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This week, Texas Republicans proved once again just how extreme and out of touch their party is and moved forward with outrageous laws that attack reproductive and voting rights across the state. In response, the DNC made it clear that the Democratic Party will stop at nothing to protect these rights and stand against Republicans extreme agenda.

Meanwhile, the DNC wrapped up its Build Back Better bus tour this week with stops in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, where DNC Chair Jaime Harrison and local leaders touted President Bidens success in bringing jobs back, securing a bipartisan infrastructure deal, and providing people in their communities with needed relief through the American Rescue Plan.

And in states across the country, including Georgia and North Carolina, state parties spent the week driving similar messages, making clear voters in their states know that the D in Democrat stands for deliver.

Finally, ahead of Labor Day, state parties across the country reminded people that President Biden and Democrats have put American workers at the forefront of their agenda, as the U.S. economy has created more than 4 million jobs and is growing at the fastest rate in nearly 40 years.

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IN THE STATES: As Republicans Attack Reproductive and Voting Rights, Democrats Continue to Deliver - Democrats.org

Poverty retreating; means to control covid; and infrastructure coming including connectivity, broadband and cell service (imagine, no more trips to McDonalds or Walmart parking lots for internet); shots in the arm; cash in your pocket; and help for rural schools and hospitals. All through Democrats working for you, for all of us.

For years, we have sent Republicans to Harrisburg and D.C. to represent us, yet our towns, bridges, roads, schools and hospitals crumble as our way of life falls to the wayside.

Former President Trump may have been right when he asked urban communities that routinely vote Democratic what do you have to lose? We, too, must ask ourselves, What do we have to lose by listening to the proposals of our local Democratic candidates? Nothing we might even benefit.

Democrats have heard the cries, the sense of abandonment. In 2015, the Pennsylvania Democrats formed the Rural Caucus, focused on rural issues and needs. Its core mission is to promote policies for family-sustaining jobs so our children and grandchildren have the opportunity to stay locally for work, raise their families and enjoy life with quality health care and education, while being good stewards of the environment, keeping our blessed rural Pennsylvania beautiful and healthy.

So lets open our hearts and minds just a bit. Its well past time to lend an ear to each other, see what local Democratic candidates can offer to the problems that confront us. Together we can preserve our way of life in rural Pennsylvania.

Terry Noble

DuBois

The writer is chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Rural Caucus.

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Letter to the editor: Democrats working for rural Pa. residents - TribLIVE

As much as people in California support these rights, you can see by the polls that weve become a little complacent about what that actually means, Jodi Hicks, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said in a livestreamed conversation Wednesday night that was part of the organizations anti-recall campaign.

Conservatives have historically had more success in firing up their base on the issue of abortion and using it in particular to turn out disengaged voters in off-year elections.

Deep-pocketed anti-abortion groups like Susan B. Anthony List that threw their weight behind Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 are already in the field in Georgia and Arizona, working to unseat vulnerable Democratic senators in next years midterms to flip control of the upper chamber.

Abortion rights organizations have also invested millions in get-out-the-vote work, but Democrats have split in recent years. Some insist the party should avoid focusing on abortion over fears of alienating moderates and feeding into GOP attempts to brand them as baby killers, while others have been urging candidates to lean into the issue.

The California recall may well flip that pattern.

Newsom himself is highlighting the stakes of the election for abortion rights on the campaign trail. He appeared with Planned Parenthood Wednesday night to tout his record on protecting reproductive rights and warn of how an anti-abortion governor could reverse it.

The governor has the line-item veto, he said. You can literally draw a line and cut these issues out. You have the power of appointments. I mean think of how you can weaponize that.

In particular, Newsom stressed that his leading opponent, conservative talk show host Larry Elder, doesnt believe in Roe. Elder said in a July radio interview with San Francisco-based KQED that Roe one of the worst decisions that the Supreme Court ever handed down.

Planned Parenthood, NARAL and other groups, which have long been supportive of Newsom, are working overtime to amplify this message. Planned Parenthood has contributed more than $12,000 so far, with NARAL chipping in $10,000 to thwart the recall, according to campaign donations filed with the secretary of state. The group Women Against the Recall is mobilizing as well, citing abortion rights as one of the primary reasons to keep Newsom in office.

This is all hands on deck, said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), a co-leader of the group and of Congress Pro-Choice Caucus. California is a progressive state, but only if people turn out.

Anti-abortion organizations have been quieter in the leadup to the election. Newsoms opponents and GOP-supporting groups are largely skirting the issue, instead choosing to hammer the governor on his handling of the economy and Covid-19. One of the leading Republican candidates, former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, supports abortion rights but has not made that a prominent feature of his campaign.

GOP strategist Rob Stutzman, who advised former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in the states 2003 recall election, said its in Republicans interest to make the race about the pandemic response, crime, homelessness and other quality-of-life issues not abortion.

Pro-life voters, I think at this point, are fairly resigned to the fact theres really not much that could be done in a state like California with a Republican governor, given the Legislature, Stutzman said, referring to the states Democratic supermajority. If they thought they could find an advantage there, I think theyd be talking about it.

A Republican governors powers over abortion in California would be limited, considering the makeup of the Legislature and the state's statutory and constitutional protections for reproductive rights. But a governor could still cut state funding to clinics that provide abortion, or veto legislative proposals to expand access, said Laurie Sobel, an attorney and associate director of womens health policy for the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Its more of these issues around funding that the governor could have power over, rather than the fundamental right to abortion, she said.

The governor's role is critical, said state Sen. Sydney Kamlager (D-Los Angeles), who has authored legislation to expand abortion access. You can have a two-thirds majority in both of those houses, but if you have a governor who doesnt care about your body, your womb or your choice, then none of that makes a difference, she said.

When Planned Parenthood and other clinics faced federal funding cuts from the Trump administrations changes to the Title X family planning program, Newsom in 2019 doubled state budget investments in reproductive health services. He also signed legislation requiring California's public university campuses to offer medication abortion at student health centers by 2023 and issued a proclamation on reproductive freedom in 2019 that encouraged people in states with more restrictive abortion laws to travel to California for the procedure.

Essential Access Health, an organization that oversees a network of clinics that offer reproductive health services across the state, is not engaging in the recall campaign, but it is analyzing what its outcome might mean for patient access to abortion, contraception, STD screenings and other services.

If theres a shift at the highest level of leadership, we could anticipate that at the bare minimum, the gains we have made over the last several years could be stalled, if not reversed, said Amy Moy, the chief external affairs officer for the organization, pointing in particular to the budget blueprints governors release and the power to appoint agency officials. We saw during the Trump administration an exodus of career civil servants with institutional knowledge. If the recall is successful, we could see a similar situation in California.

Two more factors are upping the ante. One is the possibility that the states 88-year-old senator Dianne Feinstein could step down or retire before the end of her term, putting Democratic control of the now 50-50 Senate in jeopardy. The other is the Supreme Courts decision to revisit Roe v. Wade this fall and potentially overturn it next year, which is expected to dramatically increase the already sizeable number of people who travel from more conservative states to California for an abortion.

In a press briefing earlier this month, abortion rights advocates worked to drive that message home.

The reality is if we have a Republican in the governors mansion and something, God forbid, were to happen to our sitting state senator, Dianne Feinstein, and we were to have a governor then appoint that position, it could be Georgia who helped us win the U.S. Senate and California somehow that helps us lose the U.S. Senate, warned Shannon Olivieri Hovis, the director of NARAL Pro Choice California. We need to not take anything for granted as it relates to Californias leadership and the impact that California has across this nation.

Should the emphasis on abortion rights to mobilize Democratic voters prove successful in defending Newsom, groups are hoping to replicate it in other races, and are urging candidates not to be afraid of the issue.

Abortion access and reproductive freedom is a real mobilizer, said Andrea Miller, president of the National Institute of Reproductive Health.

Miller and other advocates argue that its a winning playbook even outside the progressive California bubble, and are looking particularly at Virginia, where former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe will face off for his old seat with Trump-endorsed Republican Glenn Youngkin later this fall.

Were anticipating that Youngkins opposition to abortion will be a millstone around his neck, she said.

Read more:
Democrats spotlight abortion in bid to save Newsom - POLITICO

The speakers goal of passing both measures in September was designed to get moderates to relent on demanding the infrastructure vote this week ahead of the budget, but it hasn't worked.

Time kills deals. This is an old business saying and the essence of why we are pushing to get the bipartisan infrastructure bill through Congress and immediately to President Bidens desk as the president himself requested the day after it passed the Senate, the group of nine moderate Democrats wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece published Sunday night.

Dozens of progressive Democrats have said they wont vote for the infrastructure bill without the Senate passing the reconciliation package, because theyre concerned their more moderate colleagues will try to pare down the $3.5 trillion leaders and the White House agreed to or oppose the measure all together.

The moderates nodded to that in their op-ed, saying theyre in a standoff with some of our colleagues who have decided to hold the infrastructure bill hostage for months, or kill it altogether, if they dont get what they want in the next bill a largely undefined $3.5 trillion reconciliation package.

While we have concerns about the level of spending and potential revenue raisers, we are open to immediate consideration of that package, they wrote. But we are firmly opposed to holding the presidents infrastructure legislation hostage to reconciliation, risking its passage and the bipartisan support behind it.

The rest is here:
Democrats to meet on budget as moderate holdouts face pressure - Roll Call

HOUSTON For weeks, Democratic lawmakers in Texas were hearing that select members would be breaking ranks and returning to the Capitol.

But as they gathered on Thursday morning for their daily Zoom call, there was no indication their 38-day walkout was about to fall apart.

More than 50 Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives fled Austin for Washington last month to prevent a quorum and effectively kill a sweeping election overhaul bill that would have introduced new restrictions to voting. Just one member, Garnet F. Coleman, had been expected to return to the Capitol on Thursday, still leaving Republicans two Democrats short of a quorum.

Later that same day, however, many Democratic legislators were shocked and disappointed when they saw two other members enter the House chamber with Mr. Coleman enough to call the House to order and begin work on a lengthy list of conservative goals set by Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican.

By Friday, the tenuous alliance among Democratic House members split into open confrontation, as 34 of them released a joint statement criticizing their colleagues who returned to the Capitol. The caucus chairman, Chris Turner, did not sign on.

We feel betrayed and heartbroken, the Democratic members wrote in their joint statement. But our resolve is strong and this fight is not over.

State Representative Jessica Gonzlez, a Democrat from near Dallas, said she was particularly frustrated with the suddenness of the decision, with no advance warning that the other Democrats would be returning.

Whats most disheartening, Ms. Gonzlez said, is that so many of us have stuck together on this, so many of us have made sacrifices, and the least that people can do is just at least have a conversation as a caucus, as a whole. That way people can make their own decisions, too.

The return of the three absent Democrats on Thursday injected a new wave of uncertainty into the national battle over voting rights, one that will most likely be felt as far as Washington. The sudden crumbling of the Democratic blockade opened the door to passage of a new voting law containing restrictions Texas Democrats considered so strident they broke quorum twice.

But with passage of federal voting legislation still a long shot in Washington, Democrats in Texas find themselves with no clear path forward, and divisions remain on the best course of action.

The Texas House remains adjourned until Monday afternoon with no planned activity over the weekend. The voting bill, known as S.B. 1, passed the State Senate last week but has not advanced at all in the House. It was scheduled for a committee hearing on Monday, and would still need to go through another committee before it could come to the floor for a vote, setting up a potential showdown next week.

Some Republican representatives were not physically present in the Capitol on Thursday, despite being counted toward the total number there, leading many Democrats to claim the quorum was illegitimate.

But Rafael Ancha, a Dallas Democrat who is the chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, said he believed the Republican leadership would rally their members by Monday and that it made sense for him to return to Austin now.

There are a lot of bad bills, Mr. Ancha said. In no particular order, Ive got a large L.G.B.T. population that I need to go fight for. I need to go fight for the parents of school-aged children who are unvaccinated.

With a quorum in the House, Republicans could try to vote to suspend the normal rules and speed through a vote on the election bill and other bills on Monday. He said that in order to prevent that from happening, Democrats would be needed to vote against it.

We need a core group of members there to make sure there is no vote to suspend the rules, Mr. Ancha said.

Yet other Democrats held out hope that they could again prevent a quorum, given the thin margins involved.

There is a core of us, myself included, who still want to continue this fight, and still want to hopefully bring enough Democrats back into our coalition of holding the line, Ms. Gonzlez said. And so we havent given up.

The anger some Democratic lawmakers felt toward their colleagues was palpable on Friday. But for John Whitmire, a long-serving Houston state senator, such a reaction was a waste of time.

You cant stay gone forever, even if some members would suggest such a move, said Mr. Whitmire, who was among 11 breakaway Democrats who denied a quorum to the State Senate in 2003 to halt a redistricting bill by Republicans. After five weeks, he returned to Austin the first among his colleagues to do so.

Mr. Whitmire said he had spoken with several of the absent House members about whether or not to return.

I told them to do what they thought was best, to think for themselves and represent their districts, Mr. Whitmire said.

Though the current election bill in Texas resembles the version from May that first sparked a Democratic walkout, Democrats did win some concessions and Republicans altered or removed some of the most restrictive provisions. Sunday voting hours remain protected, and Republicans added an extra hour of mandatory early voting for weekdays. A provision that was designed to make it easier to overturn elections was also completely removed.

But the bill still bans voting advancements from Harris County, home to Houston, that were enacted in the 2020 election, including drive-through voting and 24-hour voting, and it bans election officials from proactively sending out mail ballot applications, or promoting the use of vote by mail.

The bill also greatly empowers partisan poll watchers, weakening an election officials authority over them and giving them greater autonomy at polling locations, and creates new barriers for those looking to help voters who require assistance, such as with translations.

The voting bill is far from the only item on Mr. Abbotts agenda. The list also included a host of conservative goals, like restricting abortion access, limiting the ways that students are taught about racism, restricting transgender student athletes and tightening border security.

As Democrats fretted, Republicans celebrated, racing to the Capitol to fill ranks and give Speaker Dade Phelan, a Republican, enough members for a quorum.

The rush was enough to pull one member, Steve Allison, a Republican from near San Antonio, from isolation after he tested positive for the coronavirus earlier this week. He remained by himself in a side room of the House chamber but was counted as present.

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End of Walkout Splits Texas Democrats on Voting Rights - The New York Times