DDHQ Morning News Spotlight: Gillum Indicted, SCOTUS Rulings, & Gubernatorial Developments

Morning Headlines

• Former Mayor of Tallahassee and 2018 Democratic nominee for governor of Florida, Andrew Gillum, was indicted by a federal grand jury yesterday. The jury returned a 21 count indictment against Gillum for conspiracy, wire fraud, and making false statements related to his campaign. Gillum, 42, allegedly diverted money raised during his campaign — which he lost to Ron DeSantis — to a company controlled by one of his senior advisors. He came within 32,000 votes of becoming Florida’s first Black governor, and was viewed by many to be a future White House hopeful. Since his loss, Gillum has faced several personal struggles and controversies, including in 2020, when police found him in a hotel room in Miami Beach with another man who was suffering from a possible drug overdose.
• South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg was convicted by the South Dakota Senate on Wednesday in an impeachment trial stemming from a fatal crash in September of 2020. Senators found Ravnsborg guilty of committing a crime that caused someone’s death, as well as a malfeasance charge that alleged he had misled criminal investigators and misused his office in the process. The conviction immediately removed Ravnsborg from his position as Attorney General and bars him from future office.
• In an 8-1 opinion, delivered by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the Supreme Court ruled that Republican legislators have the right to join a lawsuit that defends the constitutionality of the state’s voter-ID law. According to SCOTUSBlog, “The law at the center of the case requires voters to provide photo identification to cast a ballot and directs county election boards to provide ID cards at no cost to voters.” The law was passed in 2018 and survived a veto by Democratic Governor Roy Cooper, but was quickly challenged in federal court by the state’s NAACP. The decision comes amidst a flurry of high-profile SCOTUS decisions on Thursday.
• Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey effectively secured the Democratic nomination for Governor of Massachusetts on Thursday. Her last remaining primary rival, State Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz, dropped out of the race this morning, exactly a year after she launched her campaign. In front of a small group of supporters in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood, Diaz stated, “”There is no path that I can responsibly, in good faith, lead my supporters on that results in me becoming governor this year”. Chang-Diaz’s name will still be on the ballot for the primary on September 6, since the deadline to remove it has passed.
• Mike Pence endorsed State Rep. Lee Zedlin for Governor of New York ahead of Tuesday’s Republican primary. Zedlin is the front-runner in a competitive race between himself, Andrew Giuliani (son of Rudy Giuliani), businessman Harry Wilson, and 2014 gubernatorial nominee Rob Astorino. The endorsement comes as former President Trump remains notably absent from the race, despite Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to convince him to endorse his son.

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