https://www.city-journal.org/article/jamaal-bowmans-voting-rights-hypocrisy
Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York, best known for pulling a fire alarm in the Capitol, has made voting rights a signature issue. A member of the uber-progressive “Squad” led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bowman has even engaged in a hunger strike and been arrested while protesting the Senate’s failure to suspend the filibuster rule to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act, which effectively would have federalized state voter laws. Following his arrest, Bowman insisted that he would “do it again and again and again” and promised to do “everything in my power to bring attention to the crisis we are in and ensure our democracy functions in a manner that represents the people.” For all his preening, however, Bowman stands to benefit from New York State’s especially restrictive voter-registration laws in his own hotly contested primary this June.
Bowman’s polarizing politics have drawn a serious challenger into the Democratic primary field: moderate Westchester County executive George Latimer, whose entry into the race was prompted, in part, by Bowman’s anti-Zionism. The Squad member notably supported a House resolution calling for a Gaza ceasefire within days of Hamas’s attacks on Israel and conspicuously boycotted Israel president Isaac Hertzog’s address to Congress. In response, major Jewish groups, including the American Israel Political Action Committee and even the left-leaning group J Street, have supported Latimer’s campaign.
But Bowman’s opponents have had to race against time, and the constraints of New York’s voting laws, to improve Latimer’s chances by expanding the pool of primary voters, especially Jewish independents. While New York’s Democratic primary isn’t until June 25, the state set a February 14 deadline for voters to choose or change their political party—four months before the election. That’s the earliest deadline in the country, according to John Opdyke of the group Open Primaries, and it especially hurts Latimer, who had not announced his campaign until late December.
