Month: September 2023

WFAE: “North Carolina Democratic Party chair Anderson Clayton is the youngest state party chair in the country, and she wants to change the outlook for Democrats in our state…. And other than wins in statewide offices like governor and attorney general, the GOP has control over the state. The Republican Party has a supermajority in…

MS Today: “More than 16,000 Mississippians were dropped from Medicaid in August during the latest round of the agency’s disenrollments.  The pandemic-era federal regulations that prevented state Medicaid agencies from disenrolling beneficiaries ended in May. Since then, Medicaid divisions all over the country are reviewing their rolls for the first time in three years. In…

Slate: “This summer, Republicans in Florida launched an under-the-radar, yet incredibly effective, attack on criminal justice reformers in the state. In mid-June, the Republican speaker of Florida’s House of Representatives asked the state Supreme Court to create a commission to look into redrawing judicial circuit borders. By the end of the month, the Florida Supreme Court had created…

NY Times: “Maybe it’s the peanut butter ice cream he still enjoys. Or the fact that his first-place Atlanta Braves are cruising toward the playoffs and he wants to see another World Series. Or as many of his loved ones and former advisers suggest, maybe he is just too stubborn to follow anyone else’s timetable….

TX Tribune: “Texas senators have acquitted Attorney General Ken Paxton on 16 articles of impeachment. Paxton was accused of misusing the powers of the attorney general’s office to help his friend and donor Nate Paul, an Austin real estate investor who was under federal investigation. The House impeachment managers insisted that they proved their claims of bribery and corruption, arguing that the jury of 30 senators…

WPLN: “In 2021, Justin J. Pearson led people in protests against billion-dollar fossil fuel companies. Together, they helped stop an oil pipeline that would have cut through mostly Black neighborhoods in Memphis.  In 2022, Pearson spoke out against the Tennessee state legislature’s bill to preempt local governments from blocking fossil fuel projects — which came in direct response to…

Cardinal News: “We are in the midst of a renewable energy transition — increasing our use of solar, wind and battery storage for our electricity grid while moving us away from an energy system that is doing active harm to the health of low-income and minority communities. It is crucial if we are to avoid…

AP: “Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law Thursday restricting release of her travel and security records after the Legislature wrapped up a special session marked by a fight to more broadly scale back the state Freedom of Information Act. The law, which took effect immediately, allows the state to wall off details about the security…

Political Wire: “Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA) promised this spring to persevere as she revealed a Parkinson’s diagnosis that stilted her movements and slurred her speech, hurdles she hoped to overcome while serving a competitive Northern Virginia district,” the Washington Post reports. “But as Wexton, 55, failed to respond to treatments as hoped, this summer she found herself…

CBS News: “The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, was bombed 60 years ago by the Ku Klux Klan, killing four Black girls: Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins and Carole Robertson. It also left lasting scars on survivors like Sarah Collins Rudolph, Addie Mae Collins’ sister, who became known as “The 5th…