contrast to the last 12 years. Clinton did not have to spell out a course of action to win their support.

Rather, he swore to the 4,000 black diners that if they helped him fulfill his quest to win the presidency, he would provide “full participation, full partnership” in a Clinton White House.

“If I change my address, I will only be a tenant there,” he said. “You still own the place, and I want you to act like it.”

For Clinton, the moment was special only because it occurred in the harsh glare of a spotlighted public gathering. More typical of his efforts to court black support was the private, closed-door fundraiser held hours earlier and a few blocks away at a downtown Washington art museum. That reception, hosted by some 60 affluent black American business owners, produced $600,000 for the Arkansas governor.

“This was a historic event,” Rodney Slater, one of Clinton’s top black aides, said immediately after the fund-raiser. “This represents the fact that African-Americans want to be key players in the Clinton Administration. When they can raise that kind of money–that’s more than African-Americans have ever raised for anybody–you can bet the candidate will pay attention to them.”

Like all contemporary Democratic presidential candidates, Clinton is counting on overwhelming support from the nation’s black voters to propel him to victory. But to achieve that, he has taken a significantly different approach than the party’s previous nominees.

Clinton has avoided offering himself as a benefactor of black Americans through dramatic, highly publicized appeals to them or by proposing a host of social programs. Rather, the Arkansas governor has conducted an almost stealth-like campaign within black communities, quietly collecting chits from influential leaders and middle-class blacks while limiting efforts directed at poor, ghetto-dwelling African-Americans. And in targeting middle-class blacks, he has tried to blend their political and economic concerns into the same mix of issues aimed at attracting the highly coveted white suburban voting bloc.

He has done this in order to claim a larger share of the white vote–especially suburban white males, who polls have suggested viewed previous Democratic presidential candidates as too eager to genuflect to black demands. No Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 has won a majority of the white vote, a major reason the party has lost all but one presidential election since then.

With this strategy, Clinton sought to give his campaign an inclusive middle-class cast, effectively defusing race as an issue and avoiding the need to reassure white voters that he would not unduly bend toward poor and needy blacks.

Surprisingly, as Clinton has pursued this strategy, polls have shown he has garnered increasingly enthusiastic support from black voters. A recent survey of 850 blacks by the Washington-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies showed more than 80% giving Clinton highly favorable marks on questions of knowledge, fairness and leadership.

In fact, if there has been any genius–or luck–to Clinton’s handling of black voters, it has stemmed from amplifying the hard-edged pragmatism with which many black political leaders and their constituents approached the 1992 campaign. Minimizing conflict within their ranks, they have kept their eyes fixed on the prize: returning a Democrat to the White House. And Clinton appears to have been the beneficiary of this growing political maturity among black voters.

“We’re smart,” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), one of Clinton’s earliest and most important black backers, said recently. “We know where our best interest lies. Even if it means that we campaign a little bit differently and not in the ways that we have before, we are out to win, and we can win with Bill Clinton.”

Overall, blacks make up about 1-in-6 of Clinton’s voters, according to recent polls. In the final Times national pre-election poll, released last week, he was favored by 78% of black voters, with President Bush and independent candidate Ross Perot each backed by 9%.

Many of these voters are the legacy of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s unsuccessful 1984 and 1988 campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination, which excited political passions among blacks and swelled voter registration rolls within their communities.

Democratic nominees Walter F. Mondale in 1984 and Michael S. Dukakis in 1988 each publicly enlisted Jackson to their cause in hopes of gaining the allegiance of his followers. But while both Mondale and Dukakis harvested the vast majority of black votes cast in their respective races, neither was able to generate a huge turnout by African-Americans. That was especially apparent four years ago, when the failure of blacks to turn out in large numbers was seen as a major reason Dukakis lost close races to then-Vice President Bush in several states, including Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Missouri.

Clinton, during most of his campaign, took the alternative approach of keeping Jackson at arm’s length while beckoning an aspiring breed of black leaders to supplant him as a link to black voters.

Among the first black officials to join the Clinton cause early in the primary season–at a time when Jackson’s disdain for the Arkansas governor was undistinguished–were Reps. John Lewis of Georgia, Mike Espy of Mississippi and William J. Jefferson of Louisiana.

These three, like others, are not especially well-known nationally. But for the Clinton camp, what counts is that each commands strong and favorable name identification among blacks in their home states. And while in large measure these politicians offered their early support based on their association with Clinton as a fellow Southerner, it also reflected the new pragmatism among them.

Waters, a national co-chairwoman of the Clinton campaign, most vividly illustrates this phenomenon, given her past close ties to Jackson. Echoing countless other black elected officials, she makes clear that winning the White House is what matters to her this year, not the strategy the candidate employs to get there.

“I don’t question it at this point,” she said. “I want George Bush out of the White House so bad, I’ll buy (Clinton’s) strategy.”

Like Waters, Rep. Craig Washington (D-Texas) is unconcerned about Clinton’s primary focus on white, middle-class, suburban voters.

“He needs to go where he can get votes that I can’t get for him,” Washington said. “The fact that he doesn’t come into black churches every Sunday and that he doesn’t campaign in black communities (to avoid) turning off Joe Willie Six-Pack doesn’t bother me. He doesn’t want to send them back to help the Republicans.”

Linda Faye Williams, associate professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland, said statements like those from black elected leaders–most of whom were faithful Jackson supporters in the past–reveals the “12 years of pent-up leadership hopes” among black leaders.

She also said that “many black elected officials chafed during the last two (presidential) elections over their own roles as leaders because Jesse was always the one out front. Clinton has answered their prayers by giving them room to maneuver.”

Ironically, in the campaign’s final hours, Clinton finds himself more dependent on black votes in some key states than many of his advisers anticipated. As many polls have shown the race tightening, the Arkansas governor’s fate appears increasingly tied to a heavy turnout among traditional Democratic constituencies, including blacks.

That’s especially true in two key regions. It appears Clinton needs a high black turnout in the Midwestern battleground states of Michigan and Ohio–where blacks cast 8% and 12%, respectively, of the votes four years ago–and in such hotly contested Southern states as Georgia and Louisiana, where blacks constituted about a fifth of the vote in 1988.

These political realities have helped lead to a rapprochement between Clinton’s campaign and Jackson. The campaign is hoping Jackson can help spur a big turnout among blacks for the Democratic ticket. And the civil rights leader, for his part, is quietly cooperating in hopes of gaining clout.

Meanwhile, some blacks have remained lukewarm toward Clinton, worrying that his campaign strategy will serve only to get him elected without demonstrating a real commitment to helping poor blacks. These leaders were distressed that the well-publicized bus tours that helped define the Clinton campaign immediately after the summer’s Democratic National Convention focused on small towns and rural America, where the crowds were made up mostly of white faces.

“We’re going to have to put a lot of pressure on Brother Clinton once he gets in the White House,” said Cornell West, director of Afro-American studies at Princeton University. “I hope he wins, but I recognize he’s not a true warrior for our cause.”

After a flurry of complaints that the campaign was avoiding black voters and ignoring their issues, Clinton’s staff squeezed in time for him to campaign a few weeks ago with a delegation of black congressional leaders as they barnstormed several Southern states in a get-out-the-vote effort sponsored by the Democratic National Committee.

Still, the bus trip failed to quell all of the concerns. Even some of those who joined in the journey dubbed it “The Back of the Bus Tour.”

WASHINGTON — The extraordinary steps taken by congressional Republicans to save the life of Terri Schiavo have won plaudits from evangelical Christians and other conservative activists, but some Republicans worry about a potential backlash among others who view the intervention as an overbearing use of government power.

Just as Congress passed and President Bush signed legislation allowing federal courts to review whether Schiavo’s feeding tube should be withdrawn, a poll by ABC News found that 70% of those surveyed believed congressional intervention was inappropriate.

Though some GOP strategists have argued that the issue is a political winner for the party because it appeals to religious conservatives, other Republicans warn that the bold maneuver risks alienating swing voters as well as Republicans worried about government invasions of individual privacy.

“It goes beyond shameless politics,” said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster. “It becomes a more crystallized proof point that we are no longer the party of smaller government. We have become a party of ‘It doesn’t matter what size government is as long as it is imposing our set of values.’ ”

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), before voting against the bill Bush later signed, asked: “How deep is this Congress going to reach into the personal lives of each and every one of us?”

Still, some Republican analysts say the immediate poll results — and the concerns raised by Shays and others — are not politically significant because the activists pushing to keep Schiavo alive care more passionately than those opposing that view.

“Intensity matters,” said Gary Bauer, a conservative leader who ran for the GOP presidential nomination in 2000. “The people who know the most about this controversy are the most likely to believe” that Schiavo should be allowed to live.

The Schiavo controversy does not split lawmakers or the country strictly along ideological lines; many people are influenced as much by their personal experiences as they are by political leanings.

The decisive legislative action on the Schiavo controversy is widely viewed within the political community as a show of strength for social conservatives, who are preparing for even bigger congressional battles.

Many of the activists are urging GOP leaders to move more aggressively this spring to win confirmation of Bush’s judicial nominees.

They argue that the Schiavo case reinforces the importance of placing conservatives in the judiciary.

“This is just one more perfect portrait of why we need to have fair and just men on the bench,” said Lanier Swann, director of government relations for Concerned Women of America, a conservative group that has made the Schiavo case a priority.

Bauer said the Schiavo controversy was the beginning of a much larger debate that would shape U.S. politics for years to come.

“We’re on the cusp of a really gigantic national debate about life and advances in medicine,” Bauer said. The Schiavo controversy “touches in a very important way in the whole debate on the sanctity of life, and it will encourage voters to believe that it is something Republicans feel strongly about.”

The fight over whether to remove the feeding tube that has kept Schiavo alive since a heart malfunction caused severe neurological damage in 1990 has become a cause celebre for the Christian evangelicals and antiabortion activists who were crucial to Bush’s reelection.

The issue came to a head in an extraordinary weekend session of Congress, when lawmakers were recalled from spring recess to vote on a bill to allow Schiavo’s parents to bring the case to federal court.

The political advantages of pursuing the legislation were trumpeted in a GOP staff memo circulated in the Senate late last week, although Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said he had no knowledge of the memo.

“This is a great political issue,” the memo said, because it puts Democrats in a difficult position and because “the pro-life base will be very excited that the Senate is debating this important issue.”

But the ABC poll, conducted by telephone Sunday as Congress was acting, found that 63% supported removal of Schiavo’s feeding tube and 28% opposed it.

The poll also found that among Republicans, Congress’ action did not win strong backing. According to the poll, 58% of Republicans believed the intervention in the case was inappropriate, and 61% supported removing Schiavo’s tube.

The survey’s margin of error for its entire sample of 501 adults was plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Among the Republicans surveyed, the margin of error was plus or minus 8 points.

The legislation passed the Senate on Sunday under the chamber’s unanimous consent rules. Three senators were on the floor — Frist, Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and John W. Warner (R-Va.).

In the House, the bill passed at 12:45 a.m. EST Monday, 203 to 58, with 174 members not voting. Supporting it were 156 Republicans and 47 Democrats; opposing it were five Republicans and 53 Democrats.

Some of the conservative critics of Congress’ action say the issue goes to the core of what kind of party the GOP will become. They worry it will further erode the party’s commitment to limiting the role of the federal government.

“Conservatives who have criticized the idea that Washington should run everything ought to be sheepish” about getting involved in the Schiavo case, said David Boaz, an analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

CAREFREE, Ariz. — Elizabeth H. paused recently outside the post office in this small, high-desert community, not far from where Easy Street meets Nonchalant Avenue.

She felt neither easy nor nonchalant.

“I think the climate imposed by the Trump administration is really sad and scary,” said Elizabeth, who asked to withhold her last name to avoid being attacked for the views she expressed.

“I don’t like the way that ICE is being used to bully citizens and even just people who are brown,” she continued. “And I don’t like that governors of blue states are being shut out while governors of red states are being welcomed. I just don’t think he treats us like we’re all Americans.”

For his part, Anthony D. finds little not to like about President Trump. He, too, asked not to use his last name, as did several others who agreed to talk politics.

“We finally don’t have a— in office that are destroying our country and worrying about everybody else in the world,” said Anthony, 66, a plumbing contractor and proudly blunt-spoken New York native. (Just like Trump, he pointed out.) “I mean, his tariffs are working. The negotiations are working. I just see a lot of positive coming out of that office.”

Even so, there’s something that bothers him: The way so many fellow citizens view the president and his America First agenda.

“Most people don’t like what he says, but look what he’s doing,” Anthony said as the late-morning crowd trickled into an upscale North Scottsdale shopping center. “You can hate the person, but don’t hate the message. He’s trying to do the right thing.”

Here in central Arizona, a prime battleground in November’s midterm election, there is precious little agreement about Trump, his policies and motivations.

Supporters see the president turning things around after four disastrous years of Joe Biden. Critics see him turning the country into a place they barely recognize.

There is puzzlement on both sides.

Over what others believe. Over how others can possibly believe what they believe, see the things they see and perceive Trump the way they perceive him.

And although some are eager for the midterm elections as a way to corral the president — “I don’t think they should only impeach, I think they should imprison,” Brent Bond, a 59-year-old Scottsdale artist, said of his hopes for a Democratic Congress — others fear an end to Trump’s nearly unfettered reign.

Or that nothing will change, regardless of what happens at the polls in November.

“The fact is, Trump is going to keep Trumping until he’s done,” said Elizabeth H., who’s semiretired at age 55 after a career in financial services. “My only relief is that he’s an old, old man and he’s not going to be here forever.”

Brent Bond would like to see Trump imprisoned, not just impeached.

(Mark Z. Barabak / Los Angeles Times)

Arizona’s 1st Congressional District climbs from northeastern Phoenix to the mountainous heart of the Sonoran Desert. It takes in the affluent enclaves of Scottsdale and Paradise Valley and — where the urban sprawl finally yields to cactus, palo verde and other flora — Carefree and the Old West-themed Cave Creek.

It is the whitest, wealthiest and best-educated of Arizona’s nine congressional districts, home to numerous upscale resorts, major medical campuses and a large population of retirees comfortably settled in one of many gated communities.

Affordability, as in struggling just to get by, is not a pressing issue here.

In 2020, Biden carried the district 50% to 49%. Four years later, Trump beat Kamala Harris 51% to 48%.

(The Down Ballot, which crunches election data, rated Arizona’s 1st District the median of 435 congressional districts nationwide, meaning in 2024 half were redder on the presidential level and half were bluer.)

For more than a decade, the area has been represented by Republican Dave Schweikert, a local political fixture since the 1990s.

He’s had to fight hard for reelection in recent years as the district, like the whole of Arizona, has grown more competitive. Rather than run again, Schweikert announced he would give up his seat to try for governor. The result is a free-for-all and one of the relatively few toss-up House races anywhere in the country.

A passel of candidates is running and the result will help determine whether Democrats, who need to flip three seats, will seize control of the House in November.

Despite those high stakes, however, the race doesn’t seem to have generated much voter interest, at least not yet. In dozens of interviews across the district, it was the relentless Trump who drew the most attention, admiration and exasperation.

Moe Modjeski, a supporter, allowed as how the president “is no altar boy.”

Even so, “I’ll take his policies over someone that might be nice and polite,” said the 69-year-old Scottsdale resident, a financial advisor who cited the sky-scraping stock market as one example of Trump’s success. “I mean, gas is about half the price it was a year or two ago.”

But for Liz R., who’s “never been a sky-is-falling type,” it certainly feels that way. The 75-year-old cited “everything from tariffs to ICE to destroying the healthcare system and controls for pollution.”

“I lived through the ‘60s and 70s and can’t remember a time when I feared so much for the future of our country,” said Liz, a retired medical technologist.

She’ll vote for a Democrat in November — to put a check on Trump, not because the Carefree resident has great faith in the party or its direction.

“I wish the Dems would get it together and maybe we could get more of a centrist that could unite and not get hung up on some of these social issues,” she said. “There’s a lot of economic issues, bread-and-butter issues, and I think that’s why the Republicans won [in 2024], because of the problems with immigration and inflation.”

As a border state, Arizona has long been at the forefront of the political fight over immigration. It was here lawmakers passed — and opponents spent years battling — legislation that effectively turned police into immigration officers, requiring them to demand the papers of anyone suspected of being in the country illegally

Thomas Campbell, with Keegan and Guinness, blamed blue-state politicians for any overreach by ICE agents.

(Mark Z. Barabak / Los Angeles Times)

Now that aggressive approach has become national policy, which is fine by Thomas Campbell, a retired architect and staunch Trump backer. He blamed any enforcement overreach on blue-state lawmakers.

“For some reason, the Democrats have decided they want to side with the criminals, so they don’t allow their police departments to cooperate,” said Campbell, 72, who stopped outside Paradise Valley’s town hall while running errands with his Irish setters, Guinness and Keegan. “If that wasn’t the case, there wouldn’t be any” controversy over ICE’s tactics.

Martha Cornelison agreed the border with Mexico needed to be secured and that serious lawbreakers should be deported.

But why, she wondered, are immigration agents scooping up honest taxpayers, parents with children born in the U.S. and others keeping on the straight and narrow?

“I think they’re going after the wrong people,” said the 76-year-old Scottsdale retiree as a friend, Lily, nodded in agreement. The two were sharing a bench in Scottsdale’s pueblo-inspired civic plaza, a nearby fountain burbling in the 80-degree sunshine.

“I think we need to look at our county jails, look at our city jails,” said Cornelison, who made her living selling large appliances. “How many illegal immigrants are, say, in Florence, which is our state prison? Send them back. Don’t go after Mr. Gonzalez who’s doing my lawn. Empty out our prisons.”

Back at the North Scottsdale shopping center, Denise F. was walking Chase, her Shih Tzu, past a parking lot brimming with Teslas, Mercedes and Cadillac SUVs.

The 73-year-old voted for Trump because she couldn’t abide Harris. But she’s disgusted with the president.

“I don’t like the division in the country. I think Trump thinks he’s a king,” said Denise, a retired banker. “He’s poking the bear with Venezuela and Greenland, Iran” — she poked the air as she named each country — “to see who he can engage in a possible war, which is not the way I think the United States should be.”

As Denise was finishing up, Anthony D., her friend and neighbor, strolled up and joined the conversation, offering his laudatory view of the president. “Trump’s a businessman and he’s running the country like a business,” Anthony said, as Denise looked on impassively.

“How did I do?” he asked after saying his piece.

“Great,” Denise replied amiably and the two walked off together, Chase between them.

Feb. 11 (UPI) — The House of Representatives narrowly passed the SAVE America Act on Wednesday, but it faces a tough sell in the Senate.

The House approved the measure on Wednesday by a vote of 218-213, with one Democrat voting in favor of the proposed law that would require voters to provide a birth certificate or passport to prove their citizenship status when registering to vote and produce a valid photo ID to vote.

“It’s just common sense. Americans need an ID to drive, to open a bank account, to buy cold medicine [and] to file for government assistance,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told media. “So, why would voting be any different than that?”

Democrats oppose the measure, which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called “Jim Crow 2.0.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., called the proposed voting law a “desperate effort by Republicans to distract” without saying from what.

“The so-called SAVE Act is not about voter identification,” Jeffries continued. “It is about voter suppression, and they have zero credibility on this issue.”

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, was the lone Democrat to vote in favor of the measure, which now goes to the Senate for consideration. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, sponsored the bill.

Although Senate Republicans have a simple majority in the upper chamber, they likely lack the 60 votes needed to overcome the Senate’s filibuster rule.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on Tuesday said he supports the proposed act but does not have the votes needed to change the filibuster rule to pass it with a simple majority.

The GOP controls 53 Senate seats, while Democrats control 47, including two held by independents who sit with the Senate Democratic Party’s caucus.

Some Republicans have suggested requiring a standing filibuster, which would require those opposing proposed legislation to physically engage in a non-stop filibuster instead of just announcing their intent to do so.