A week after the midterm election, Kyrsten Sinema was declared the winner of the Arizona Senate election, making her the first openly bisexual person elected to Congress and Arizona’s first female Senator. After Tuesday’s election, the total number of LGBTQ+ members of Congress is now eleven, the first time that the number has reached double […]
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Five Students are Challenging Alleged Early Voter Suppression in Prairie View, Texas
Five Prairie View A&M students, with the aid of the NAACP, are suing Waller County, Texas, arguing that the county’s decision not to allow early voting at the HBCU is suppressing the majority black and student populations’ ability to vote. While early voting officially began this past Monday in Texas, early voting at the Prairie […]
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Trump Considering New Family Detention and Separation Policy
On Friday, the Washington Post reported that rather than reviving the forced separation policy that separated over 2,500 children from their parents in May and June, the Trump administration is considering a new family separation plan called the Binary Choice.
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Unaccompanied Migrant Children Transported at Night to Tent City
Roughly 2,000 unaccompanied migrant children have been quietly removed from shelters and transferred to a temporary tent city in Texas as part of a mass reshuffling by the Trump administration. Permanent shelters are at full capacity, with 12,800 undocumented children currently in federal custody after crossing the border alone or being separated from their families.
Voters Are Choosing Progressive Women of Color
Last week, near the end of a primary season marked by an unprecedented numbers of victories for progressive women of color, Ayanna Pressley won the Democratic primary for the 7th district of Massachusetts, unseating ten term incumbent Rep. Mike Capuano.
6 Year Old Sexually Abused in Immigration Detention Told to Stay Away from Assailant
After a 6-year-old girl was sexually abused in an immigrant detainment center in Arizona, she was forced to sign a document saying it was her responsibility to stay away from her abuser. The girl was residing in the detention facility after being forcibly separated from her parents at the southern border. Her abuser is an older child staying in the same center, Casa Glendale.
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Supreme Court Rules on Major Gerrymandering Cases
The Supreme Court ruled on two major cases regarding gerrymandering on Monday. The decisions, a victory for Republican lawmakers in Texas and North Carolina, allow for the majority of the states’ voting districts to remain in their current design ahead of the 2018 elections.
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Women Surge in Texas’s Congressional Primaries
On Tuesday, Texas was the first state to hold primary races in preparation for the November 2018 midterm elections. For the first time in 25 years, Democrats are running in all 36 of Texas’s congressional districts.
Austin Passes Mandatory Paid Sick Leave
Last week, the Austin City Council voted to become the first city in Texas, and the first in the entire South, to mandate that all employers offer paid sick leave. More than 200 people testified in favor of the measure, which received a final vote of 9-2.
Commemorating the 45th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade
Today marks the 45th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling in which the Supreme Court stated that access to abortion is protected under the right to privacy, legalizing abortion across the United States. The right to privacy is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Trump Administration Blocking Unaccompanied Minors from Accessing Abortion
On Friday morning, a federal appeals court in Washington DC ordered the Trump administration to find a sponsor for a pregnant 17-year-old undocumented immigrant in federal custody so that she can access an abortion without government facilitation. For weeks, the Trump administration has been desperately trying to obstruct her judicially approved abortion.
Thousands of Wisconsin Voters Blocked by Voter ID Laws in 2016 Election
A recent study shows that as many as 23,000 eligible voters in Wisconsin were discouraged from casting a ballot in the 2016 presidential election due to the state’s voter ID laws.
Today is National Voter Registration Day
Today, September 26, is National Voter Registration Day. First celebrated in 2012, National Voter Registration Day serves to raise awareness about voter registration deadlines so that all eligible voters are able to participate in upcoming elections.
Abortion Clinics in Texas Help Women Impacted by Hurricane Harvey
Whole Women’s Health (WWH), a group of clinics that provide abortion care and other reproductive health services, announced on September 8th that it will offer free abortions to women impacted by Hurricane Harvey in Texas for the entire month of September. They have stated that they will set up four locations in Texas in partnership […]
Anti-Abortion Law in Texas Temporarily Blocked by Federal Judge
Last week, a federal judge handed down the decision to temporarily block a anti-abortion law set to take effect in the state of Texas on September 1. The law, SB 8, would have gone into effect on Friday and banned two types of procedures that are usually used in second trimester abortions. The two types […]
US District Court Strikes Down Texas’s Revised Voter ID Law
United States District Judge Nelva Gonzalez Ramos handed down a decision to strike down Texas’s revised voter ID law (Senate Bill 5) on the basis that it continues to discriminate against African American and Latino voters. Judge Gonzalez Ramos issued a 27 page decision on the 23rd of August stating that the voter ID law violates the Voting Rights Act and is unconstitutional.
Texas Passes Bill to Restrict Abortion Access with New Insurance Mandates
The bill bans all private health insurance plans and plans sold through the Affordable Care Act marketplace from covering abortion care unless the life of the woman is directly at risk. Instead, women would be required to buy supplemental insurance should they ever think they may need or want an abortion, prompting some Democratic lawmakers to accuse Republicans of forcing women to buy “rape insurance.”
Two Controversial Bills to Watch in Texas’s Special Legislative Session
There is less than nine days left in Texas’s special legislative session and two of the most controversial bills being considered have yet to make it to the Governor’s desk for signature.
Texas’s Dangerous Plan for Women Being Reviewed by Department of Health and Human Services
The Department of Health and Human Services is currently considering a waiver that would allow Texas to receive federal Medicaid family planning funds despite the state’s refusal to follow federal law by banning providers who offer abortion care, like Planned Parenthood, from receiving federal Medicaid family planning funds. Texas also wants HHS permission to impose […]
Texas Supreme Court Undermines Marriage Equality
On Friday the Texas Supreme Court discarded a lower court’s ruling that spouses of gay and lesbian public employees are entitled to government-subsidized marriage benefits. The court argued that, although Obergefell v. Hodges requires states to license and recognize same-sex marriages, it does not mandate that states “provide the same publicly funded benefits to all married persons.”