white anglo majority that is seeing its power waning, and very much so in 2020 with the presidential election results, and the rising ground communities of color who have organized around and really mobilized a lot of new voters in the state. there s also a lot of inroads being made by independents and people who are more moderate who are kind of sick of this extreme politics from the republican party. so i see all of that, alicia, as really a last-ditch effort for control here in every which way, be it election results, be it abortion laws or other types of restrictive laws. this is exactly why i m obsessed with arizona because, as you said, i think it is a microcosm of what is happening or could happen in the rest of the country. melissa, when it comes to banning abortion and restricting ballot access, republicans have
ballots in fulton county, home to atlanta, based on a lawsuit filed by an election integrity advocate well-known to be obsessed with debunked claims that are touted by trump. and then there s arizona where even republicans who supported the cyber ninja s recount in maricopa county just want it to end, especially after the hill reported how claims of errors from the auditors, from the auditors, were actually errors made by the auditors. now it turns out advocates who want to overturn roe see the gop s attacks on voting rights as an open door. they re now funding anti-voting efforts in the name of election integrity because, as the guardian reports anti-abortion groups are beginning to see trimming the electorate as essential to achieve their goals. just this week the governor of texas signed what is commonly known as a heartbeat bill, banning abortions after six weeks, which is before most people know they re pregnant. it is a big deal considering the
then found out, whoops, you know, we actually were the ones doing things wrong. but what it is really doing is sowing even more distrust on the results of an election in a state that went for joe biden, for a democrat, for the first time since bill clinton was elected president in the 90s. it is obviously a cause for concern of the democratic process. melissa, gop leaders in other areas of the country are eyeing similar audits. in georgia, a county judge approved a review of absentee ballots in the most populous county, these is the state that lawsuits were tossed out in the weeks following the election. what changed to allow the audits now? not much has changed. again, they are pressing forward hoping to get some recourse in the courts, but, again, the fundamentals are not that different. we had an election. there was no evidence of voter fraud or certainly no
republicans say infrastructure determines roads, bridges, ports, broadband. democrats say it talks about human infrastructure, too. so there is a long way to go before these two sides can come together, alicia. doesn t the gop s opposition to corporate tax hikes still play a role in these negotiations? is that a sticking point at all? reporter: absolutely. every single category there are sticking points, especially how you pay for it. president biden and democrats say that they want they will not accept what republicans want, which are user fees like gas tax increases or electric vehicle user fees. they say that is a tax on the middle class. republicans say, we are not going to undo the 2017 tax cut bill, that is a red line for them. so, again, another big obstacle that the two sides have to get past. you know, it is so funny, leigh ann, so often it is
appreciable evidence of voter fraud, but still you have seen the big lie persist. more importantly, it is not just the lawsuits but also the spate of ever restrictive voter registration laws and voter suppressive laws passed in these states that are controlled by republican legislatures. again, it all goes to the point that you made at the top of this block that this is an attempt to trim the electorate for the purpose of limiting participation of certain groups. fernanda, the anti-abortion movement now backed election efforts in the name of election integrity fuelled by donald trump s big lie. i wonder what you see as the connection between voting restrictions and the efforts to strip away any number of other rights. arizona is a great barometer for the country because it is a state in great transition. you have a rising population of latina, it is projected the state by 2030 will be a minority majority state. so what we re seeing here is now really that tension between the