Month: December 2024

The Hill: “An acrimonious race for Speaker of the Texas House is splitting the state GOP — and forcing a confrontation between the body’s warring Republican camps. Competing Republican state Reps. David Cook and Dustin Burrows have each declared victory in the contest, along with a mandate for very different visions of Texas’s political future, and…

NBC Miami: “Video shows the forceful arrest of a 61-year-old woman who was protesting a controversial demolition of a Sweetwater mobile home park. The demolition at Li’l Abner Mobile Home Park, which includes 900 mobile homes, began Wednesday. There are plans to close the park and develop a new community with affordable and workforce housing and a…

Political Wire: “In the Republican wave election year of 2024, one of the few Democratic bright spots was Susan Valdés,” the Tampa Bay Times reports. “The former school board member held her Democratic-leaning Tampa-based state House district. With the victory, Democrats got to keep one of the few established incumbents in the fold of their ever-shrinking Tallahassee…

NY Times: “From voter ID laws to district map-drawing to judges redeciding cases, North Carolina has long been a laboratory of sorts in ways to amass political power. In recent years, Republicans in particular have changed both state laws and election rules to hamstring Democrats’ influence. Now, one of the closest statewide elections in North…

WaPo: “A small North Carolina town is suing Duke Energy, alleging in a complaint that one of the nation’s largest electric utilities has “actively participated in a far-reaching, decades-long campaign to deceive the public and decision-makers” about the dangers of climate change. The complaint alleges that the corporation has known about the perils posed by…

NY Times: “Members of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed ready on Wednesday to uphold a Tennessee law denying transition care to transgender youth, with some of them saying that judgments about contested scientific evidence should be made by legislatures rather than judges. “The Constitution leaves that question to the people’s representatives, rather than to…

WBRZ: ” Louisiana State Treasurer John Fleming announced Wednesday that he is running for the U.S. Senate in 2026. Fleming, a Republican, said he will be running for the seat currently held by Bill Cassidy, also a Republican. If it’s successful, Fleming’s bid for the Senate will see him return to Washington, D.C., after previously serving northwest…

WaPo: “The Justice Department on Wednesday said a 17-month civil rights investigation found that the Memphis Police Department engages in the systemic use of excessive force and discriminates against Black people and disabled people. In a scathing 73-page report, federal authorities said they had identified a pattern of unlawful conduct, including serious problems in the…

Political Wire: “The House voted Thursday to beat back a Democratic effort to make public a potentially scathing ethics report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-FL) conduct,” Axios reports. “The 206-198 vote came shortly after Ethics Committee members met behind closed doors on the matter. Republicans on the panel last month blocked the findings pertaining to Gaetz…

NY Times: “The story of the political transformation of Cameron County, a majority-Hispanic border community at the southernmost tip of Texas, began with the arrival of a billionaire. His name wasn’t Donald J. Trump. It was Elon Musk. More than a decade ago, Mr. Musk brought his private space company, SpaceX, to Cameron County, where…