Month: December 2021

Off the Kuff: “A retired Air Force colonel and former nominee for agriculture commissioner is running for chair of the Texas Democratic Party. Kim Olson is the first major candidate to announce a challenge to the party’s current leader, Gilberto Hinojosa, who was elected nearly a decade ago. Party delegates will decide whether to retain…

WaPo: “The Justice Department has closed the latest federal investigation into the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till in rural Mississippi, a case that horrified the country and galvanized the civil rights movement. Till, a Black 14-year-old visiting from Chicago, was murdered after he was accused of whistling at and making sexual advances toward a White…

NBC News: “Former Sen. David Perdue is running for governor in Georgia, he announced Monday, setting up a primary showdown with Gov. Brian Kemp in 2022. Perdue’s announcement comes days after voting rights activist Stacey Abrams announced that she would run for the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial nomination in Georgia. In a video announcement, Perdue said that Kemp “has failed all of…

Political Wire: “Since May 2021, people living in counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump during the last presidential election have been nearly three times as likely to die from COVID-19 as those who live in areas that went for now-President Biden,” NPR reports. Also interesting: “In October, the reddest tenth of the country saw death rates…

Politico: “Donald Trump brokered a deal this weekend to clear the North Carolina GOP Senate field for Rep. Ted Budd, the candidate he endorsed in June but who has failed to emerge so far as the clear frontrunner. During a meeting at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, Trump pledged to endorse former GOP Rep. Mark Walker, who…

Politico: “A three-judge panel overseeing a recount in a close Virginia Beach state House race upheld the Republican candidate’s victory on Friday, a decision that also reaffirms the GOP’s takeover of the chamber and completes the party’s sweep of last month’s elections. Republicans also claimed the statewide offices of governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general in…

AL Political Reporter: “AFBF President Zippy Duvall, a farmer from Georgia, attended the opening banquet. He thanked Alabama farmers for their dedication and praised the federation for its work supporting rural Alabamians and fighting for conservative values.  “Congratulations on 100 years. What an accomplishment,” Duvall said. “We are just as relevant today as we were…

NY Times: “Stacey Abrams, the Georgia Democrat whose narrow loss in the governor’s race in 2018 catapulted her to national prominence as a voting rights advocate, said Wednesday that she would run again for governor in 2022, setting up a high-profile potential rematch with Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican. Three years after Ms. Abrams lost…

Jacobin: “Austin City Council member Greg Casar has passed dozens of pieces of progressive legislation in the last 7 years, from paid sick leave law to renters’ protections. Now he says he wants to take federal action on working-class issues by running for Congress. Texas Republicans are committed to minority-rule reactionary politics. They recently legislated…

NC Policy Watch: “The plaintiffs in the state’s long-running school funding case were dealt a setback Tuesday when the NC Court of Appeals ruled the judge overseeing the case doesn’t have the authority to require the state to spend $1.7 billion on a public-school improvement plan. Superior Court Judge David Lee had ordered State Treasurer…