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PHOENIX At the start of 2020, optimistic Democrats already thought this might be the year when a presidential election turned Arizona blue again.

Many suburban moderates were fed up with President Trump; in 2018, they sent a Democrat to the Senate from their state for the first time in more than three decades. Young Latino voters who now make up 24 percent of eligible voters in Arizona were casting ballots at record rates, angered by the presidents anti-immigrant rhetoric. And the party was fielding a strong candidate for Novembers Senate race.

Now, four months until Election Day, that optimism is hardening into sustained confidence.

Mr. Trump is scheduled to campaign here on Tuesday, in a state whose 11 electoral votes he badly needs to hold to be re-elected, especially if he loses any of the three Midwestern states he flipped in 2016.

Democratic officials believe that frustrations over Mr. Trumps immigration policies and his handling of the pandemic, as well as polling trends, indicate that Joseph R. Biden Jr. has the best shot of any Democratic presidential candidate to win Arizona since Bill Clinton carried the state in 1996. And the Biden campaign sees winning Arizona as not just a path to victory, but also a confirmation that Latino and immigrant voters are a strong and dependable part of the party.

Mr. Trump will arrive in Phoenix in a moment of acute turmoil in Arizona. The coronavirus pandemic is growing evermore deadly in the state, which is experiencing some of the steepest spikes in the country. Thousands of protesters have filled the streets for weeks, angered not only by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis that led to nationwide demonstrations, but also over the case of Dion Johnson, 28, a black man who was shot and killed by state troopers last month after being found asleep in a car on a Phoenix highway.

For frustrated and anxious voters, the dual crises of police brutality and a pandemic point to an opportunity for Democrats.

There are people coming to protests who have never shown up before, who are seeing the kinds of things weve seen for years and that will unquestionably help us, said Representative Ruben Gallego, a Democrat who represents Phoenix and is an enthusiastic supporter of Mr. Biden, the former vice president and the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Still, Mr. Gallego and other Democrats know what formidable odds they have in Arizona. The state has long been a hotbed of conservative activism; it was here that anti-immigrant politicians rose to power in the early 2000s, using the same kind of rhetoric later embraced by Mr. Trump.

The Republican governor, Doug Ducey, easily captured the state with 56 percent of the vote in 2018 and the legislature is controlled by the G.O.P. Though Hillary Clinton spent considerable money in the state and many in her party were optimistic in 2016, Mr. Trump won with 48 percent of the vote.

As many Arizonans attempt to return to a pre-pandemic life, flocking to indoor bars and restaurants amid triple-digit temperatures, interviews with dozens of voters in the Phoenix area in the last week showed how the governments impact on everyday life was increasingly on their minds.

For a long time, it was hard to understand what politics has to do with you, like thats something over there and youre over here, said Bethany Marshall, 31, a math teacher in Phoenix and occasional Democratic voter. Now, were doing, were watching, were not going away.

For nearly three weeks, Ms. Marshall and several of her friends have joined marches near the State Capitol, where razor wire and a double-layer chain link fence keep protesters away from the building. A few feet away two monuments face each other: one is for Martin Luther King, the other commemorates the confederacy. All the crowds have been filled with black, brown and white faces, most of them young.

At protests, one speaker after another implores the crowd to vote. Register to vote here, and if youre already registered, find five friends who are not.

The only way for enough to actually be enough is to get out there and vote, have people with faces who look like mine, to get police to stop harassing us, Alexander Sojourney, a recent graduate of Arizona State University and the organizer of a protest earlier this month, told a large crowd marching to the capitol. Get people in office who can fix that and change that.

Those crowds, and voters like Mr. Sojourney, are part of the reason that Democratic officials are confident they can win both the presidential and Senate races in the state.

The Biden campaign has repeatedly called Arizona one of its prime targets and Mark Kelly, the Democratic Senate candidate, has a multimillion dollar fund-raising advantage over Senator Martha McSally, his Republican opponent. Polls have shown Mr. Kelly with a double-digit lead and Mr. Biden ahead of Mr. Trump.

Arizona voters are roughly evenly split on party registration, according to the secretary of state, with Republicans making up 34.9 percent of the electorate, Democrats 32.5 percent and unaffiliated voters the fastest growing group 31.8 percent. And in a state where voting by mail is already widely embraced, Democrats say their advantage could be even stronger.

In the final three months of the 2018 campaign, for every two voters that registered as Republicans in the state, three registered as Democrats, which helps explain how several Democrats won statewide office that year.

Nowhere is the liberal optimism more prevalent than in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix and the majority of Arizonas population. In 2016, when Mr. Trump won the state, Maricopa voters also kicked out Joe Arpaio, the longtime Republican sheriff who had championed draconian anti-immigrant policies. The county is widely seen as the most competitive in the country.

The same people who defeated Arpaio will defeat Trump, said Mr. Gallego.

Democrats are not only counting on younger new voters they are also focused on convincing suburban moderates that they should abandon the Republican Party.

Aaron Marquez, a former captain in the Army Reserves, runs VetsForward, a Democratic-aligned group that relies on military veterans to sway voters in swing districts.

He spends time each week in the northwest suburbs of Phoenix, areas that were once entirely retirement communities but increasingly attract families in search of more affordable housing, delivering boxes of food to potential voters in need.

They set down boxes overflowing with milk, tortillas, grapes and sprinkled doughnuts and ask people what they would want Mr. Trump to know about the virus and its impact on their lives.

Mr. Marquez has met plenty of people who are frustrated, but the program also indicates the challenge for Democrats. With each delivery, voters are asked to rank the presidents handling of the pandemic on a scale of zero to 10. Among the roughly 100 deliveries so far, the responses have been about evenly split.

And Republicans are hardly ceding the state. Mr. Trump will land here Tuesday for his third visit in the last five months, speaking at a Phoenix megachurch in an event billed for college students. Last weekend, Ms. McSally held her first in-person fund-raiser in months, with guests sipping on Martha-ritas at an airport hangar.

Ms. McSally said she approved of Mr. Duceys handling of the pandemic. Some other states have been very draconian and dictatorial, she said, adding that she preferred Arizonas approach of giving people information and allowing them to make good decisions for themselves.

When Arizona started to open up, I went and got my haircut, was able to safely do that, she said, describing her desire to support small businesses. I go out to restaurants. Im young and healthy. I went and got a pedicure.

In a state strangely split between lockdown and an embrace of normalcy, there is widespread confusion and distrust of the government. Those who feel invincible or rebellious are heading to bars even as hospitals report that they are close to running out of space in their intensive care units.

Democratic mayors in Phoenix and Tucson clashed for weeks with Mr. Ducey, who until last week had prevented them from requiring face masks in public. (The mayor of Phoenix has said that the city has no plans to issue citations to anyone not wearing masks at the presidents event Tuesday.)

And even among protesters, there is far from universal enthusiasm for Democrats, particularly Mr. Biden and Mr. Kelly. Leighton Mendez, 24, a Phoenix resident at another protest, said that her prior lack of interest in voting had been replaced with an understanding that elected officials decide on policy that affects her.

Im not sure why it took this long, but being out here, Im really connecting the dots, she said, though she quickly added: It is not enough to just be not as bad as the other guy.

Diane Fellows Morazan was also out protesting, wearing a T-shirt with a handwritten message: Today we march, November we vote.

More of us are angry, more of us are eager to do something with whatever power we have, and we know thats with our ballot, she said.

There are other signs that even once-loyal Republicans are considering a change this fall. Black Lives Matter protests have taken place in dozens of suburbs once seen as conservative throughout the state.

Jenna Plopper, 31, of Surprise, Ariz., said that after voting for Mr. Trump in 2016, her perspective started to change. In the past month, she has attended several demonstrations against police brutality in the suburbs, along with many other young, white mothers.

Ms. Plopper said that while many of her Republican friends planned to support Mr. Biden, she was leaning toward a third-party candidate. What she is certain of, though, is that this year is different from 2016.

I kind of just took the outlook from my parents: youre going to vote, and this is how we vote, she said, of her support for Mr. Trump. I saw him as a lesser of two evils. Now, after listening to all he says and his actions, a lot of people like me are saying we dont want this guy.

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Theres a Reason Trump Is Fighting Hard for Arizona - The New York Times

michael barbaro

From The New York Times, Im Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

Todays Senate primary in Kentucky has been transformed by the outcry over police brutality. Jonathan Martin, on what the election can tell us about the future of Democratic politics.

Its Tuesday, June 23.

Jonathan, tell me about todays Senate race in Kentucky.

Well, this is the Democratic primary to take on Senator Mitch McConnell, who, of course, is the majority leader of the Senate. And, for a long time, it seemed like his Democratic opponent was going to be Amy McGrath

Im Amy McGrath, and I love our country. I spent 20 years as a U.S. Marine, flew 89 combat missions bombing Al Queda and the Taliban.

who came to some fame nationally in her 2018 House race on the basis of her resume.

I was the first woman marine to fly in an F18 in combat, and I got to land on aircraft carriers.

She was a Marine pilot, and entered the House race talking a lot about her military experience

This is my new mission to take on a Congress full of career politicians who treat the people of Kentucky like theyre disposable.

and almost immediately gained this national profile.

Some are telling me a Democrat cant win that battle in Kentucky, that we cant take back our country for my kids and yours. Well see about that.

But she was not a terribly good candidate, it turns out.

This is a disappointment to Democrats. It comes from state to Kentucky. Amy McGrath, the former Marine combat pilot, defeated by the four-term incumbent, Andy Barr.

She was running in a pretty difficult seat for a Democrat.

But this is a district that Trump won by 15 points. Her opponent, Andy Barr, looks like will get that fourth term.

And she lost what was otherwise a great year for Democrats. But Chuck Schumer, who runs the Senate Democratic caucus, and effectively runs recruitment of Senate Democratic candidates, figured that she had one very important asset that could help him in 2020. She raised a lot of money and built a large list of national donors in 2018.

Hm. And so, as this Senate not House race gets underway this year, Im guessing Chuck Schumer decides to look to Amy McGrath once again.

Exactly. Because the idea was not necessarily to beat Mitch McConnell, but to at least keep the race competitive, keep McConnell pinned down in Kentucky, keep him focused on raising money for his own re-election, and perhaps siphon some national G.O.P. money that would otherwise go to different states, and have it go to Kentucky. So that was Schumers thinking.

Look, Amy McGrath is our candidate. Shes a strong candidate.

And he looked at McGrath and saw her money potential, saw the sort of breadth of her national donor list, and said

Shes giving McConnell a run for his money. The Republican super PAC put $10 million dollars into Kentucky. Shes doing very well.

this is who I want to be our nominee against McConnell. And Im going to make sure that she does not have any kind of a consequential primary to speak of.

So he wants to clear a path for her to become the nominee.

Right. Schumer wants to clear the field. He wants McGrath to be their candidate. He doesnt want to deal with drama in the primary. He just wants to have her raising money, putting up enormous numbers to spook McConnell, and divert McConnells attention back to his own home state and his own re-election. So it does seem like, for some time, that McGrath is not going to have a terribly competitive primary. And so while McGrath seems to be full steam ahead towards the general election, with not much of a primary to speak of, she is banking money at an extraordinary rate. She has raised over $40 million, which is more money than a lot of Senate candidates raise in an entire campaign, let alone a primary.

Yeah. Thats a lot of money. So as far as everybody is concerned, especially back in Washington, Amy McGrath is on a glide path to the nomination.

Exactly right. And then something happens.

We turn now to a deadly police-involved shooting in Louisville. The victim was an E.M.T. Her family claims she was executed by police, as officers served a search warrant in the middle of the night.

On March 13, shortly after midnight, Louisville police officers used a battering ram to enter the apartment of Breonna Taylor, who was a 26-year-old African-American emergency room tech, and shot her eight times while she was in bed in her own apartment.

So they just went into her apartment looking for a suspect, whom we now understand was already in police custody. This is not unique to Louisville.

We need answers. We need answers, because this should have never happened.

And this killing of Miss Taylor by Louisville police sparked an outcry in the state

We have right to live while black!

that is then amplified, sadly, by the killing in late May of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

(CHANTING) George Floyd!

Say his name!

George Floyd!

Say her name!

Breonna Taylor!

Say her name!

Breonna Taylor!

Say her name!

Breonna Taylor!

And how does that begin to impact this Senate race?

The activism in the aftermath of the killing of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd is extremely intense in Kentucky, and especially in Louisville. The demonstrations are nightly. There are clashes with police. And there is a candidate who is running from Louisville. Hes an African-American, and his candidacy is now starting to get more attention.

[APPLAUSE] I stand before you as your brother, as your cousin, as your neighbor, as your fellow good troublemaker.

My name is Charles Booker. [CHEERING]

35-year-old state representative named Charles Booker.

Im state representative for the 43rd District, which we are standing in. And if you are not from the 43rd District, I represent you anyway. [CHEERING]

So he represents what he likes to say is the poorest zip code in all of Kentucky.

No one pays attention to my neighborhood. In the West end of Louisville, with roughly 75,000 people, we have just a couple of grocery stores, a handful of dollar stores, because they prey on us.

He is from the West End of Louisville, black neighborhood.

And if you need to use public transportation to get to the hospital, it can take you a couple of hours. Jobs have left.

And he is someone who is running as a progressive, and had been running as a progressive

Our platform is about ending structural inequity, and ending generational poverty.

talking about issues like the Green New Deal, like single-payer health care, but hadnt gotten a lot of attention in large part because he hadnt raised much money. And McGrath had raised so much cash.

Right.

But after the killing of Taylor and then Floyd

We are crying out for Brianna Taylor, and were crying out for ourselves.

once these demonstrations get going, there is now suddenly more attention to Booker. Because he is a state lawmaker who is in these protests.

When Breonna died, when she was killed

Murdered!

a part of us was killed, as well.

Yes!

He is getting tear gassed in the streets of Louisville. And he is seeing this up front. He is experiencing this himself, day in, day out in his hometown. He is effectively a Black Lives Matter candidate.

But if you look like me, if you look like him, if you look like him, if you look like her, you may be seen as a deadly weapon before being seen as a human being.

Yes!

It aint right, and its hurting all of us.

And so what happens to Bookers candidacy as these protests intensify in Louisville, and all over the country?

Well, the two largest papers in the state, The Courier-Journal in Louisville and Lexington Herald-Leader, taking note of this fraught moment of racial politics, endorse Booker and state that hes the best candidate for these times. So that helps to give him traction. And then, in addition to getting that key local support, hes getting the attention from national progressive leaders. Bernie Sanders offers his endorsement. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez gets behind his candidacy. And thats putting him on the sort of national progressive radar screen, if you will.

So Jonathan, as Booker is, from everything youre describing, catching fire, what is the partys anointed candidate, Amy McGrath, doing in response?

Well, she is talking about these demonstrations and about the killing of George Floyd a little bit more, in recognition that she cant take the primary for granted. But Amy McGrath is not a natural politician. This was part of her struggle in 2018. And it does not go perfectly when she tries to engage these issues. In fact, in a debate shes asked the question about

Have you been on the ground in Louisville with the protesters the last three days or in Lexington or elsewhere, Miss McGrath?

have you been to any of the protests. And she answers pretty awkwardly.

I have not.

And, why?

Well, Ive been with my family and Ive had some family things going on this past weekend. But Ive been following the news and making sure that you know, I think were in the middle of a pandemic.

So suddenly, Amy McGraths politics of moderation and her distance from these protests are seeming quite out of sync with the moment.

Right. And, more to the point, Booker is very much tapping into the moment. This is suddenly a competitive primary. Amy McGrath has had to spend an enormous amount of money on ads in the last couple of weeks to sustain her advantage money that I think she and national Democrats thought that they would use against McConnell. And Booker has made this more of a competitive race going into the primary Tuesday.

And so what is Bookers surge here? What does that mean for Democratic Party leaders back in Washington, who bet so heavily on Amy McGrath?

So Booker illustrates that the intensity, the activism that were seeing on the streets of America in the last few weeks, is now at the door front of the Democratic Party. And Democrats are eager to harness this energy and activism, especially when it comes to organizing against President Trump and Republicans this fall. But when it comes to their own races, their own primaries, their own party, its more complicated. So this does also represent a challenge to Democratic leaders.

Well be right back.

Jonathan, how is it a challenge for Democratic Party leaders to have a candidate like Booker doing really well? Because on the surface it seems like a hotly contested Democratic primary that raises lots of attention, raises lots of money, that thats a good thing for the party.

Well, it creates a challenge, because Chuck Schumer has gotten used to being able to dictate primaries in the Senate races basically every two years. But its not just about Schumer. This is about the Democratic Partys leadership being able to keep its grip on who the nominees are going to be, where the money is going to go. And this is a real challenge to that power, that grip on the party.

And why does that grip matter if it may be out of sync with what Democratic primary voters want?

Well, because leaders like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi believe that to keep or gain majorities they have to appeal to a broad cross-section of voters, and that that means nominating some candidates who are more moderate depending upon the state or the district that theyre running in.

And Booker does not fit that mold.

Exactly. Leaders like Schumer are skeptical that a candidate of Bookers liberal politics could win the race in a place like Kentucky, where Trump won by 30 points four years ago. But I think to get closer to the bone here, if Schumer is not able to control the outcomes of these Democratic primaries, and hes got people in his caucus, potentially, who are not loyal to him, who won despite his intervention, then thats going to create vote counting headaches for him. And looking at the map right now, his majority is probably going to be, if there is one, a seat or two. Its not going to be that extensive. So every vote counts. So hes thinking about, who am I going to have in my caucus? Whos going to be reliable? Whos going to be less so? And so thats where this matters.

This reminds me a little bit of what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dealt with, with the election of the squad, among whom is Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, progressive Democrats who tugged the entire body at times to the left in ways that House leadership wasnt perhaps ready for.

But its even more delicate in the case of Schumer because of math, because the Senate is going to be so closely divided next year. And if Democrats have a majority, itll be a narrow one. Think about it. Pelosi in the House she won 40 seats in 2018. They had a pretty robust majority. So you could lose a handful of progressives, like the squad, and basically cater to your more moderate Democrats, because those are the ones that had numbers. This is just a more sort of delicate situation because the Senate is on a knifes edge.

Jonathan, were talking about this race in Kentucky as if it is very high stakes for Chuck Schumer. But how much does this race, in particular, really matter?

So this less about eventually beating McConnell, which is going to be a tall order in Kentucky, then it is about whats happening in the Democratic Party. And its not just in Kentucky. Also on Tuesday, there is a competitive primary featuring Eliot Engel, whos the long-serving chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, whos facing a primary from an African-American, Jamaal Bowman. In Virginia, a fairly conservative district, there is also an African-American running in that primary. So what Im really interested in watching these primaries unfold is can progressives gather strength, organize and sort of overcome the establishment candidates in some of these races? But also, is 2020 going to be for black candidates what 2018 was for a lot of women, which is sort of capturing the energy of the moment? And I think thats going to be one of the most fascinating things to watch on Tuesday, is can black candidates like Jamaal Bowman in New York, like Booker in Kentucky can they build these multi-racial coalitions, capitalizing on this extraordinary moment of race in America?

Jonathan, it would seem counterproductive, not to mention perhaps hypocritical, for the Democratic leadership to stand in the way of such a change within their party, that you described. I mean, the party said it welcomed all these progressive women in 2018. And wouldnt it want to welcome and celebrate African-American progressive candidates in this coming election cycle?

Well, heres the catch. A lot of the women in 2018 the Democrats embraced were more moderate. You know, the squad got the attention. But a lot of the women who ran and won in 2018, who were not as well known, are much more centrist in their political orientation. I think the difference here is twofold. First of all, I think there is concern that some of their politics are too progressive for their states or districts. And I think in the case of Engel, of Congressman Engel, its just a matter of protecting incumbents. Thats a longstanding rule in both parties, that they support incumbents. So Nancy Pelosi, Andrew Cuomo feel obliged to support a longtime ally, somebody whos up for re-election.

Right. They dont want to lose loyal votes, longtime allies. That all makes sense for the leadership, in theory. But isnt the greater risk for Democratic leaders, on a really practical level, that they are missing this moment? They are not getting behind candidates. And they risk losing touch with this very powerful constituency that seems to be ascendant within the party.

Right! The left would say, this is what the moment is, and this is about the country now needs and demands. Given the virus, given issues of racial injustice, given the economic collapse, the moment cries out for real substantive sweeping policy changes in America, and that if you dont abide that, if you dont recognize that, then youre out of touch as a Democratic leader. And I think this conversation this tension between the left and the center in the Democratic party, I think, is really going to come to the fore.

And in that version of this, Jonathan, what becomes of some of these Democratic leaders who we started this conversation focusing on, like a Senator Schumer?

Well, they have to adapt to the moment. And if they dont, then theyre going to pay a political price in their own party. And they risk losing control of their own partys nominating process, because they would further feed this energy on the left, and risk having their own colleagues lose primaries. And, yes, even perhaps in Schumers case, they would risk their own seats.

You know, Ive spent a lot of time talking to candidates. And they often try to hedge or they often try to trim their answers to reflect the states that theyre running in. But that was not the case when I talked to Booker.

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The Battle Over the Democratic Partys Future - The New York Times

There is confusion over whether Rev. Al Sharpton will take part in a march he was believed to be attending in Bridgeport Saturday.

Sharpton is being promoted as the central figure at a march in Bridgeport on Saturday. Sharpton's picture appears in the "Taking Back Our Village March" ad that's been circulating on social media over the past week.

However, the event organizers now say they can only confirm that a representative from Sharpton's National Action Network will attend.

Controversy has been brewing all week surrounding the event, with some saying they oppose the way Sharpton's appearance was organized.

The Rev. Karl McCluster, of Shiloh Baptist Church, issued a statement saying, "It has been brought to my attention that Sharpton, one of our great civil rights leaders, is not able to come....because of his very challenging schedule."

Organizers say there have been concerns for Sharpton's safety after some people threatened to throw rocks at him if he showed for the event.

State Sen. Marilyn Moore says she thinks some of the controversy surrounding the visit may have arisen from a genuine misunderstanding about comments she made earlier this week.

"I was appalled that we're calling people from the outside in to solve our problems when we have the power as legislators and municipal leaders and citizens to demand that and we're not using our power," she said.

Organizers said Thursday they could only confirm that a Sharpton representative, and not Sharpton himself, would attend the event -- an event they say is about one cause, not one man.

"The National Action Network will be present, and we ask that the community come out and support this monumentous event," said Herron Gaston.

Sharpton's National Action Network has not responded to News 12's request for a comment.

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Confusion spreads over whether Al Sharpton is attending 'Taking - News 12 Connecticut

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Housing justice advocates and proponents of the Rental Affordability Act (RAA) today announced that several prominent activists and Black-led advocacy groups endorsed the November 2020 state ballot initiative that would allow for expansion of rent control throughout California. The Rev. Al Sharpton and the National Action Network (NAN), Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), Los Angeles Urban League (LAUL), In The Meantime Men's Group, Inc. (ITMT), Brotherhood Crusade, and L.A. City Councilmember Herb Wesson, Jr. (D-10) have all voiced their support for the RAA. They join Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) in calling for the need to expand rent control in the state.

"The Los Angeles Urban League proudly endorses the Rental Affordability Act. Millions of Californians who were already struggling with the ongoing housing affordability crisis now face even further displacement and homelessness because of the coronavirus pandemic. We must fight for all Californians to have access to stable and affordable housing," said Michael Lawson, President and CEO of the Los Angeles Urban League.

Even before the economic fallout caused by COVID-19 (which has disproportionately affected people of color), skyrocketing rents and rapid gentrification of historically Black neighborhoods have ravaged these communities leading to displacement and homelessness.

"Brotherhood Crusade is proud to endorse the Rental Affordability Act and join the fight for housing equity. The time is now to support our community with housing affordability," said Charisse Bremond Weaver, President and CEO, Brotherhood Crusade.

According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), systemic racism has caused a disproportionate number of black people to become homeless in L.A. County, where 8 percent of the overall population is Black, but Black people represent 34 percent of the homeless population.

"I endorse the Rental Affordability Act because every human being is entitled to, at minimum, the necessities food, water, shelter and it is all of our responsibility to ensure this," said Jeffrey King, Founder and Executive Director, IMIT.

"We are incredibly humbled to receive support from such towering leaders and prominent organizations who fight for racial and economic justice every single day," said Ren Christian Moya, Housing Is A Human Right and Rental Affordability Act Campaign Director.

The organizations and activists are the latest in a growing list of endorsements by high-profile individuals and organizations to support the fight for rent control in California.

The RAA is sponsored by Homeowners & Tenants United, with significant funding by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

Learn more at https://www.rentcontrolnow.org and https://www.housinghumanright.org.

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Rental Affordability Act Endorsed by Rev. Al Sharpton, Rep. Barbara Lee, Rep. Maxine Waters, and Prominent Black-Led Advocacy Groups - Business Wire

MSNBCs Al Sharpton posed an interesting question as he responded to the countrys ongoing debate about which American historical figures deserve to have public statues in their honor.

Sharpton was on Morning Joe on Thursday, where part of the conversation gravitated around President Donald Trumps opposition to racial justice protesters following the death of George Floyd. Scarborough also noted that Trump is trying to make a wedge issue out of protecting statues and monuments, especially when it comes to memorials of Confederate figures that have come under protest.

One of the things that is not mentioned enough is that these statues are in public places that are maintained by people employed by taxpayer dollars, Sharpton remarked. So [Trump] is, in effect, asking Black Americans, Brown Americans, and all Americans, to pay to help extol people that literally fought to keep their forefathers enslaved.

Sharpton further explained that African Americans have no choice when the taxes they pay end up going to the public maintenance of Confederate statues. Thats an insult to all of us, he continued, saying Trump might be right that its part of Americas history, but not not a part that ought to be exalted.

We should have the statues of those that fought and defeated them, not the ones who were defeated, Sharpton said. How would a World War II veteran feel about paying taxes to have a statue of Mussolini or Hitler in their public square? Thats how many of us in Black America feel.

Watch above, via MSNBC.

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Al Sharpton: How Would a WWII Veteran Feel About Paying Taxes to Have a Statue of Mussolini or Hitler? - Mediaite