Search query: texas

The mood among Democrats these days seems to oscillate between panic and despair. The Biden administration, which billed itself as restoring competence and order to the political process, not only grievously botched the Afghanistan withdrawal and the removal of Haitian immigrants in Texas, but cannot even attain a semblance of order within its own party. Whether it be the filibuster, government spending, or tax policy, Democrats seem afflicted with an auto-immune disease that requires them to at

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum and has been republished with permission from the publisher. ‍ Public opinion of the Supreme Court dropped to its lowest point in two decades after the justices declined to block Texas' controversial abortion law, new polling shows, echoing poor marks for the other branches of government. Two-fifths of Americans approve of the job the Supreme Court is doing — a sharp decline from July when 49 percent of people indicated approval,

On September 6, 2021, Alan Braid, a seventy-six-year-old OBGYN in San Antonio, Texas, performed an abortion on a woman in her first trimester. A few years ago, this procedure would have attracted little attention. This time, however, Dr. Braid became a national headline. In an op-ed for the Washington Post, he wrote, “I acted because I had a duty of care to this patient, as I do for all patients, and because she has a fundamental right to receive this care.” What made Dr. Braid’s decision notew

On September 1, the United States Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, refused to prevent new, draconian Texas abortion legislation from taking effect. The Court’s tentative acceptance of that law, which among other provisions, only allowed a woman to seek an abortion before she likely knew she was pregnant, provoked outrage not only among pro-choice advocates, but also from many legal scholars deeply disturbed by the majority’s seeming abandonment of accepted jurisprudence. The proper course with

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ Despite more Americans than ever opting to vote by mail in the 2020 election, a comprehensive government report found no significant increase in ballot rejections — refuting former President Donald Trump's claim that mail voting was more susceptible to fraud. Since 2004, the Election Assistance Commission has conducted extensive biennial surveys of how American

Editor's Note: This article originally published on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ More than halfway into the year, and with most state legislative sessions concluded, the full scope of voting changes spurred by the 2020 election is coming into view. As of last week, 18 states have enacted 30 laws that limit voting access, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal public policy institute at New York University Law School that ha

‍ Latino voters in Texas have the numbers to shift the political paradigm in their state. However, turnout among Latinos continues to lag. There are misconceptions and social stigmas about why this is, but the truth lies in deep systemic issues and a history of disempowerment that has left many feeling voiceless and unrepresented. In Open Primaries’ last virtual discussion of Summer 2021, the group’s president, John Opdycke, and spokesperson Danny Ortega were joined by the authors of a study t

After more than a year of economic suffering that has left millions of Americans reeling from the devastating effects of unemployment, the end finally appears to be in sight. While the upward trends that we are experiencing are certainly promising, there is a misguided misconception that there are already enough quality jobs out there, and employees simply need to return to work. Despite the progress we’ve made, we certainly aren’t out of the woods yet, and it is important that lawmakers continu

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in The Fulcrum and has been republished with permission from the publisher. ‍ While much of the country's election reform legislation has been rife with partisanship, Vermont is bucking that trend. Republican Gov. Phil Scott signed into law on Monday a measure that will automatically send Vermont's 495,000 registered voters a mail-in ballot ahead of statewide general elections. The General Assembly approved the legislation on a bipartisan basis

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in The Fulcrum, and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ Partisanship reached a boiling point in Texas over the weekend as Democratic lawmakers took a dramatic step to obstruct a GOP-backed bill that would impose severe limits on voting access. In the final hours of the legislative session, Democrats staged a dramatic walkout, leaving the state House without a quorum and therefore unable to hold a final vote on the